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Mandatory abortion
proposed in Holland
Official calls for debate to deal
with issue of unwanted children
Posted: February 21, 2006

A health official in the Netherlands has called for a debate on the idea of forced abortion and contraception to deal with what she sees as a crisis of unwanted children.

Alderman Marianne van den Anker of the Leefbaar Rotterdam Party wants specifically to target communities of Antilleans and Arubans where she sees the biggest problems of unwanted children.

Her comments have stirred protest by a health foundation working with those communities in Rotterdam. The group, which called the comments degrading, is asking Mayor Ivo Opstelten and other politicians to distance themselves from Van den Anker's views.

Van den Anker is a mother of two children and the official in charge of Rotterdam's health and security portfolios.

In an interview in a newspaper Saturday, she said she had tried everything to prevent child abuse.

"I fail, I fail," she told the interviewer as she outlined her controversial idea for a debate on compulsory abortion and contraception.

The target groups for her program are Antillean teenage mothers; drug addicts and people with mental handicaps, she said, according to a report in Expatica.

According to the report, Van den Anker said children from these groups run an "unacceptable risk" of growing up without love and with "violence, neglect, mistreatment and sexual abuse."

WND MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Mandatory abortion
proposed in Holland
Official calls for debate to deal
with issue of unwanted children
Posted: February 21, 2006
11:44 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Marianne van den Anker
A health official in the Netherlands has called for a debate on the idea of forced abortion and contraception to deal with what she sees as a crisis of unwanted children.

Alderman Marianne van den Anker of the Leefbaar Rotterdam Party wants specifically to target communities of Antilleans and Arubans where she sees the biggest problems of unwanted children.

Her comments have stirred protest by a health foundation working with those communities in Rotterdam. The group, which called the comments degrading, is asking Mayor Ivo Opstelten and other politicians to distance themselves from Van den Anker's views.

Van den Anker is a mother of two children and the official in charge of Rotterdam's health and security portfolios.

In an interview in a newspaper Saturday, she said she had tried everything to prevent child abuse.

"I fail, I fail," she told the interviewer as she outlined her controversial idea for a debate on compulsory abortion and contraception.

The target groups for her program are Antillean teenage mothers; drug addicts and people with mental handicaps, she said, according to a report in Expatica.

According to the report, Van den Anker said children from these groups run an "unacceptable risk" of growing up without love and with "violence, neglect, mistreatment and sexual abuse."

"The exceptions," she said, "and there are some, can be counted on a pair of hands."

Van den Anker pointed to the growing number of Antillean youth gangs in Rotterdam whose members come from loveless homes.

Supreme Court Plunges Into Abortion Debate

By GINA HOLLAND

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will consider the constitutionality of banning a type of late-term abortion, teeing up a contentious issue for a newly-constituted court already in a state of flux over privacy rights.

The Bush administration has pressed the high court to reinstate the federal law, passed in 2003 but never put in effect because it was struck down by judges in California, Nebraska and New York.

The outcome will likely rest with the two men that President Bush has recently installed on the court. Justices had been split 5-4 in 2000 in striking down a state law, barring what critics call partial birth abortion because it lacked an exception to protect the health of the mother.

But Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the tie-breaking vote, retired late last month and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Abortion had been a major focus in the fight over Alito's nomination because justices serve for life and he will surely help shape the court on abortion and other issues for the next generation.

Alito, in his rulings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, has been more willing than O'Connor, the first woman justice, to allow restrictions on abortions, which were legalized in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

The federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act prohibits a certain type of abortion, generally carried out in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially removed from the womb, and the skull is punctured or crushed.

Justices on a 9-0 vote vote in a New Hampshire case reaffirmed in January that states can require parental involvement in abortion decisions and that state restrictions must have an exception to protect the mother's health.

The federal law in the current case has no health exception, but defenders maintain that the procedure is never medically necessary to protect a woman's health.

Jimmy Carter's Son: "I'm pro-choice as far as a woman choosing, but I'm against abortion"

LAS VEGAS, February 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Jack Carter, 58, the eldest son of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has announced he is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate to represent Nevada. At his launch, Carter spoke with reporters revealing his schizophrenic stand on abortion - a stand similar to that of his father.

Speaking with the Associated Press' Kathleen Hennessey, Carter described his abortion views saying, ""I'm a personal freedoms person. I don't want the government to come in and tell my child or whoever it is that they can't have an abortion. I'm pro-choice as far as a woman choosing, but I'm against abortion."

Stephen F. Hayward, PhD., wrote a 2004 book on Jimmy Carter noting the former President's political exploitation of abortion. In an interview with National Review, Hayward recalled Carter's abortion stand: "The 1976 campaign was the first national election after the Roe decision, and the politics of the issue were still sorting themselves out. Remember that Gerald Ford was pro-abortion, while many Democrats, including Sargent Shriver, one of Carter's rivals, were pro-life. In the Iowa caucuses, which Carter put on the map for the first time, Carter told Catholic audiences (and a gathering of bishops) that he opposed abortion and supported legislation to restrict it, thus cutting into Shriver's support. But he told feminist groups at the same time that he supported abortion rights (indeed, he had done so as governor of Georgia)."

The AP report reveals Jack Carter is Baptist and has, together with his wife Elizabeth, four children from previous marriages.

In 2000, LifeSiteNews.com reported that President Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Carter said at the time that the SBC had adopted policies "that violate the basic premises of my Christian faith," including a denominational statement that prohibits women from being pastors and tells wives to be submissive to their husbands.

However, Morris H. Chapman, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, noted that Carter, who was originally embraced by Baptist conservatives in 1976 when he publicly described himself as a born-again Christian, lost favour with conservative Christians after such actions as appointing Sarah Weddington - the lead attorney in the landmark 1973 abortion case, Roe v. Wade - to the White House position when he was assistant to the president.

Jimmy Carter's Son: "I'm pro-choice as far as a woman choosing, but I'm against abortion"

By John-Henry Westen

LAS VEGAS, February 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Jack Carter, 58, the eldest son of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has announced he is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate to represent Nevada. At his launch, Carter spoke with reporters revealing his schizophrenic stand on abortion - a stand similar to that of his father.

Speaking with the Associated Press' Kathleen Hennessey, Carter described his abortion views saying, ""I'm a personal freedoms person. I don't want the government to come in and tell my child or whoever it is that they can't have an abortion. I'm pro-choice as far as a woman choosing, but I'm against abortion."

Stephen F. Hayward, PhD., wrote a 2004 book on Jimmy Carter noting the former President's political exploitation of abortion. In an interview with National Review, Hayward recalled Carter's abortion stand: "The 1976 campaign was the first national election after the Roe decision, and the politics of the issue were still sorting themselves out. Remember that Gerald Ford was pro-abortion, while many Democrats, including Sargent Shriver, one of Carter's rivals, were pro-life. In the Iowa caucuses, which Carter put on the map for the first time, Carter told Catholic audiences (and a gathering of bishops) that he opposed abortion and supported legislation to restrict it, thus cutting into Shriver's support. But he told feminist groups at the same time that he supported abortion rights (indeed, he had done so as governor of Georgia)."

The AP report reveals Jack Carter is Baptist and has, together with his wife Elizabeth, four children from previous marriages.

In 2000, LifeSiteNews.com reported that President Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Carter said at the time that the SBC had adopted policies "that violate the basic premises of my Christian faith," including a denominational statement that prohibits women from being pastors and tells wives to be submissive to their husbands.

However, Morris H. Chapman, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, noted that Carter, who was originally embraced by Baptist conservatives in 1976 when he publicly described himself as a born-again Christian, lost favour with conservative Christians after such actions as appointing Sarah Weddington - the lead attorney in the landmark 1973 abortion case, Roe v. Wade - to the White House position when he was assistant to the president.

Jimmy Carter's Son: "I'm pro-choice as far as a woman choosing, but I'm against abortion" (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/feb/06022006.html)

Governor's pen poised
to ignite Roe battle
Abortion ban's purpose is to overturn
1973 Supreme Court ruling

A highly restrictive bill aimed ultimately at overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling is sitting on the desk of South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, poised to spark an intense and expensive legal battle should he sign it.

The legislation, passed this month by state lawmakers, would ban abortion in nearly every case and punish doctors who perform one with a $5,000 fine and five years in prison.

The bill would allow abortion only in the event a mother's life is in danger, making no exception for rape or incest.

Rounds, a Republican, told ABC's "Good Morning America" he is carefully examining the bill and could approve it in the coming weeks.

"If the bill is correctly written, then I will seriously consider signing the bill. It would be a direct frontal assault on Roe vs. Wade," he said Saturday.

South Dakota Planned Parenthood, which operates the state's sole abortion clinic, has indicated it will challenge the bill if passed.

But already an anonymous donor has pledged $1 million to help the state defend the law, according to Reuters.

Yesterday, Rounds was in Washington for a National Governors Association meeting where he found more pledges of donations and the support of some of his colleagues across the nation.

"There is a lot of interest in it here," Rounds said, according to the Associated Press. "And there are a number of states that have similar legislation. A lot of governors expressing support and wishing us good luck and suggesting that they will have similar types of proposals that may very well be favorably looked upon across the United States."

State lawmakers in Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana also are considering legislation that would heavily restrict abortions.

National pro-life activists, who are urging supporters to send $10 to Rounds to support the state's defense, chose South Dakota as its first vehicle to challenge the Roe decision.

They believe that if a legal challenge ever reaches high court, the recent addition of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the bench makes it more disposed than ever to overturn the 1973 ruling.

Troy Newman, president of the pro-life group Operation Rescue, said the legislation "is the beginning of a momentum that is sweeping across the country," according to Reuters.

As WorldNetDaily reported, South Dakota's House of Representatives passed a similar bill in 2004 by a 54-14 vote, before its narrow defeat in the Senate, 18-17. The bill actually initially passed the Senate, but Rounds issued a "style and form" veto, sending the bill back with wording changes to make sure existing abortion restrictions were not threatened if the bill were struck down in court.

One senator, however, who saw this as overstepping authority, changed his vote, which defeated the bill.

But corrections have been made to the bill, said state Rep. Roger Hunt, who points out new scientific discoveries that bolster his case.

"DNA testing now can establish the unborn child has a separate and distinct personality from the mother," he told KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, S.D. "We know a lot more about post-abortion harm to the mother."

In 2004, two pro-life groups clashed over the demise of the previous measure. The public-interest Thomas More Law Center, which helped draft the bill, accused National Right to Life of "complicity" with pro-abortion groups for lobbying against it.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the More Center concluded, "One thing we know for sure, Planned Parenthood and NARAL could not be happier with National Right To Life."

In response, National Right to Life called the charge of joining forces with pro-abortion groups "absurd, untrue, and unproductive."

The pro-life group argued the bill was made virtually ineffective through a "health exception," which allowed abortion "if there is a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman."

The More Center insisted, despite the exception, the bill still required doctors to use reasonable medical efforts to preserve the life of the unborn child as well as the mother.

US states join abortion revolt to bring back ban
Sarah Baxter
MISSISSIPPI is set to become the latest state to ban abortion as pro-life politicians across middle America vie to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1970s decision that gave women the right to choose.

Inspired by President George W Bush’s appointment of two conservative justices, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, to the Supreme Court, several states have seized the opportunity to overturn their local laws.

The Mississippi bill proposes to ban abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger or unless she is a victim of rape or incest. It has passed through the state’s House of Representatives and will now go to a Senate vote. Haley Barbour, the Republican governor, has promised to sign the bill into law.

South Dakota approved an even more restrictive anti-abortion bill last month, allowing no exceptions for rape and incest. Its governor is considering whether to sign the bill “If there is rape, it really is an injustice to that woman,” said Roger Hunt, the bill’s sponsor. “But there are remedies for that woman. Family, friends, pregnancy crisis centres are there to help her, as well as adoption procedures to assist her. But the unborn child whose life is terminated has no remedy.”

Two anti-abortion bills were filed last week in Missouri and there are further plans for legislation in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Some US pro-life groups are concerned that midwestern states are moving too fast without a clear strategy. They fear a case may end up reaching the Supreme Court prematurely and may prompt a verdict that would extend abortion rights.

The current make-up of the Supreme Court justices still largely favours retaining Roe v Wade. But some pro-life activists point to the potential replacement of one justice, John Paul Stevens, who turns 86 next month, as a reason to challenge the law now. One more social conservative on the court could tip the balance towards a national ban.

Bill to kill 'Roe'
signed into law
Abortion ban by South Dakota
touches off fierce legal battle

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds today signed into law a highly restrictive anti-abortion bill aimed ultimately at overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

The legislation, passed last month by state lawmakers, bans abortion in nearly every case and punishes doctors who perform one with a $5,000 fine and five years in prison.

The bill allows abortion only in the event a mother's life is in danger, making no exception for rape or incest.

South Dakota Planned Parenthood, which operates the state's sole abortion clinic, has said it will challenge the law.

Rounds said in a written statement he expects the law will be tied up in court for years and will not be enacted unless upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society," Rounds said. "The sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is wrong because unborn children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our society. I agree with them."

Prior to the signing, an anonymous donor pledged $1 million to help the state defend the new statute.

Last week, Rounds was in Washington for a National Governors Association meeting where he found more pledges of donations and the support of some of his colleagues across the nation.

"There is a lot of interest in it here," Rounds said, according to the Associated Press. "And there are a number of states that have similar legislation. A lot of governors expressing support and wishing us good luck and suggesting that they will have similar types of proposals that may very well be favorably looked upon across the United States."

State lawmakers in Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi and Indiana also are considering legislation that would heavily restrict abortions.

National pro-life activists, who are urging supporters to send $10 to Rounds to support the state's defense, chose South Dakota as its first vehicle to challenge the Roe decision.

They believe that if a legal challenge ever reaches high court, the recent addition of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the bench makes it more disposed than ever to overturn the 1973 ruling.

As WorldNetDaily reported, South Dakota's House of Representatives passed a similar bill in 2004 by a 54-14 vote, before its narrow defeat in the Senate, 18-17. The bill actually initially passed the Senate, but Rounds issued a "style and form" veto, sending the bill back with wording changes to make sure existing abortion restrictions were not threatened if the bill were struck down in court.

In 2004, two pro-life groups clashed over the demise of the previous measure. The public-interest Thomas More Law Center, which helped draft the bill, accused National Right to Life of "complicity" with pro-abortion groups for lobbying against it.

Some pro-life groups think the time is not right to take such drastic measures to overturn the Roe decision.

Amendment would establish life at conception
Citizens in Michigan gain backing for effort to put measure on ballot

Citizens have proposed an amendment to Michigan's constitution establishing that a person exists at the moment of conception.

The designation would give any unborn child constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

A backer of the proposal, Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said the petition drive is "vitally important if we are to insure that Michigan becomes a pro-life state after Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The landmark 1973 decision did not actually ban abortion but nullified all state laws prohibiting the procedure. Most legal analysts agree that a Supreme Court ruling against Roe would return the issue to the states.

The proposed amendment, Thompson said, would "clear the ground of all issues dealing with interpretation of previous state precedent and statutes."

Thompson said he's "deeply disappointed that after 33 years and 45 million babies murdered," some pro-life leaders have said they don't believe the time is right to for such a dramatic step.

"If one truly believes a human being exists at the moment of conception and shortly thereafter suffers excruciating and prolonged pain while being sliced and torn apart in the mother's womb, how would they not do everything they can to save that child – even though there is no guarantee of success?" he asked.

"The extreme caution exhibited by some pro-lifers reminds me of what Lincoln said about his reluctant General McClellan during the Civil War: 'He has "the slows,"'" too fearful of losing to risk winning, Thompson said.

He pointed out that last week, Pope Benedict XVI told a gathering of scientists and medical professionals Catholic teaching proclaims life begins at conception.

The pope said the Catholic Church "has constantly proclaimed the sacred and inviolable character of every human life, from its conception to its natural end."

Rev. Stephen T. Anthony, superintendent of the Eastern Michigan District of the Church of the Nazarene and chairman of Michigan Chooses Life, a newly formed inter-denominational group of prominent Michigan pastors, is supporting the petition drive.

"It is a biological, medical, and spiritual fact that a new and precious human life begins every time a child is conceived in the womb," Anthony said.

Thompson met a few months ago with leaders of Michigan Citizens for Life, the organization spearheading the petition drive.

The Law Center agreed to represent the group in any future lawsuit challenging the amendment, if adopted by Michigan voters.

The ACLU already has stated it will sue if the amendment passes.

The petition drive needs 317,000 valid signatures by July 10 to be placed on the Nov. 7 ballot.

Thompson said the Michigan-based group Right To Life–Lifespan and Michigan's two Republican National Committee members, Chuck Yobb and Holly Hughes, also have endorsed the petition drive.

Michigan is one of several states that did not repeal its pre-Roe anti-abortion statute.

But Thompson said pro-abortion lawyers already have devised an additional counter-measure to a post–Roe situation, arguing the concept of "implied repeal."

They will attempt to show that subsequent acts of the legislature, such as regulating the abortion industry, are irreconcilably in conflict with a state's previous ban, and thus the latest statute has repealed the earlier one by implication.

Thompson said pro-lifers will have to be ready to defend against that argument.

"We should not refrain from direct challenges to Roe v. Wade simply because some pro-life strategists caution "wait" – the [Supreme Court] is not ready," he said. "Directly challenging Roe does not mean we should abandon other pro-life legislative proposals aimed at chipping away at abortions."

Thompson argued no one can know with certainty the ideal time to challenge a decision.

"Under those circumstances, all pro-life organizations, regardless of their opinion on a specific proposal, should work together in a spirit of unity," he said. "We should mount an assault on Roe from all directions."

Most Americans believe abortion wrong
Poll also shows 61% know someone who has had procedure

With the abortion debate in focus following South Dakota's new law challenging the Roe decision, a new poll finds 55 percent of Americans believe abortion is morally wrong most of the time.

Just 32 percent disagree, according to the survey by Rasmussen Reports.

Americans under 50 are slightly more likely than their elders to believe abortion is morally wrong, the poll found.

As WorldNetDaily reported, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signed into law Monday a highly restrictive bill aimed ultimately at overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, banning abortion in nearly every case and punishing doctors who perform one with a $5,000 fine and five years in prison. It allows abortion only in the event a mother's life is in danger, making no exception for rape or incest. The legislation is expected to be held up by court challenges, however.

The Rasmussen study found three out of five Americans, 61 percent, know someone who has had an abortion. Among those people, 55 percent believe the procedure is morally wrong most of the time.

"This fact suggests that many Americans are faced with the emotional complexity of an issue that activists on both sides want to paint in simplistic, theoretical terms," Rasmussen comments.

The survey also revealed 47 percent of Americans believe it is too easy for a woman to get an abortion in the U.S. Just 21 percent say it's too hard, while 21 percent believe the balance is about right.

Among respondents who believe abortion is morally wrong most of the time, 74 percent think it's too easy for a woman to get an abortion.

Among those who accept abortion morally, 49 percent believe it's too hard for a woman to get an abortion.

"The fact that a solid plurality of Americans believe it is too easy for a woman to get an abortion helps explain the strong public support for legislation mandating waiting periods before an abortion and other limitations that stop short of an outright ban on the procedure," Rasmussen says.

The poll found only 50 percent of Americans have followed news stories about the legislation passed in South Dakota and just 21 percent are following the issue very closely.

A Rasmussen survey in South Dakota indicated the state's voters are evenly divided on the issue, with 45 percent in support of the ban and 45 percent opposed.

Men's Rights Group Eyes Child Support Stay

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men's rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child.

The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit _ nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men _ to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter. The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.

The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.

"There's such a spectrum of choice that women have _ it's her body, her pregnancy and she has the ultimate right to make decisions," said Mel Feit, director of the men's center. "I'm trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly."

Feit's organization has been trying since the early 1990s to pursue such a lawsuit, and finally found a suitable plaintiff in Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Mich.

Dubay says he has been ordered to pay $500 a month in child support for a girl born last year to his ex-girlfriend. He contends that the woman knew he didn't want to have a child with her and assured him repeatedly that _ because of a physical condition _ she could not get pregnant.

Dubay is braced for the lawsuit to fail.

"What I expect to hear (from the court) is that the way things are is not really fair, but that's the way it is," he said in a telephone interview. "Just to create awareness would be enough, to at least get a debate started."

State courts have ruled in the past that any inequity experienced by men like Dubay is outweighed by society's interest in ensuring that children get financial support from two parents. Melanie Jacobs, a Michigan State University law professor, said the federal court might rule similarly in Dubay's case.

"The courts are trying to say it may not be so fair that this gentleman has to support a child he didn't want, but it's less fair to say society has to pay the support," she said.

Feit, however, says a fatherhood opt-out wouldn't necessarily impose higher costs on society or the mother. A woman who balked at abortion but felt she couldn't afford to raise a child could put the baby up for adoption, he said.

Jennifer Brown of the women's rights advocacy group Legal Momentum objected to the men's center comparing Dubay's lawsuit to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling establishing a woman's right to have an abortion.

"Roe is based on an extreme intrusion by the government _ literally to force a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want," Brown said. "There's nothing equivalent for men. They have the same ability as women to use contraception, to get sterilized."

Feit counters that the suit's reference to abortion rights is apt.

"Roe says a woman can choose to have intimacy and still have control over subsequent consequences," he said. "No one has ever asked a federal court if that means men should have some similar say."

"The problem is this is so politically incorrect," Feit added. "The public is still dealing with the pre-Roe ethic when it comes to men, that if a man fathers a child, he should accept responsibility."

Feit doesn't advocate an unlimited fatherhood opt-out; he proposes a brief period in which a man, after learning of an unintended pregnancy, could decline parental responsibilities if the relationship was one in which neither partner had desired a child.

"If the woman changes her mind and wants the child, she should be responsible," Feit said. "If she can't take care of the child, adoption is a good alternative."

The president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, acknowledged that disputes over unintended pregnancies can be complex and bitter.

"None of these are easy questions," said Gandy, a former prosecutor. "But most courts say it's not about what he did or didn't do or what she did or didn't do. It's about the rights of the child."

ACLU Hails Amendment to Increase Funding to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancies; Measure Would Promote Healthy Pregnancies and Healthy Children

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union today hailed the introduction of a budget amendment in the Senate that would increase funding for public health programs aimed at preventing unintended pregnancies and offer additional support for pregnant women and children.

"This amendment is a commonsense step in the right direction," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Politicians of all stripes should rally behind this effort to promote health families and healthy pregnancies."

The budget amendment introduced by Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) yesterday would provide an additional $347 million in public health funding to support programs that require coverage for prescription contraceptives in otherwise comprehensive drug benefit plans; promote awareness of emergency contraception; fund medically accurate programs to reduce teen pregnancy; and increase family planning services for low-income women. The amendment also provides additional funding for programs that support pregnant women and children.

Nearly three million of the six million pregnancies in the United States each year are unintended, giving the U.S. one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancy in the industrialized world. Many of the programs that would receive additional funding through this amendment work toward the goal of preventing unplanned pregnancies.

The ACLU noted that federal funding for family planning services has not kept up with inflation. The FDA has ignored the advice of medical experts and major medical groups calling for the sale of the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, to women 16 and over without a prescription. Emergency contraception, often referred to as "the morning-after pill," reduces the risk of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent if the first dose is taken within 72 hours days of unprotected intercourse, but loses effectiveness with the passage of time.

Likewise, the Department of Justice released protocols in late 2004 for the treatment of sexual assault victims that failed to include information about pregnancy prevention and emergency contraception. Since 1997, the federal government has spent nearly a billion dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that do not provide information about contraception, despite research that indicates many such programs do not delay teens having sex. Some studies show that these programs actually deter teens from protecting themselves from unintended pregnancy or disease when they start having sex. The Reid-Clinton amendment is an antidote to repeated failures by the government to encourage prevention, said the ACLU.

"In recent weeks the battle over reproductive rights has been at a fever pitch, but anti-choice members of Congress have yet to list prevention as a top priority," Fredrickson said. "Instead, foes of reproductive rights have not supported bills to increase access to contraceptives. Instead, they continue to pour money into abstinence-only programs that discourage people from using contraceptives. This modest amendment would help prevent many unwanted pregnancies, and the Senate should adopt it."

Supreme Court could rule on 'Choose Life' plates
Appeals panel rejects ACLU, affirms constitutionality of anti-abortion tags

The constitutionality of "Choose Life" license plates could be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court after yesterday's ruling in favor of the anti-abortion inscription.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati ruled a Tennessee law allowing the plates does not violate the Constitution. The challenge to the law was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.

"Pro-life speech is not second class speech," said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which backed the state in the case. "The Tennessee Legislature has the constitutional right to offer a license plate with a pro-life point of view if it chooses to do so, regardless of what it decides regarding other specialty plates."

Abortion-rights groups, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, have issued legal challenges to the "Choose Life" plates in other states.

Choose Life, Inc., a non-profit group, launched in 1997 what has become a national movement.

The 6th Circuit panel said in its opinion that with respect to the Constitution, the fact that the "Choose Life" message is considered by some to be more controversial than other messages is irrelevant.

"Such a distinction ... is entirely indefensible as a matter of First Amendment law. … In the absence of a tenable distinction, invalidating the Act in this case would effectively invalidate not only all those government specialty license plate provisions that involve a message that anyone might disagree with, but also effectively invalidate all manner of other long-accepted practices in the form of government-crafted messages disseminated by private volunteers. We are not provided with a sound legal basis for making such a leap."

ADF said the ruling increases the likelihood the U.S. Supreme Court eventually will grant review of a case regarding the constitutionality of pro-life messages on license plates.

Yesterday's ruling created a circuit split after an earlier ruling in the 4th Circuit invalidated a similar pro-life license plate in South Carolina.

Florida-based Liberty Counsel, which filed a brief in support of the Tennessee law, defended the first successful appellate court ruling involving the Florida "Choose Life" license plate in the case of Women's Emergency Network v. Bush.

Mathew D. Staver, Liberty Counsel's president and general counsel, said the appeals court decision in the Tennessee case "averted the hijacking" of the specialty plate.

"Had the ACLU been successful in striking down the 'Choose Life' license plate, the result would have meant that government is never permitted to express its own message or promote valuable social policies," he said. "Every warning against smoking would be followed by a message endorsing cigarettes. The result would be absurd. The state of Tennessee's choice to promote life over abortion is not only wise social policy – it is in complete harmony with the First Amendment."

The Stealth Strategy for Imposing Universal Abortion

At the conclusion of the United Nation's annual Commission on the Status of Women last week, one women's advocate sniffed: "To ask governments and international financial institutions to ensure equal participation is a step in the right direction, but the problem is that they are not obligated to do so."

Almost all of the international women's rights groups pursue this quest for new, expansive international law — international law with enforcement mechanisms, international law, that is, with sharp teeth. The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a US-based legal group that advocates for universal abortion on demand, has established in its own strategy papers that its "overarching goal is to ensure that governments worldwide guarantee reproductive rights out of an understanding that they are bound to do so."

Why is this important? The just-concluded debate on the new Human Rights Council focused on the obvious issue: how to overcome the UN's official neutrality concerning the merits of its member states, and, therefore, how to overcome the embarrassment that nations such as Sudan and Libya must be granted the same formal respect — and the same access to shaping the UN's human rights agenda, its official pronouncements, and its condemnation of abuses — as nations such as Holland and New Zealand.

But while this discussion — whether any UN human rights body can avoid descending into farce — may be understandable, it is important to move beyond the topic of those actors who would seek to use human rights mechanisms to hide their own human rights violations, and discuss those actors, such as CRR, who, instead, would like to expand international human rights law and use it to transform the world.

As strange as it might sound, CRR, and other groups largely unknown beyond the confines of the United Nations, may be better placed to affect international human rights development than nation states; in fact, their activities pose a real challenge to the notion of sovereignty upon which statehood is based.

These groups rarely agitate for a new international treaty to ensconce their beliefs in explicit detail, for the simple reason that they know that sufficient international support does not exist for their agenda. Instead, they take the bedrock international treaties, treaties with almost universal support, and warp them to fit their purposes.

In this effort they are assisted by the committees set up by United Nations to monitor states' compliance with the international law treaties. These committees, working with the advocacy groups, sometimes staffed with members of these same groups, collude in order to stretch the official interpretations of the treaties beyond what their framers would have ever imagined possible.

Human Rights Watch — another non governmental organization now devoted to the universal abortion license — is willing to admit that there is no "explicit treaty language on abortion." But have no fear, "although the text of most international treaties is silent on the topic of abortion . . . authoritative interpretations of international law recognize that abortion is vitally important to women's exercise of their human rights. UN treaty bodies, which take a measured approach to interpreting international human rights law, have consistently and extensively opined on abortion access and restrictions. By our count, as of early 2005, at least 122 concluding observations on ninety-three countries spanning more than a decade by UN treaty bodies have substantively addressed how abortion relates to fundamental human rights. These bodies reason that firmly established human rights are jeopardized by restrictive or punitive abortion laws and practices."

Thus, control the "authoritative" interpretative power, and it simply does not matter what the actual treaties, documents painstakingly crafted by member states over the course of years, actually say. At least 93 nations have been hectored into liberalizing their abortion laws, based on nothing that has been introduced by member states, debated by members states, agreed to by member states, or ratified by member states.

Another group, the International Women's Health Coalition, says much the same thing as Human Rights Watch: IWHC admits that no UN treaties "explicitly assert a woman's right to abortion, nor do they legally require safe abortion services." But, "Despite these qualifications . . . the human rights instruments — if broadly interpreted and skillfully argued — can be very useful tools in efforts to expand access to safe abortion."

In the echo chamber of radical non governmental organizations and UN compliance committees, what is said bounces back and forth, building in volume to a crescendo of mutual reinforcement. Thus, what starts as the outlandish musings of some radical law professor become the accepted interpretations of the major international human rights treaties.

And so the Center for Reproductive Rights can go before the United Nations Human Rights Committee just last week and assert — without fear of correction — that the United States has fallen out of compliance with the principle international treaty defending civil and political rights, because the Bush administration has failed "to protect women's reproductive rights," even though the word "reproductive" itself never appears in the text in question (let alone the word abortion).

Such a strategy is best described as a game, one that shows disdain for the right of nations to know the extent of the obligations they accept upon themselves, as well as disdain for the citizens around the world who will never know how such change occurs, or how or to whom they could ever hope to voice dissent. As CRR itself concluded in a paper outlining this strategy, "there is a stealth quality to the work."

Deaths Rekindle Call for Feds to Revoke Approval of Abortion Drug

by Jody Brown
March 21, 2006

(ChristiansUnite.com) - - "How many more deaths?" That's the question that pro-lifers are asking following the latest reports of more deaths that may be attributable to the abortion pill known as RU 486, which the federal government approved for distribution amidst political accusations shortly before Bill Clinton left office.

Danco Laboratories, which markets RU 486 (a.k.a. "Mifepristone") in the United States, announced to the Food and Drug Administration on Friday that two more women died recently after taking RU 486, the first of two drugs taken to abort an unborn child chemically. That brings the number of deaths in the U.S. to at least seven women after taking the two-step regimen since it was approved by the FDA in September 2000.

The federal agency's response following these latest reports? Convene a workshop for early May to discuss research on the infection that killed four of the women last July.

And instead of yanking the drug it approved in the waning days of the Clinton administration, the FDA has issued a statement saying it is investigating the circumstances of the deaths. "All providers of medical abortion and their patients need to be aware of the specific circumstances and directions for use of this drug and all risks including sepsis when considering treatment," states the agency website. "In particular, physicians and their patients should fully discuss early potential signs and symptoms that may warrant immediate medical evaluation."

The FDA's response has triggered outrage from the halls of Congress to the offices of pro-life groups, with criticism beginning with variations on the phrase: "How many more deaths will it take before ...."

- Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland: "How many more women must die or be injured before Congress acts to protect American women's lives and health from an irresponsible company and a timid FDA?"

- Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America: "How many women must die before the FDA will act? Are their lives less important than making abortion convenient?"

- American Life League president Judie Brown: "How much longer must we tolerate such insanity? Two more deaths of women who used RU 486 signal massive problems with [the] abortion pill."

- Dr. Randall K. O'Bannon of National Right to Life: "How many women will have to die after taking this drug? There is no doubt that RU 486 is extremely dangerous to women and it kills babies."

Representative Bartlett is one of 79 House members sponsoring HR 1079, the "RU 486 Suspension and Review Act." In a Baptist Press report, he calls the FDA's workshop "too little and too late." Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who is sponsoring the Senate version of the Bartlett bill (S 511), is equally critical of how the federal agency is dealing with the situation.

"A workshop to talk about ways to study this problem will only delay action," says DeMint. "This drug should never have been approved, and it must be suspended immediately."

[Photo compliments of Concerned Women for America]
Wendy Wright
CWA's Wendy Wright could not agree more. By doing anything less than removing the drug from the market, the CWA leader says the FDA is participating in the "deception that RU 486 is 'safe.'" She notes that in the past the FDA has pulled drugs that have been accused of causing fewer deaths and less severe complications. That, Wright contends, is inconsistent.

"Why the double-standard for an abortion drug that is now linked to the deaths of seven healthy women and over 800 other reported complications?" she asks. And after noting several examples of drugs yanked by the agency following reported complications, she asks: "Why is that same caution not exercised with a drug that only women use, and it's only purpose is to abort a baby?

ALL's Judie Brown may have an answer to that question. "[T]he powerful abortion lobby rules the day when it comes to RU 486," says Brown. "It doesn't matter to the abortion industry that mothers have died from using this drug; the 'procedure' was successful because the drug killed the baby. The mother's well-being is apparently of no concern."

Planned Parenthood claims that the "health and safety" of its patients are its top priorities -- but apparently will not voluntarily suspend the use of RU 486. In light of last week's two reported deaths, the federally funded abortion provider has agreed to stop using unapproved measures in administering the chemical abortion regimen. But PP says it has no plans to stop dispensing the drug at its abortion clinics.

According to the ALL president, the FDA has the authority to suspend distribution of any drug item when safety issues arise. That is why she says the FDA needs to put aside any "political" considerations and stop distribution -- immediately. "This is non-negotiable," says Brown.

Additional information on ChristiansUnite.com is available on the Internet at http://www.christiansunite.com/
Copyright © 2003 ChristiansUnite.com. All rights reserved.

Battle begins to overturn S. Dakota abortion law
Email this Story

Mar 24, 7:39 AM (ET)

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (Reuters) - Abortion rights supporters planned to launch an attack on Friday on a new South Dakota abortion law designed as a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion 33 years ago.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, signed the law, widely considered the most restrictive in the nation, about two weeks ago. The measure bans nearly all abortions, even in cases of incest and rape, and says that if a woman's life is in jeopardy, doctors must try to save the life of the fetus as well as the woman.

An abortion rights coalition, South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, said it would lay out its strategy to take down the law in mid-morning news conferences in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.

Abortion opponents have been counting on a legal challenge to the law and hope that the case could eventually take the intensely divisive issue all the way back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

With two conservative justices recently appointed, and Republican President George W. Bush expected to get at least one more appointment before leaving office, abortion opponents believe the court would be primed to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established the right to abortion.

But officials with Planned Parenthood, which operates the only clinics in South Dakota that provide abortions, said a lawsuit may not be filed immediately.

Instead, abortion rights supporters may try to take the issue before South Dakota voters in November. State law allows ballot referendums seeking to overturn legislation.

"When you take things to the courts you don't have the opportunity to engage the public in the process. You don't have the ability to build a movement," said Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kate Looby.

If they choose to pursue a referendum, abortion rights supporters must collect more than 16,700 signatures by June 19 to get the issue on the ballot for the November 7 election.

If they fail to get enough signatures by the deadline and there is no further legal challenge, the law would take effect on July 1.

Battle begins to overturn S. Dakota abortion law (http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060324/2006-03-24T123907Z_01_N23280960_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RIGHTS-ABORTION-DC.html)

Tennessee to Require DNA From Abortions

By ERIK SCHELZIG, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 24, 12:38 AM ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Doctors performing abortions on girls younger than 13 years old would be required to preserve a sample of the fetal tissue for law enforcement under a bill passed by the Senate on Thursday.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation could use those samples for DNA tests to help prosecute rapists, said Sen. Roy Herron, the bill's sponsor.

"Whoever has sex with a child 12 years of age or younger is committing rape, whether force is involved or not, and they ought to be prosecuted," he said.

Herron said most of these rapes are committed by those who know the victim, often go unreported, and are not discovered until days, weeks or months later.

The "Child Rape Protection Act of 2006" passed on a 29-0 vote. A companion bill has lingered in a House subcommittee for a month and is not scheduled for discussion until April 4.

Similar legislation was signed into law in Kansas last year.

Keri Adams, of Planned Parenthood of East and Middle Tennessee, said her organization supports any measure that helps protect children against rape and wants to be sure it follows privacy laws.

The bill would require records be kept of the names and residence of the victim and parent or guardian. A doctor who violates the proposed rules would face a $500 civil penalty for the first violation, a $1,000 civil penalty for the second, and a misdemeanor for the third.

A former United Methodist minister, Herron had been among senators who wanted to protect women's rights to abortion if there is rape or incest, or when the mother's life is in danger.

On Thursday, he emphasized that his bill is not meant to encourage abortions.

"I bring it so whoever commits rape is prosecuted," he said.

Tennessee to Require DNA From Abortions (http://www.worthynews.com/news/news-yahoo-com-s-ap-20060324-ap_on_re_us-abortion_dna-printer-1/)

Coalition Calling for Criminal Investigation into Abortion Death of Texas Teen

Signatures demanding the convening of a Grand Jury to investigate George R. Tiller in the third-trimester abortion death of Christin Gilbert will be presented to Sedgwick County, KS after a Petition Presentation Ceremony that will be held at noon at the Sedgwick County Administration Building on Friday, April 7.

A grassroots Justice for Christin Coalition launched the petition effort on January 13, 2006, on the one- year anniversary of the death of Gilbert, a 19-year old Texas Down Syndrome girl, who died at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, after complications from a botched third-trimester abortion received at Tiller’s abortion mill were misdiagnosed. Coalition representative Cheryl Sullenger says that the group has gathered over three times the number of signatures required by law.

“Because of interest in this effort to bring Christin’s killer to justice, the petition deadline has been extended to Monday, April 3,” said Sullenger. “The petitions will be presented to the County Clerk immediately following a brief ceremony on Friday, April 7.”
The State of Kansas allows citizens to convene a Grand Jury to investigate wrong-doing through a petition process. By law, the county will have 60 days after the required signatures are submitted to convene the Grand Jury."

“We were forced to take this route because we believe that political pandering to Tiller has thwarted his discipline through traditional channels,” said Sullenger.

The group maintains that Tiller’s large campaign contributions to pro-abortion politicians, including Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius, has bought Tiller cover with the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, a Board whose Executive Director, Larry Buening, is a Sebelius appointee. The KSBHA refused to discipline Tiller for Christin Gilbert’s death in spite of an autopsy report that indicates Tiller was at fault and 911 documents that indicate his employee, Marguerite Reed, tried to cover up the true nature of Christin’s fatal condition.

“All we are asking is for an independent investigation into Christin’s death and attempted cover-up by people unassociated with Tiller politically, professionally, or socially,” said Sullenger. “We have yet to get that from any authority in the State of Kansas.”

More information about Christin Gilbert’s tragic death and the Grand Jury effort, including photos and public documents obtained by Operation Rescue investigators, can be found at http://justiceforchristin.com.

Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian organizations in the nation. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre- born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.

Program Equips 200th Pregnancy Center With Ultrasound Imaging

The Sanctity of Human Life Director for Focus on the Family says the ministry's Option Ultrasound program has reached an exciting milestone. The initiative to equip pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) nationwide for ultrasound services as a way to prevent abortions recently saw the placement of its 200th imaging machine in Joplin, Missouri.

Focus on the Family's Kim Conroy says since the program started two years ago, Option Ultrasound has heard numerous stories about how the program has helped save the lives of unborn children. One story in particular is "very unusual," she recalls, "because this clinic is down the road from an abortion clinic."

In that instance, Conroy recounts, the pregnant woman had actually gone into the nearby abortion facility to have a procedure and learned there from the abortionist that she would be charged twice as much money because she was pregnant with twins.

"And so she left just in shock and went down to the PRC and got to see those babies," the Focus on the Family official says. "Because of the ultrasound she was able to meet those babies face to face. She just broke down and said, 'I cannot believe I was considering doing this.'"

The people behind the Option Ultrasound initiative hope to place ultrasound services in 650 PRCs by the year 2010. Conroy is pleased to report that the growth of the program is right on track. "We've been pleasantly surprised at how many centers really have the vision to convert into a medical clinic," she says.

Turning a PRC into a medical facility equipped to offer ultrasound imaging to pregnant women is not as simple as some might suppose, the Sanctity of Life specialist points out. "It's not just a service you add [by] providing ultrasound and machines," she explains. "You really have to do a lot of work to change your legal status, and these centers have worked so hard."

Providing centers with the equipment is "just a great gift that we can give them," Conroy says. "It's really an investment in that center that they will use for years to come."

To date, Conroy notes, Option Ultrasound has been told of more than 6,300 babies that were saved because of the program. But as the effort continues to establish ultrasound service in more PRC's, she emphasizes, the local centers will require monetary support from the public in order to keep the program going.

Miss. abortion ban dies in House-Senate conference
Mar 28, 2006
By Michael Foust
Baptist Press

JACKSON, Miss. (BP)--A bill that would have banned most abortions in Mississippi died March 27 when members of the state House and Senate failed to reach a compromise.

The bill, passed March 2 by the House, would have banned all abortions in the state except in the cases of rape, incest and to save the mother's life. The two chambers entered into a conference upon the Senate's request.

Some legislators, including some pro-lifers, opposed the House bill because it jeopardized Mississippi's informed consent law, which is already on the books and being enforced. That law requires, among other things, a 24-hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion and a face-to-face meeting between a woman and a doctor.

In essence, the House bill repealed the informed consent law in favor of an abortion ban.

Terri Herring, president of Pro-Life Mississippi, opposed the House bill in its current form.

"We would not accept a conference report that strips us of current law for a law that we can't enforce, because we know that any kind of ban that goes into effect goes to the courts," Herring told Baptist Press. "… If we had accepted the House provisions, we would have lost everything we had worked for in the last several years in regards to what women are told and what women are offered."

South Dakota's governor signed a bill into law in early March that bans all abortions except to save the mother's life. Supporters of such proposals acknowledge the bills will be overturned in federal court, but they hope to see the Supreme Court eventually take the case and overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The original bill in Mississippi, as passed in February by the state Senate, amended the informed consent law to require abortionists to offer a woman a sonogram and a chance to hear her baby's heartbeat. But in a surprise move, the House gutted that provision -- and by doing so gutted the current informed consent law -- and replaced it with an abortion ban.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, had indicated he would have signed the bill.

"We basically have gone on a wild ride that led us to the point of keeping in effect what we have right now," Herring said.

The abortion ban divided pro-lifers, with some saying such a move should wait until the U.S. Supreme Court has the votes to overturn Roe. Of the court's nine members, five are on record as supporting Roe.

"We did not initiate this abortion ban, so we were still -- and we are still -- in favor of working on incremental legislation until we know a little bit more about the court," Herring said. "… [W]e felt like to oppose this legislation was not a good idea. When it came up, we were willing to work with it on our terms.

"Mississippi's very pro-life," she added. "We have the votes on the House and the Senate, overwhelmingly, to ban abortion. And that's not something that we have supported in the past. But I do think a time is coming when the states have got to have a show of power. … If you have 10 states that are willing to ban abortion, you're sending a strong statement."

That statement to the court, Herring said, would be, "You've taken away the states' rights, you've taken away the peoples' rights, and it's time to restore those rights to the states."

The worldwide attention on Mississippi helped the pro-life cause, she added.

"The best thing we got was a lot of free press to be able to talk about how abortion hurts women and kills children," she said. "We've been interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine, the British press, the Canadian press, the German press, the French press. So, the world is watching to see what America is going to do. … The world is concerned. They know that America is the leader. The rest of the world is watching to see what the Christian nation is going to do about abortion."

Miss. abortion ban dies in House-Senate conference (http://www.worthynews.com/news/bpnews-net-printerfriendly-asp-ID-22922/)

Researcher Saying Unborn Babies Can't Feel Pain Tied to Pro-Abortion Groups

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A British researcher is claiming that unborn children do not feel pain before birth and, therefore, legislation telling women that is the case is unnecessary. However, the claim flies in the face of other research showing that both unborn children and premature babies feel pain and the researcher is tied to pro-abortion groups.

Stuart Derbyshire, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Birmingham, says babies do not feel pain before birth, even in later stages of pregnancy. He criticized pro-life lawmakers who support legislation telling women that fact.

"This is an unwarranted piece of legislation because there is good evidence that the fetus cannot feel pain at any stage of gestation," Derbyshire said.

The researcher authored a review of the subject that the British Medical Journal printed in its April 15 edition.

"ts illegitimate to use the possibility of pain as a way of trying to prevent abortion from occurring, because the possibility of pain doesn't exist," he wrote.

However, Derbyshire's views may be colored by abortion politics.

According to Forbes magazine, he has served as a consultant to Planned Parenthood affiliates in Virginia and Wisconsin as well as the U.K.-based Pro-Choice Forum.

Congress is considering legislation to tell women that their unborn child after 20 weeks of pregnancy has the capacity to feel pain. It would require abortion practitioners to offer them the chance to give the baby anesthesia to lessen the pain during the abortion.

State legislatures in more than a dozen states are considering similar bills and several have already passed laws to that effect.

Other research has shown that premature babies and those in the womb have the capacity to feel pain.

A new British study finds that premature babies experience pain and don't merely exhibit reflexive actions in response to painful events.

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience by a team from University College London, analyzed brain scans taken on premature babies when blood was being drawn from them. The results found that babies as young as 24 weeks after pregnancy can feel pain and the researchers hope the study will prompt new pain treatment methods.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center says he and other specialists have found that babies feel pain before birth as early as 20 weeks into the pregnancy.

Anand has said other medical studies conclude that unborn babies are "very likely" to be "extremely sensitive to pain during the gestation of 20 to 30 weeks."

This article just shows how stupid the prior one is.

British Study Finds Premature Babies Experience Pain, Abortion Implication

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new British study finds that premature babies experience pain and don't merely exhibit reflexive actions in response to painful events. The study's results could have a ramification on the abortion debate as late-term abortions are done during the same time period when viable babies are born.

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience by a team from University College London, analyzed brain scans taken on premature babies when blood was being drawn from them.

The results found that babies as young as 24 weeks after pregnancy can feel pain and the researchers hope the study will prompt new pain treatment methods.

"This is the first time we have actually measured pain activity in the human brain," lead researcher Professor Maria Fitzgerald said.

"Beforehand, although we could assume it, we did not know for sure that these babies could feel pain," Fitzgerald explained. "These babies' brains are so immature that it was difficult to genuinely know that the pain was going to their brain."

In the study, researchers scanned the brains of 18 babies born anywhere from 25 to 45 weeks after conception. The scans were performed before, during, and after nurses drew blood from their heels.

The scans found an increase in blood flow and oxygen to the brain indicating the babies felt the pain.

The results of the study could have implications for the abortion debate.

Pro-life groups have been pressing for legislation in Congress and state legislatures that would require abortion practitioners to tell women who are late in pregnancy and considering an abortion that their baby will feel intense pain during the abortion.

The British study backs up research conducted by Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center who said he and other specialists have found that babies feel pain before birth as early as 20 weeks into the pregnancy.

Anand has said other medical studies conclude that unborn babies are "very likely" to be "extremely sensitive to pain during the gestation of 20 to 30 weeks."

"Now that we have this scientific, objective measure of pain, we'll be able to assess pain-relieving therapies much more precisely," Fitzgerald concluded about the study.

"It is certainly something we need to be aware of. It is another good reason for treating the pain and alleviating it at this very early stage when they are so vulnerable," he said.

Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill Telling Women of Fetal Pain During Abortion

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would allow women to know that an unborn baby will feel intense pain during an abortion procedure. The veto came despite researching showing that unborn children have the capacity to feel pain at least after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In a statement about the veto, Napolitano said the bill "represents an unwarranted intrusion by politicians into the doctor-patient relationship."

"The Legislature should not attempt to substitute its judgment for that of trained physicians with respect to professional advice given to patients," she claimed.

The Senate signed off on the measure, HB 2554, on a 17-13 vote last week and the House previously approved the bill 36-21.

There is no word yet on whether pro-life lawmakers will attempt to override her veto.

Meanwhile, also on Tuesday, the state Senate approved and returned to the House a measure requiring notarized written parental consent before a minor teenager can have an abortion. The House will now vote on changes the Senate made to the bill, but it is expected to sign off on the measure.

The fetal pain bill, opposed by abortion advocates and supported by pro-life groups, also allows the woman to ask for anesthesia to be provided to the baby during the abortion.

An abortion practitioner who fails to inform a woman about the fetal pain information would be guilty of unprofessional conduct and could have his medical license suspended or revoked.

Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center says he and other specialists in development of unborn children have shown that babies feel pain before birth as early as 20 weeks into the pregnancy.

Anand has said other medical studies conclude that unborn babies are "very likely" to be "extremely sensitive to pain during the gestation of 20 to 30 weeks."

An April 2004 Zogby poll shows that 77% of Americans back "laws requiring that women who are 20 weeks or more along in their pregnancy be given information about fetal pain before having an abortion."

Only 16 percent disagreed with such a proposal, according to the poll.

Napolitano, a Democrat, has vetoed pro-life bills before.

The governor vetoed a bill in 2004 that would have allowed women to receive information about abortion's risks and alternatives that abortion businesses sometimes withhold from women considering abortions.

Napolitano has also vetoed a measure that would have protected pro-life pharmacists from being forced to dispense drugs that could cause abortions.

NKU weighs response to display's vandalism

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - Northern Kentucky University officials are working on a statement to faculty and students regarding this week's destruction of an anti-abortion display on campus.

Sally Jacobsen, an English professor scheduled to retire in a few weeks, said she invited students to destroy the display of 400 crosses representing aborted fetuses. It was erected by a student Right to Life group last weekend and was to be taken down today.

Campus police are investigating the vandalism, which occurred about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in front of University Center. About 10 students were involved, witnesses said.

Jacobsen declined to comment on whether she participated.

The crosses were pulled up and thrown in the trash. But a picture that appeared Thursday in the online edition of the campus newspaper, the Northerner, showed Jacobsen tearing up the "Cemetery of Innocents" sign that explained the display. Small white crosses are strewn on the grass around her in the picture, which The Northerner said was taken by editor Sarah Loman on Wednesday evening.

Since the vandalism became public, NKU President James Votruba has received about 100 e-mails from faculty and students expressing their concern, spokesman Chris Cole said.

"The tenor has been, 'We don't approve of or condone this.' They don't want that conduct to reflect on NKU faculty," Cole said.

Once the police investigation is over, the university will take appropriate action against Jacobsen and the students involved, he said.

In the meantime, NKU officials are working on an e-mail statement to be sent to faculty and students next week, Cole said.

"I think it will be telling our campus community that NKU doesn't condone what took place Wednesday night, and there is an investigation going on, and action will be taken," he said.

Ripples From Law Banning Abortion Spread Through South Dakota

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Plenty of places would wish to find themselves at the center of a national philosophical debate, but this is South Dakota.

In the two months since the State Legislature set off a political and legal war by passing the most sweeping abortion ban in the country, residents have seemed awkward and uneasy in their spot at the leading edge of the country's clash over abortion.

Some say that they are stunned to find South Dakota, the fifth least populous state, at the center of any such thing and that they are put off by the thought of outsiders arriving here with fancy advertising campaigns. And although they have seen nasty political skirmishes before, as recently as the 2004 defeat of Senator Tom Daschle, they say they are uncomfortable with the prospect of such a personal matter becoming fodder for so much public debate.

Political war, after all, is not cordial, and most South Dakotans are.

Outside the Minnehaha County administration building here on a blustery morning, Elizabeth M. Hulscher approached anyone who came her way, asking them to sign a petition that would put the abortion ban on hold and send it to the ballot for the state's voters to consider in November.

"I have been waiting for the chance to sign this," one woman told her. A man in a suit stopped, too, and politely agreed to sign. Only after he left did Ms. Hulscher, 43, notice that he had written something other than his name: "No abortions. I pray for you."

Another woman pushing a stroller smiled but declined to sign. With that, Ms. Hulscher set aside her clipboard to hold the door open for her.

Effects of the ban seem to be emerging all around, with fallen poll numbers for the governor who signed the law and growing ranks of candidates who want to replace the state's lawmakers. Ordinary people, too, said they had found themselves tangling unpleasantly with their closest friends over a question they had never really discussed much outside their homes. Some said they feared that as the fight over the ballot measure intensified, it would bring only more painful division.

Toni L. Popham, 48, grew emotional as she wondered aloud what her acquaintances near Watertown, 100 miles north of Sioux Falls, might think if she agreed to gather signatures in the beauty shop she owns. "Some of my clients may not like it," Ms. Popham said on a recent evening, tears suddenly filling her eyes. "I guess this is the time to stand up, but I don't know what people will think."

The sponsors of the bill, which outlaws abortions except when a woman's life is in jeopardy, intended it to set up a direct challenge — the first in more than a decade — to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision making abortion legal.

For now, though, the fight is taking place not in the courts but on the mainly quiet streets of places like Sioux Falls, the state's biggest city, with more than 130,000 residents, and Estelline, a corn and soybean town of about 700. Rather than filing a lawsuit immediately, opponents of the abortion ban have called on a state provision dating to 1898 that allows voters to reconsider a law passed by the Legislature if enough signatures are gathered.

As opponents of the ban went to gather signatures outside public buildings, at bowling leagues and in coffee shops, those who favor it said they were setting out across the state as well, on a bus they had dubbed "the Fleet for Little Feet," complete with an ultrasound machine and plastic models of a growing fetus. The leader of the largest Indian reservation here, meanwhile, has pledged to open an abortion clinic on tribal land if the state ban stands.

Reeling from all the attention, some here said they were still confused about how South Dakota had become the focus of such a fundamental fight. Many said they had been swamped with phone calls and e-mail messages (some supportive; others not) from relatives and friends in other states, and only then recognized the significance of what was happening.

The political ripples are already being felt. After signing the bill in March, Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican seeking re-election in November, saw his job approval ratings drop to 58 percent from 72 percent in the next month, according to a Survey USA poll. Mr. Rounds faces two Democratic challengers, whose campaigns, political analysts say, have been energized by the abortion decision.

And many more candidates than usual filed to run for the Legislature, all 105 seats of which are on the ballot this fall, said Chris Nelson, the secretary of state. Democrats, the minority in both legislative chambers, have challengers in most of the races, a fact that some here tie directly to the abortion fight.

"Frankly, we had been anticipating a ho-hum election year," said Robert Burns, a political scientist at South Dakota State University in Brookings. "But this issue is spilling over in the House race, into the governor's race, and into many of the legislative races."

Along a commercial strip in Sioux Falls, a nondescript building houses Planned Parenthood, the only abortion clinic in the state. In 2004, the last year for which state health records are available, 814 abortions were performed in South Dakota, or about half as many as were performed in this state a quarter century ago. In 1982, for instance, the state reported 1,693 abortions.

For now, the clinic, which has long flown doctors in from Minnesota because it is difficult to find South Dakota doctors willing to perform abortions, is still open. The new law does not go into effect until July 1, but it will be put on hold if opponents can gather signatures from at least 16,728 of the state's 486,000 registered voters by June 19.

"From our standpoint, the opportunity for South Dakota to loudly proclaim that the Legislature has overreached is very important," said Sarah Stoesz, the president of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. If the ballot effort fails, Planned Parenthood officials said, the organization will file a lawsuit in federal court to block the ban, which would set off the legal challenge the ban's authors still hope for.

Less than two miles from the Planned Parenthood clinic, between a taco shop and a carwash, another bland building houses Alpha Health Services, whose sign promises "Free pregnancy tests, abortion information and S.T.D. testing."

Once an abortion clinic, this is now home to the projects of Leslee J. Unruh, one of the most vocal leaders of the effort to ban abortion here. Ms. Unruh, who said she had had an abortion in the late 1970's and regretted it deeply, said 6,000 women came here each year for ultrasound tests, counseling and other assistance.

"The people have already spoken," Ms. Unruh said of the Legislature's vote.

She said the voting patterns here would be simple: "Our polls are, we will win. Our people are not going to be taken in by all the lies."

But a woman from Rapid City, on the state's western edge, drove alone for more than five hours in March to have an abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic. The woman, who is in her 30's and said she feared for her safety if her name was used in this article, went to the clinic the very day Governor Rounds signed the ban.

Had the law been in effect, she said, she still would have found a way — legal or not — to have an abortion. "Once that type of decision is made, it's going to be done," she said. "Are we really going to go that route?"

Kentucky Literature Prof Removed for Vandalizing Pro-life Display
Prof was head of NKU Women's Studies Program

Sally Jacobsen, a professor of language and literature at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) has been dismissed from her post after she incited a group of students to destroy an approved pro-life display erected by a campus pro-life student group.

Jacobsen, who also headed the NKU women’s studies program for three years, told the Kentucky Enquirer she had become so emotional at the sight of a field of white crosses planted as a symbolic cemetery for aborted children, that her strong feelings justified her action.

“Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged,” Jacobsen said.

Pulling up the crosses was similar to citizens taking down Nazi displays on Fountain Square, she said.

The display was put up in response to a series of lectures on abortion “rights” by a faculty group called, Educators for Reproductive Freedom. The group had held two lunchtime discussions on campus with speakers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. A representative of Educators for Reproductive Freedom disavowed any involvement in Jacobsen’s action.

In response to the faculty lectures, a group of students hastily organized a pro-life group, Northern Right to Life, which was approved by the university administration. The crosses, which were first erected Wednesday April 12, were the group’s first effort at educating the campus on the real nature of abortion. They also handed out literature at the pro-abortion faculty event.

Katie Walker, president of Northern Right to Life, told the Enquirer that her group would like to see charges filed against those responsible for the vandalism. “Campuses are supposed to be public forums. I think professors should encourage that,” Walker said.

Jacobsen admitted to inciting students: “I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to.” She said the crosses were a “slap in the face” to women who might be making “the agonizing and very private decision to have an abortion.”

A photo appearing Thursday in the online edition of the campus newspaper, The Northerner, showed Jacobsen tearing up the sign that accompanied the crosses. Campus police are investigating the vandalism, saying that $600.00 in damages was done. About 10 students were involved, witnesses said.

The university’s policies state that even tenured faculty can be dismissed without pay for
misconduct. It reads, “A staff member who conducts himself in a manner that reflects unfavourably upon the University, the department, and himself will be subject to immediate discharge, without advance notice and without further pay.”

Jacobsen’s action has created a stir in high places. The Enquirer reported Sunday that Rep. Paul Marcotte, R-Union, has written to NKU president, James Votruba, demanding that Jacobsen be fired. "I don't want my tax money used by a professor to radicalize the ‘cemetery Gestapo,’” Marcotte wrote. He called her action “illegal and irresponsible” and “disgusting, offensive behaviour by a tenured professor.”

“Strong punishment will send a message to other unrepentant radicals that the university is part of a larger community and that its members must abide by the community's laws,” Marcotte stated.

James Votruba has said the university will be investigating and takes its commitment to freedom of speech seriously. "I don't know if she was pulling up the crosses, but I think she was out there with the students. If so, as far as I'm concerned, she went outside the conditions of her employment," Votruba said.

In a statement published on the university’s website today, Votruba said, “While the University supports the right to free speech and vigorous debate on public issues, we cannot condone infringement of the rights of others to express themselves in an orderly manner.”

“By leading her students in the destruction of an approved student organization display, Professor Sally Jacobsen’s actions were inconsistent with Northern Kentucky University’s commitment to free and open debate and the opportunity for all sides to be heard without threat of censorship or reprisal.”

Petitions to Investigate Abortion That Killed Mentally Disabled Girl Certified

Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Enough petitions have been turned in to prompt a grand jury to investigate Wichita, Kansas abortion practitioner George Tiller, who killed a mentally disabled teenager in an a legal late-term abortion last year. That's the ruling of the Sedgwick County Elections Office, which certified the petitions Tuesday.

Pro-life advocates and family members of Christin Gilbert filed 7,700 signatures with the county to use a Kansas law which allows citizens to petition the local government to call a grand jury investigation.

Only 2,850 signatures were needed but the county certified 6,186 valid signatures, more than twice as many as were necessary.

The county now has 60 days from the April 7 petition filing date to convene the Grand Jury. The District Attorney's office will be responsible for appointing a special prosecutor.

The petition campaign became necessary when the Kansas Board of Healing Arts (KBHA), which regulates doctors and abortion practitioners, refused to bring forth any charges against Tiller in the January 2005 death of the 19 year-old girl.

Gilbert, who had Down syndrome, was taken by her parents from Texas to Kansas for the late-term abortion. After Gilbert suffered from complications from the abortion, Tiller's staff contacted 911 but asked that an ambulance not turn on its lights or sirens to not raise suspicion.

The autopsy report indicated Gilbert died from complications from the abortion.

Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue who has been helping collect signatures, said, “It is time for an impartial investigation of Tiller by those who are not politically, professionally, or socially associated with him."

“I know that the members of Christin’s family that we are in contact with are relieved that the process is proceeding," he said.

Though her parents took her for the abortion, another member of Gilbert's family said she would not have wanted the abortion.

Newman's group and Kansans for Life, a statewide pro-life organization, accused the KBHA of issuing a biased ruling in the case because many of the members of the board are influenced by pro-abortion Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Tiller.

“There was a strong appearance of impropriety during the KSBHA investigation,” Newman added.

The Kansas medical board determined that Tiller complied with state laws and health care standards in his treatment of Gilbert, despite eventually killing her.

Cheryl Sullenger, of Operation Rescue, explained that Tiller sent Gilbert to a local hotel after the abortion "even though her condition was worsening" following the botched abortion.

David Gittrich, state development director for Kansans for Life, suggested using the law to help obtain justice for Gilbert.

Colorado Mourns 39th Anniversary of America's First Abortion Law

To: National & State Desks

Contact: Leslie Hanks, Colorado Right to Life V.P., 720-394-8946

DENVER, April 24 /Christian Wire Service/ -- One of America's oldest pro-life organizations, Colorado Right to Life (CRLC), mourns the loss of the millions of innocent babies killed in their mother's womb, since the passage of the nation's first abortion law signed on April 25, 1967. "Our nation is owed an apology for our state's role in starting the abortion holocaust," said Diane Hochevar, CRLC President.

The organization applauds South Dakota for passing the first law restoring legal protection to pre-born babies. "As the state that started the abortion holocaust, we should have been the first to lead America back to protecting all human life, from fertilization through natural death," said Colorado Right to Life V.P., Leslie Hanks. "South Dakota citizens should be very proud of their elected officials."

Former Governor Dick Lamm, who as a freshman representative, sponsored the Colorado law in 1967. Not content with orchestrating the attack on the vulnerable pre-born, Lamm expanded his ideology to include the elderly and medically vulnerable with his "duty to die" speech a number of years ago.

"As America begins to ponder the significant loss of love and talent our nation has discarded as medical waste, it should remember that when Colorado made the tragic error of allowing pre-born lives to be destroyed through abortion we began a culture of death which has led to all human life being greatly devalued, " said Hanks.

CRLC maintains that Terri Schiavo and others like her might not have been in such jeopardy had Colorado rejected the taking of innocent life for cases of rape, incest and the mother's health back in 1967. "When babies aren't safe in their mother's wombs, we are all in danger." notes Hanks.

Colorado Right to Life will continue its efforts to build a culture of life in its home state and encourages every state to follow the lead set by South Dakota. "We must reject the taking of innocent life and embrace our founding documents," said Hochevar. "The Declaration of Independence boldly proclaims that 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

Sorry I can't post the link because of advertisment.

Amnesty International Considers Pushing Enforcement of Abortion as Human Right
Ominously proposes punishing "abuses of sexual and reproductive rights by private persons, organizations"

By John-Henry Westen

NEW YORK, April 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amnesty International (AI) has proposed actively fighting against the right to life for unborn children by using its resources to promote a so-called 'right to abortion'. In proposed changes to its Sexual and Reproductive Rights Policy, the organization has asked members to comment on proposals around AI's abortion position by May 20, 2006.

In its Sexual and Reproductive Rights (SRR) Consultation Kit, AI includes a "Draft Policy statement on Sexual and Reproductive Rights." The policy includes the demand that "Governments must refrain from denying or limiting equal access to sexual and reproductive health services." Adding ominously, "they must act with due diligence to punish abuses of sexual and reproductive rights by private persons, organizations and other non-state actors."

The draft policy also seeks to hamper the right of health care workers to disassociate from abortion services. "The right of individual health care professionals to object on grounds of conscience to providing certain information and services does not absolve them or the health care system for which they work from taking immediate steps to ensure that the necessary treatment is given without delay," says the draft.

In another document reviewing "key" issues regarding sexual and reproductive rights, AI quotes a UN representative who suggests denying abortion constitutes "violence against women". The review states, "Former UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, has stated that 'acts deliberately restraining women from using contraception or from having an abortion constitute violence against women by subjecting women to excessive pregnancies and childbearing against their will, resulting in increased and preventable risks of maternal mortality and morbidity.'"

The AI International Council is already decidedly in favour of promoting abortion as can be deduced from the language they use. The International Council calls for a consultation on the question of abortion, which "should enable AI to take an informed decision as to the organization's position - should it choose to do so - on the question of whether a woman's right to physical and mental integrity includes her right to terminate her pregnancy, subject to reasonable limitations, and of whether abortion should therefore be legal, safe and accessible to all women."

The plan is to decide by the end of 2006 on adopting a position on three aspects of abortion:
- "decriminalization of abortion";
- "access to quality services for the management of complications arising from abortion";
- "legal, safe and accessible abortion in cases of rape, sexual assault, incest, and risk to a woman's life"

The document notes that "all other decisions related to possible AI positions on the issue of abortion" would be taken to the 2007 International Council Meeting.

AI then asks its members the following questions:
Level 1
1. Do you have specific comments, reactions or questions about the Draft Policy statement on Sexual and Reproductive Rights?
Level 2
1. Should Amnesty International adopt a policy on any of the three aspects of abortion or should we maintain our current policy (which states: Amnesty International has not adopted a position on whether or not women have a right to choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies...)?
Level 3
2. Should the International Executive postpone any decisions on the three aspects of abortion until the fall, next spring or the next International Council meeting, to provide more opportunity for us to give input?

Georgia Teen Abortion and Pregnancy Rates Continue to Decline in 2004

Atlanta, GA (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion and pregnancy rates for teenagers in Georgia have gone down for another year, the state health department has announced. The news is more evidence that abstinence education and pro-life efforts to tell women about pregnancy centers are working.

The new numbers cover from 1994, when Georgia led the nation in teen pregnancy rates, and 2004, the latest year with available data.

The teen abortion rate fell from 12.3 per 1,000 women aged 10-19 in 1994 to 7 per 1,000 in 2004. The teen pregnancy rate also fell from 50.1 pregnancies per 1,000 young women to 34.7 in 2004.

‘‘This decrease is good news,’’ Dr. Stuart Brown, director of the state Division of Public Health, told AP. ‘‘It shows that the prevention programs and education conducted through DPH and our partners are working.’’

But that's not all that's working in the southern state.

In November the state health department announced that abortions were down more than 5 percent from 2003 to 2004. Abortions performed in Georgia fell by a stunning 5.3 percent from 2003. There were 32,708 abortions in 2004, down from 34,545 in 2003.

Since their peak in 1990, abortions in Georgia have dropped 17 percent.

Officials with Georgia Right to Life credit a television campaign they began three years ago targeting DeKalb and Fulton counties, where an estimated 75 percent of abortions in the state occur.

The ads feature the 1-800-395-HELP phone number operated by national pregnancy centers organizations Care Net and Heartbeat International. When women with an unexpected pregnancy call the number, they are referred to local pregnancy centers that provide various forms of assistance.

GRTL says Atlanta pregnancy centers received the second highest volume of calls in the nation.

"We will continue to reach out to women in need so that they know abortion is not their only alternative," says GRTL president Caryl Swift.

"Research tells us that 60 percent of women entering an abortion facility don't really want an abortion, but believe they have no alternative," Swift explained. "Eighty percent regret their decision. We care about saving women from the shame and guilt of abortions as well as saving babies' lives."

Swift also said the 15 year decline was helped by the various laws her group has been able to pass in the state legislature.

Pro-Abortion Vandals Desecrate Princeton Group’s Pro-Life Display

You know that moonbat teacher that lead her students in destroying pro-life displays? Looks like she started a trend.

Pro-abortion vandals have destroyed yet another campus pro-life display, this time at an Ivy League university.

The student group Princeton Pro-Life had erected a display featuring 347 flags designed to symbolize the estimated number of students who might have been a part of Princeton’s class of 2010 if abortion had not been legalized. After being up just three days, the display was destroyed and signs bearing sarcastic pro-abortion messages were put up in its place.

Thomas Haine, president of Princeton Pro-life, says he finds it very ironic that pro-abortion liberals who claim to be proponents of tolerance and free speech so often display little or no tolerance for pro-life expressions. He feels the messages left by the vandals are truly indicative of liberal abortion advocates’ brand of tolerance.

“Someone had added 30 cut-up coat hangers strewn around on the ground,” Haine says, recalling the damage to the pro-life exhibit. “Our sign was trampled, and there were two other signs attached to ours: one that said, ‘Support smaller class sizes — support abortion’; and the other one that said, ‘347 coat hangers saved from mangling and mutilation.’”

The pro-abortion vandals’ tableau was “a pretty horrific and obscene display,” the Princeton Pro-Life spokesman says. “I can’t imagine anyone laughing about a coat hanger abortion or proposing that these are good things, or anything. To poke fun at such a practice, even if you are pro-choice, seems a bit heartless.”

It has become quite typical of the anti-abortion freaks to do this kind of stuff. Perhaps their moniker should be, “free speech for me, but not for thee.” Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the complete absense of the ACLU in these cases?

Youth Group to Planned Parenthood: Come Clean on Claims of Intimidation by Pro-Lifers

Generations for Life, a Chicago-based pro-life youth outreach, is calling on Planned Parenthood to come clean about an inflammatory story they are circulating about a pro-life pregnancy resource center (PRC) in Indiana. The story, circulated widely via e-mail and published on numerous websites, alleges the PRC engaged in "a campaign of harassment and intimidation" against a pregnant 17-year old girl who had "unwittingly" walked into the center, which shares a parking lot with the Planned Parenthood facility.

Planned Parenthood claims an unnamed PRC in an unidentified Indiana location first passed itself off as an abortion facility, tricked the young woman into going for an appointment at its "other office" -- the real Planned Parenthood facility across the lot -- and then called the police to intercept her there, telling the police that she was a minor "being forced to have an abortion against her will."

Thereafter, the Planned Parenthood story continues, the PRC staff "proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days." The story says the PRC staff showed up at the girl's home and called her father's workplace, and even went to her school to urge classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion. The story grimly states: "Our clinic director reports that she was 'scared to death to leave her house.'"

Pro-life advocates familiar with how PRC's operate were immediately skeptical of the Planned Parenthood communiqué, noting its lack of specific details. An investigation by Generations for Life co-director John Jansen revealed that the only Planned Parenthood facility in Indiana that shares a parking lot with a PRC is A Woman's Choice in Indianapolis. "I found photos of both facilities online," Jansen remarked. "It's hard to see how anyone could mistake them."

Jansen then contacted the Indianapolis Police Department to see if they could corroborate Planned Parenthood's claims. They could not, and no police reports -- which are public records -- could be found dealing with either the Planned Parenthood center or the PRC. The official with whom Jansen spoke said that if the events described in the Planned Parenthood communiqué had taken place, police would be unlikely not to have filed a report on the incident.

"Not only is there no evidence that the police ever turned up at Planned Parenthood," Jansen said, "but it's hard to believe that nobody every contacted the police about any alleged intimidation campaign being waged by the pro-life center. This girl supposedly was 'scared to death' -- don't you think somebody would have called the police?" Jansen also searched county records and found no lawsuits of any kind against the PRC.

"Planned Parenthood's story may be great for fundraising, but it doesn't square with the facts as we know them," Jansen said. Generations for Life is calling on Planned Parenthood to either substantiate its claims with hard evidence, or admit the story is a fabrication.

___________________________

It just goes to show the deceptive means that Planned Parenthood is willing to employ just to reach their objective of killing many more babies.

Roe attorney: Use abortion to 'eliminate poor'
In unearthed letter urged President-elect Clinton to 'reform' country

A letter to Bill Clinton written by the co-counsel who successfully argued the Roe v. Wade decision urged the then-president-elect to "eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country" by liberalizing abortion laws.

Ron Weddington, who with his wife Sarah Weddington represented "Jane Roe," sent the four-page letter to President Clinton's transition team before Clinton took office in January 1993.

The missive turned up in an exhibit put together by the watchdog legal group Judicial Watch, which has been researching the Clinton administration's policy on the abortion drug RU-486, notes James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web.

Weddington told the president-elect: "I don't think you are going to go very far in reforming the country until we have a better educated, healthier, wealthier population."

He said the new leader can "start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country."

Weddington qualified his statement, saying, "No, I'm not advocating some sort of mass extinction of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can't afford to have babies.

"There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged differently as discriminatory, mean-spirited and ... well ... so Republican."

Weddington explained he was "not proposing that you send federal agents armed with Depo-Provera dart guns to the ghetto. You should use persuasion rather than coercion."

He points to President Clinton and his soon-to-be first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton as the "perfect example."

"Could either of you have gone to law school and achieved anything close to what you have if you had three or four or more children before you were 20?" he asked. "No! You waited until you were established and in your 30's to have one child. That is what sensible people do."

Later, Weddington took a shot at the "religious right."

"Having convinced the poor that they can't get out of poverty when they have all those extra mouths to feed, you will have to provide the means to prevent the extra mouths, because abstinence doesn't work. The religious right has had 12 years to preach its message. It's time to officially recognize that people are going to have sex and what we need to do as a nation is prevent as much disease and as many poor babies as possible."

Weddington then argued that with 30 million abortions up to that point since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, America is a much better place.

"Think of all the poverty, crime and misery ... and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario," he said. "We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don't have a lot of time left."

The lawyer also delved into biblical theology.

"The biblical exhortation to 'be fruitful and multiply' was directed toward a small tribe, surrounded by enemies," he argued. "We are long past that. Our survival depends upon our developing a population where everyone contributes. We don't need more cannon fodder. We don't need more parishioners. We don't need more cheap labor. We don't need more poor babies."

In his postscript, Weddington said: "I was co-counsel in Roe v. Wade, [and] have sired zero children and one fetus, the abortion of which was recently recounted by my ex-wife in her book, "A Question of Choice" (Grosset/Putnam, 1992) I had a vasectomy in 1969 and have never had one moment of regret."

The Weddingtons divorced in 1974.

Their client in the 1973 case, Norma McCorvey, recently attempted to challenge the ruling that struck down all state laws restricting abortion, arguing changes in law and new scientific research make the prior decision "no longer just."

Commenting on a 2004 court ruling dismissing the challenge, Sarah Weddington said those who filed it "got publicity but the publicity actually has been very helpful for those of us who believe the government should not be involved."

After announcement of McCorvey's challenge, Weddington received about two dozen offers to help defend the Roe decision.

State closes Birmingham abortion clinic after investigation

An abortion clinic was shut down Thursday after the state suspended its license amid allegations that a worker administered an abortion-inducing drug and performed other medical treatment on the patient without a doctor.

According to state health officials, the woman was told she was only six weeks pregnant but delivered a nearly full-term stillborn infant.

An order from the State Board of Health called the violations by Summit Medical Center in Birmingham "egregious," and the state health officer, Dr. Donald Williamson, said the clinic might not reopen.

"We feel we need to move toward revoking their license," said Williamson.

Officials from the clinic did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Neither did a lawyer who has represented Summit in past cases.

Williamson said an order issued Wednesday suspending the clinic's license was the result of a six-week investigation into the treatment of a woman who went to Summit seeking an abortion on Feb. 20.

The patient, who was not identified in the suspension order, received an ultrasound examination from a clinic worker rather than a physician, as Williamson said is required by the law.

A staff member then gave the patient RU-486, an abortion-inducing drug, and follow-up medications that are supposed to be administered only by doctors, he said.

While the patient was told during the examination that she was only six weeks pregnant, she went to a hospital emergency room six days later and delivered a stillborn infant that weighed six pounds, four ounces, according to the order.

"It was nearly full term," said Williamson.

Once state health officials were notified, they found that Summit's records indicated that the ultrasound and medications were handled by a doctor, even though the physician was not present at the clinic that day, he said.

The state scheduled a public hearing for June 20 to determine whether Summit's license should be revoked.

State records show 11,370 abortions were performed in Alabama in 2004, the last year for which records are available. The state doesn't release records showing how many abortions are performed by individual women's clinics.

__________________

They should follow up and close all of them.

Parents offered termination for Down's babies
Growing number of pregnant women encouraged to have late-term abortions

Harrison's parents chose his name when he was a 35-week foetus - then they were offered a termination

Lisa Green could hardly wait to give birth to her second child. The images from her eight-month scans were showing a fully formed baby weighing more than 7lb. With the excitement and anticipation familiar to any expectant parent, she and her husband Tim had already chosen a name for their unborn son.

"Then the doctor said, 'I have some bad news - your baby has Down's syndrome'," recalls Mrs Green, 35, a part-time administrator from Margate, in Kent.

After a complicated pregnancy, during which the doctors had found that Mrs Green was carrying excess amniotic fluid, the couple had agreed that their baby could be tested for genetic conditions. "We were both in total shock, but this was considerably worsened when he said, 'You can have a termination.' I was 35 weeks' pregnant at this stage. My baby was fully formed and his name was decided. I was appalled.

"He urged us to think about the termination and think about how having a baby with 'mental retardation' would affect our lives. He listed only the potential negatives about Down's syndrome, without giving us any information to read for a more balanced view. The midwife tried to interject and offer us some leaflets, but he talked her down."

Mrs Green decided to go ahead with the pregnancy and, two weeks later, gave birth to Harrison - a little brother for their first child, Sam, who is now five. Harrison Green is now two years old and has just started nursery part-time. He is, according to his mother, a "happy and healthy" child.

But thousands of other unborn children diagnosed with Down's suffer a different fate. According to new research by the Down's Syndrome Association, Mrs Green is not alone in her experience.

Many pregnant women whose babies are diagnosed with the condition by an NHS screening programme are being actively encouraged to have late abortions. Since its launch in 2003, the screening service has been offered to all 760,000 women who fall pregnant in the UK every year, at an estimated cost to the NHS of £15,300 per Down's syndrome pregnancy detected.

Sixty-two per cent of all Down's syndrome cases are now diagnosed while still in the womb and 92 per cent of those affected choose to abort.

When the programme was launched, there were fears that it would be used to "weed out" less than perfect babies, with parents pressured into having abortions.

Babies with the syndrome have an extra chromosome and the disorder is associated with learning difficulty, heart problems and a susceptibility to leukaemia. Earlier this month, similar concerns arose over the screening of babies with genetic mutations, when the Government's IVF watchdog approved embryo selection to avoid babies being born with an inherited risk of breast cancer or a form of bowel cancer.

Those fears now appear to have become a disturbing reality. Nuala Scarisbrick, a trustee of Life, the pro-life organisation, said that the offer of late terminations for Down's babies was a case of "overt eugenics". She added: "There are human rights for everybody unless you are disabled in some way, it seems."

In recent years, advances in medical screening and the associated rise in the number of terminations (about 185,000 are performed every year in the UK) have led to a number of critics condemning the rising tide of "abortion on demand".

Under the law, abortions after 24 weeks are meant to be carried out only in cases of serious handicap. The 1967 Abortion Act states that such action can take place after 24 weeks only if "there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped".

Crucially, there is no further definition of "seriously handicapped". Instead, the legislation relies on the discretion of parents and doctors - and it is not just children with Down's who are affected. Three years ago, Joanna Jepson, a Church curate born with a congenital jaw defect, unsuccessfully attempted to take West Mercia Police to court for their failure to investigate a late abortion on a foetus with a cleft palate.

Professor Charles Rodeck, the spokesman on foetal medicine and antenatal screening for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said that it was impossible to say this kind of thing never happened and that the law beyond 24 weeks was "a bit of a grey area". "Whether you regard [Down's] as a severe handicap is a matter of opinion, because there are milder degrees of Down's."

And, as the statistics show only too clearly, it happens more often than the casual observer might imagine. Overall, the incidence of Down's syndrome is rising, due largely to a doubling of the number of women having babies in their forties over the past decade. Abortions for the condition have reached record levels, with terminated pregnancies outstripping the number of infants born with the chromosomal abnormality.

The NHS National Down Syndrome Cytogenic Register shows that there were 657 live births and an estimated 937 abortions in 2004 - the highest number of terminations for the condition on record, representing a three-fold increase over the past 15 years.

Separate figures from the Department of Health reveal that these included 11 "late" abortions for Down's syndrome in 2004, which took place after the usual 24-week limit.

The problem, according to the Down's Syndrome Association, is that, while there have been substantial prenatal medical advances, there has not been an associated change in the minds of medical professionals about what life can be like for a disabled child.

"Some health professionals have outdated or prejudiced views about people with Down's syndrome, owing to a lack of training about the condition," said a spokesman, "so they are unable to provide a balanced view on what life would be like for the family of a child with the condition."

A Department of Health spokesman insisted that the screening programme aims to offer women "an informed choice" and added: "Training is under way to improve the technical knowledge, communication and counselling skills of staff."

But the association's survey of 900 families given a positive diagnosis for Down's syndrome concludes that mothers-to-be are embarking on antenatal tests without being given time or the balanced information to consider the full consequences if the test is positive.

Nor is the test itself foolproof. Initial pregnancy checks for Down's syndrome may include a nuchal fold test, which is a special scan of the baby's neck, and a test of the mother's blood to work out a "risk" level.

Women diagnosed with a greater than one in 250 chance of having a baby with Down's syndrome are told that they are "high risk" and recommended an amniocentesis, which uses a needle to draw fluid from the womb. But five per cent of these high-risk women are actually "false positives", carrying a healthy baby who does not have the condition. A further one per cent will miscarry because of the test.

Mr Prakash Belgaumkar, the obstetrician who treated Mrs Green, said that although he could not remember the specifics of the case, "in general, if someone has a severe chromosomal abnormality, involving life-long care with severe implications for her and her family, then a termination would be discussed.

"In these situations, some feel if they had been told more about Down's they would have gone and had a termination, and some people, if you give a lot of information, feel 'I am being pushed into having a termination'," he said. "The law says if there is significant abnormality affecting the baby's mental or physical ability then we are right to offer [a termination] and that is legal."

Although children with Down's syndrome who also have an untreated heart condition are unlikely to survive into their teens, a child with no other health problems can expect to live up to the age of 60. Many children with the condition can, like Harrison, lead happy and fulfilled lives.

"We don't know what we'd do without him - he's so adored," says Mrs Green. "The frightening thing is that, had we been told by the same doctor about the Down's syndrome earlier in the pregnancy, there is a chance we might have decided to abort. That decision would have been based on incomplete and biased information."

But by the time of diagnosis, the Greens already knew that their feelings about their son were unconditional. In the end, the couple decided to act on biased information of their own: love.

______________________________

This is truly sad. Some of the sweetest most productive people I have ever met are those with Downs Syndrome.

Planned Parenthood fights order in fraud probe
Pro-life group's undercover work leads to state investigation

Planned Parenthood is on the defensive in Indiana after a pro-life group's undercover work led to a state fraud investigation and a judge's decision ordering the agency to turn over medical records for abortions done on girls under the age of 14.

Mark Crutcher, author of a new handbook that aims to re-energize and equip the pro-life movement, sparked the Indiana probe and others like it across the nation with a well-documented survey revealing virtually all Planned Parenthood affiliates fail to report clear cases of statutory rape to authorities.

Girls under age 14 are presumed to be victims of rape, but Planned Parenthood argues that compliance with the underage reporting law would breach the doctor-patient confidentiality agreement.

Nevertheless, Crutcher, president of Texas-based Life Dynamics, insists Planned Parenthood understands the law, noting his group has a tape recording of the abortion provider's top two national attorneys admitting that child-abuse reporting laws override confidentiality requirements in every state.

Planned Parenthood is preparing an appeal of the May 30 ruling by Judge Kenneth H. Johnson of Marion Superior Court, who said in his 23-page decision, "The great public interest in the reporting, investigation and prosecution of child abuse trumps even the patient's interest in privileged communication with her physician, because in the end, both the patient and the state are benefited by the disclosure."

Betty Cockrum, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, told the New York Times she's fighting the ruling to protect the 100,000 patients who went to the 40 Indiana health centers last year.

"It's surprising and disappointing," Cockrum said. "Patients beyond Planned Parenthood's are looking at this decision with some anxiety. People believe their medical records are sacred."

A similar case is pending in Kansas before the state Supreme Court.

In addition to the Planned Parenthood probe, Crutcher's Life Dynamics brought about the 1999 congressional hearings on the sale of aborted baby parts. His unique 1996 book, "Lime 5: Exploited by Choice," documented that women are being sexually assaulted, mutilated and killed inside legal abortion clinics in numbers never before been made public.

Staying on message

In his latest book, "On Message: Understanding and Communicating the Pro-Life Position," Crutcher provides succinct responses to 90 arguments commonly posed by abortion-rights activists.

He believes the handbook comes at a time of unprecedented opportunity for the pro-life cause.

But Crutcher contends that since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 overturning all state laws banning abortion, the movement has strayed from the simple message that life begins at conception and, therefore, must be protected from that moment.

"If you go back to the early years of the movement, the message was, 'We must stop abortion, period,'" Crutcher explained in a WorldNetDaily interview. "But over that period, we've drifted, we've compromised, allowing abortion for this reason or that reason."

He contends there is no such position as "pro-life with exceptions."

In his introduction, he asserts the "exceptions" arguments can be exposed as fraudulent by simply paraphrasing them -- such as in the case of rape, saying, "I am pro-life, but I think it should be legal to butcher babies who were conceived in rape."

The arguments in the book, presented in an easy-to-read format, are vital, Crutcher believes, because the pro-life struggle is a grass-roots campaign that will be won by people talking to their co-workers, relatives, friends and neighbors.

"We've got to stay on our message, the fundamental pro-life view," he said. "I've just seen so many instances where people who call themselves pro-life are so far away from the pro-life position that it means nothing."

One reason he wrote the book is because of a new generation of activists.

"We have all these polls showing we have an enormous influx of young people coming into the pro-life movement," he said. "It's incumbent on those of us who have been around for a while to educate these people."

But the book has been helpful even to pro-life advocates active for many years.

A 20-year veteran of the movement, noted Crutcher, said she got the book for her daughter but decided to read it first to make sure it contained nothing inappropriate for young people.

The woman didn't anticipate learning anything, he said, but after reading it, commented, "I was astonished at what I didn't know, and I was astonished to see what were very simple no-nonsense answers to questions."

Topics include contraception, women's rights, "back-alley abortions," sex education, constitutional rights and overpopulation.

Media 'lockhold'

Crutcher believes the abortion-rights movement has been able to gain ground because of its "lockhold" on the American media.

"The mainstream media has been a giant newsletter for the pro-abortion lobby," he said.

But Crutcher also belives pro-lifers have been misguided in their strategies.

"People have said erroneously, if we can soften the pro-life edge a little bit, we'll make it more palitable," he explained. "But all you've done is confuse people."

The genius of the pro-abortion movement, he says, is they have been unwilling to compromise.

"If a state proposes the most innocuous, meaningless restriction on abortion, these people fight it like it's a complete ban," Crutcher said.

In contrast, the pro-life side has been willing to compromise by allowing exceptions, such as the health of the mother and fetal deformity.

"In the process, what we did was confuse the American people," said Crutcher. "If we had stuck to our guns, to say absolutely no abortion during the nine months of pregnancy, I think we would have won this a long time ago."

When the American people are given too many different options, he added, they "look at it and say, that's too complicated and don't make a decision."

"The irony," Crutcher continued, "is that it's been pro-lifers who are most willing to compromise, but when you take a poll of the American people, asking which side seems to be the most intractable, the vast majority would say us, despite the fact that we are the ones to compromise.

The incremental approach, he maintains, has "cost us enormously."

"We started over 30 years ago to return legal protection to unborn children," he said. "But after an enormous amount of money, unimaginable man hours, going to jail, divorces, we have not returned legal protection to one baby in one state yet."

Crutcher said some pro-lifer leaders are promoting his new book to their own people, who find the responses to be compelling ways to articulate their beliefs.

"I honestly think I completely blow [the opposition] out of the water," Crutcher declared.

For example, he said, abortion-rights advocates argue abortion is necessary to curb many social problems brought about by parents who believe they're unable to cope with having a child.

"But every one of these social problems got worse when abortion was made legal," he said, noting government statistics show child abuse up ten-fold in recent years.

Crutcher also argues it's a fallacy that abortion serves the interest of women.

"If you look at history of feminism in America, abortion serves the interest of predatory men," he said, pointing out the highest percentage of support that comes from males.

Looking to the future, Crutcher said it's a misconception that simply overturning Roe v. Wade would end abortion.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "All it will do is send it back to the states, many of which have codified Roe in their constitutions."

However, it would be a substantial victory for the pro-life movement if the justices overturned Roe because the case doesn't recognize the unborn child as a human being, Crutcher said.

"What we have to keep ultimately striving for is the biological reality that life begins at conception. Any other point is strictly abitrary."

Louisiana Senate Cmte Backs Bill Telling Women of Baby's Abortion Pain

A Louisiana state Senate committee has approved legislation requiring abortion facilities to tell women considering an abortion later in pregnancy that it will likely cause severe pain for the baby. The measure now heads to the full state Senate for debate and a vote.

The legislation also allows women considering an abortion to ask the abortion practitioner to provide the baby with anesthesia before the abortion to lessen the pain.

The committee approved it on a 3-2 vote and Senators Sherry Cheek, a Republican, and Diana Bajoie, a Democrat voted against the bill. Sens. Nick Gautreaux and Joe McPherson, both Democrats, and Tom Schedler, a Republican, backed it.

Representative A.G. Crowe is the main sponsor of the bill, HB 1382, and he hopes it will also have the effect of persuading some women to reconsider their decision to have an abortion.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood of Louisiana and the ACLU appeared during the committee hearing to oppose the legislation. J. Michael Malec, an ACLU lobbyist, claimed there is no scientific proof that babies can experience pain during an abortion.

The bill is based on expert findings that babies feel intense pain during the abortion.

Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center says he and other specialists in development of unborn children have shown that babies feel pain before birth as early as 20 weeks into the pregnancy.

Anand has said other medical studies conclude that unborn babies are "very likely" to be "extremely sensitive to pain during the gestation of 20 to 30 weeks."

Malec claimed the measure would be an intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship. "To tell doctors what to tell their patients is not reasonable, and it's not the function of the Legislature," he said, according to an AP report.

But, during the House hearing previously, Dorinda Bordlee, a New Orleans-based pro-life attorney cited Supreme Court rulings saying the law was allowable because "You, as the Legislature, have the right to encourage childbirth over abortion."

An April 2004 Zogby poll shows that 77% of Americans back "laws requiring that women who are 20 weeks or more along in their pregnancy be given information about fetal pain before having an abortion."

Only 16 percent disagreed with such a proposal, according to the poll.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco Signs State Abortion Ban Into Law

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, signed into law on Saturday a new statewide ban on abortions. The law prohibits all abortions except those necessary to save the mother's life and would not take effect until the Supreme Court overturns its decision in Roe v. Wade allowing virtually all abortions.

The measure would also become effective if a federal constitutional amendment is adopted that allows states to ban abortions.

“The central provision of the bill supports and reflects my personal beliefs,” she said in a statement, even though she would have preferred to have abortions legal in the case of rape or incest. Lawmakers twice rejected amendments to do so.

Blanco cited “overwhelming” bipartisan support for the measure in the state legislature.

The House approved the measure on a 85-17 vote and rejected rape and incest exceptions by a 67-36 margin. The Senate originally signed off on the bill with a 31-6 vote and defeated the extra exceptions on a 20-17 vote.

Planned Parenthood of Louisiana issued a statement saying the new law "endangers women's health by criminalizing abortion at a time when the state is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and scrambling to prepare for the start of the new hurricane season."

The Louisiana abortion ban is different from a South Dakota ban that seeks to prohibit abortions now and is considered an attack on Roe.

Dorinda Bordlee, a long-time pro-life attorney in Louisiana and vice president of the Bioethics Defense Fund, told LifeNews.com other states should follow Louisiana's lead.

"Our approach to include a post-Roe activation clause, sometimes called a trigger clause, enabled the legislators to speak their hearts without abortion industry lawyer's breathing down their backs," Bordlee explained.

"It allowed post-abortive women to educate the legislators about how abortion negatively impacted their lives in profound ways," Bordlee added. "Other states that choose to follow Louisiana's lead will help build a consensus to reverse Roe."

Under the measure, an abortion practitioner who does an abortion would be fined from $10-100,000 and receive anywhere from one to 10 years in prison.

Lawmakers approved an abortion ban in 1991 that did have rape and incest exceptions in it and was eventually vetoed by then Gov. Buddy Roemer. Federal courts declared it unconstitutional in 1992.

The measure is SB 33, the Human Life Protection Act.

Supreme Court to Expand Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Review

Lifesite News

The Supreme Court is set to revisit a second Bush Administration appeal that seeks to reinstate a ban on partial birth abortion, reports the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

The ACLJ, which specializes in constitutional law, said it is pleased the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case, which involves the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion.

“The Supreme Court took a significant step today that clearly puts the issue of partial-birth abortion front-and-center,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which litigates pro-life issues. “By taking a second case involving the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion, the Supreme Court puts the spotlight on one of the most horrific medical procedures in existence today. The high court not only will determine whether Congress acted appropriately in enacting the ban, but the high court also has a critical opportunity to bring to an end – once and for all – the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. Taking a second case clearly elevates one of the most culturally significant issues of our time. The stakes are high and we are very pleased that the Supreme Court now has two opportunities to abolish what can only be described as infanticide.”

In 2000, five justices of the Supreme Court, including retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, ruled that the abortion right originally created in Roe v. Wade allows an abortionist to perform a partial-birth abortion any time he sees a ‘health’ benefit, even if the woman and her unborn baby are entirely healthy. (Stenberg v. Carhart, June 28, 2000). This ruling struck down the ban on partial-birth abortion that had been enacted by Nebraska, and rendered unenforceable the similar bans that more than half the states had enacted.

Nevertheless, in 2003 Congress approved and President Bush signed a national law, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. When he signed the ban, the President called partial-birth abortion “a terrible form of violence [that] has been directed against children who are inches from birth.”

The federal law has faced legal challenges in three different federal circuits, and its enforcement has been blocked by court orders. Federal district courts in all three circuits ruled that the federal law violated the 2000 Supreme Court ruling. In all three cases the adverse judgments were affirmed by the appellate courts.

The ACLJ has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court representing 78 members of Congress and more than 320,000 Americans asking the high court to uphold the constitutionality of the national ban on partial-birth abortion in a case out of Nebraska.

It probably isn’t too suprising that we agree with the ACLJ. Of course, the ACLU have a different point of view.

S.D. Voters to Decide Fate of Abortion Ban
S.D. Voters Will Decide Fate of Abortion Ban; Opponents Get Enough Names to Put It on Ballot
By CHET BROKAW
The Associated Press

PIERRE, S.D. - Voters will have the final say on South Dakota's tough new law that bans almost all abortions.

Secretary of State Chris Nelson said Monday that the law's opponents had collected enough signatures to put a question on the Nov. 7 ballot asking voters if the law should go into effect as planned or be dumped.

The state's abortion law, among the strictest in the nation, bans the procedure in all cases except when necessary to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Supporters hoped it would prompt a court challenge that would give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn its 1973 Roe. v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Instead of challenging it in court, opponents, who argue the law is too extreme, gathered enough petition signatures to put the question directly to voters.

A coalition of groups opposed to the law turned in about 38,000 petition signatures on May 30 to put the question on the ballot. The secretary of state's office determined that the petitions contained at least the 16,728 that were required.

The Legislature passed the measure and the governor signed it in March. It was scheduled to take effect July 1 but is now on hold pending the outcome of the public vote.

Both sides pledged Monday to conduct all-out campaigns on the issue.

Leslee Unruh, one of the main promoters of the new law, said the campaign to preserve the ban will seek to convince voters that abortion must be stopped because it harms both unborn babies and the women who have abortions.

"It's probably the loudest cry we've heard," said Unruh, who runs a center that counsels women considering an abortion. "It's because there are so many women who have been harmed by abortion, myself being one of them, who have come together."

Jan Nicolay, a former state lawmaker who led the effort to refer the ban to a statewide vote, said the issue should remain about South Dakota.

"It's no slam dunk. We've got a lot of work ahead of us," Nicolay said. "We'll give it all we've got, I can tell you that."

S.D. Voters to Decide Fate of Abortion Ban (http://www.worthynews.com/news/abcnews-go-com-US-print-id-2094000/)

Boycott brewing after store owner refuses to stock morning-after pill

By The Associated Press

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Activists are planning a monthlong boycott of two grocery stores here after the owners said they won't stock morning-after contraceptive pills.

The controversy may affect business at the two popular Thriftway stores owned by Stormans Inc., but that won't change the policy, co-owner Kevin Stormans said.

"We've made our decision, and it's what we have determined. We're not going to change our position based on what happens. It's not a negotiable issue," he told The Olympian newspaper in Wednesday's editions.

More than a dozen activists, who held a planning session this week, said they hope to launch a boycott of Stormans' two Thriftway stores in July.

"This is a very liberal community," Olympia resident Janet Blanding said. "I think enough people care enough about women's rights to boycott a store that is doing something like this."

The flap comes as the state Board of Pharmacy considers a rule that would allow druggists to refuse to fill prescriptions because of their personal objections.

The state pharmacy association favors that stance, but some women's rights groups and Gov. Chris Gregoire are opposed.

Both debates center on morning-after contraceptives, a high dose of regular birth control pills that dramatically cut the chances of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Some opponents feel the drug's interference with a potential or imminent pregnancy comes too close to abortion.

"I don't want to get into a detailed debate," Stormans told The Olympian. "I just think people have to choose when they believe life begins. There are questions about this drug on that issue."

Under state law, a pharmacy must maintain a representative assortment of drugs in order to meet the pharmaceutical needs of its patients — but the only drug pharmacies are required to stock is ipecac syrup, to treat accidental poisoning.

"No pharmacy will ever carry every drug," said Steve Saxe, the Pharmacy Board's director.

Blanding said she plans to file a complaint with the board about the Stormans' policy. Saxe said was not aware of any similar complaints.

The local chapter of the National Organization for Women is supporting the planned boycott. "I think we will see hundreds of people and have quite an impact," said Linda Malanchuk-Finnan, the chapter's president.

The state Pharmacy Board's draft rule on refusing prescriptions is set for a final vote at the end of August. Gregoire has warned the board to change course, saying its members could be overruled or replaced if they do not heed her wishes.

Planned Parenthood Celebration Jolted by Abortion Survivor

She sings the anthem to applause, then her secret is revealed to stunned silence.

I want to share with you an awesome experience I had in the Colorado House of Representatives on May 8. It is a humbling experience to look back and realize that God used me to play a role in His divine orchestration.

I was leaving the House chambers for the weekend when our Democrat speaker of the House announced that the coming Monday would be the final day of this year's General Assembly. He went on to state that there were still numerous resolutions on the calendar which we would need to be addressed prior to the summer adjournment. Interestingly, he specifically mentioned that one of the resolutions we would be hearing was being carried by the House Majority Leader Alice Madden, honoring the 90th anniversary of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

As a strong pro-life legislator I was disgusted by the idea that we would pass a resolution honoring this 90-year legacy of genocide. I drove home that night wondering what I could say that might pierce the darkness during the debate on this heinous resolution.

On Saturday morning, I took my 8-year-old son up to the mountains to go white-water rafting. The trip lasted all day. As we were driving home, exhausted and hungry, I remembered that I had accepted an invitation to attend a fundraising dinner that night for a local pro-life organization. One of my most respected mentors had personally called me several weeks earlier and asked me to attend, so I knew I'd have to clean up and head over.

After our meal, the executive director of the organization introduced the keynote speaker. I looked up and saw walking to the stage a handicapped young lady being assisted to the microphone by a young man holding a guitar.

Her name was Gianna Jessen.

Gianna said "Hello," welcomed everyone, and then sang three of the most beautiful Christian songs I have ever heard.

She then began to give her testimony. When her biological mother was 17 years old and seven and a half months pregnant, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to have an abortion. As God would have it, the abortion failed and a beautiful 2-pound baby girl was brought into the world. Unfortunately, she was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors thought that she would never survive. The doctors were wrong.

Imagine the timing! A survivor of a Planned Parenthood abortion arrived in town just days before the Colorado House of Representatives was to celebrate Planned Parenthood's "wonderful" work.

As I listened to Gianna's amazing testimony, the Lord inspired me to ask her if she could stay in Denver until Monday morning so that I could introduce her on the floor of the House and tell her story. Perhaps she could even begin the final day's session by singing our country's national anthem!

To my surprise she said she would seriously consider it. If she were to agree, she wanted her accompanying guitarist to stay as well. A lady standing in line behind me waiting to meet Gianna overheard our conversation and said that she would be willing to pay for the guitarist's room. Gianna then said that she would think about it.

As I was driving home from the banquet, my cell phone rang. It was Gianna, and she immediately said, "I'm in, let's ruin this celebration." Praise God!

When Monday morning came, I awoke at 6 a.m. to write my speech before heading to the Capitol. As I wrote down the words, I could sense God's help and I knew that this was going to be a powerful moment for the pro-life movement.

Following a committee hearing, I rushed into the House chambers just as the opening morning prayer was about to be given. Between the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, I wrote a quick note to the speaker of the House explaining that Gianna is an advocate for cerebral palsy. I took the note to the speaker and asked if I could have my friend open the last day of session by singing the national anthem. Without any hesitation the speaker took the microphone and said, "Before we begin, Representative Harvey has made available for us Gianna Jessen to sing the national anthem."

Gianna sang the most amazing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner that you could possibly imagine. Every person in the entire chamber was completely still, quiet and in awe of this frail young lady's voice.

Due to her cerebral palsy, Gianna often loses her balance, and shortly after starting to sing she grabbed my arm to stabilize herself, and I could tell that she was shaking. Suddenly, midway through the song, she forgot the words and began to hum and then said, "Please forgive me; I am so nervous." She then immediately began singing again and every House member and every guest throughout the chambers began to sing along with her to give her encouragement and to lift her up.

As I looked around the huge hall I listened to the unbelievable melody of Gianna's voice being accompanied by a choir of over 100 voices. I had chills running all over my body, and I knew that I had just witnessed an act of God.

As the song concluded the speaker of the House explained that Gianna has cerebral palsy and is an activist to bring awareness to the disease. "Let us give her a hand not only for her performance today, but also for her advocacy work," he said. The chamber immediately exploded into applause -- she had them all in the palm of her hand.

The speaker then called the House to order, and we proceeded as usual to allow members to make any announcements or introductions of guests. For dramatic effect, I waited until I was the last person remaining before I introduced Gianna.

As I waited for my turn, I nervously paced back and forth praying to God that he would give me the peace, confidence and the courage necessary to pull off what I knew would be one of the most dramatic and controversial moments of my political career.

While I waited, a prominent reporter from one of the major Denver newspapers walked over to Gianna and told her that her rendition captured the spirit of the national anthem more powerfully than any she had ever heard before.

Finally, I was the last person remaining. So, I proceeded to the microphone and began my speech.

Members, I would like to introduce you to a new friend and hero of mine -- her name is Gianna Jessen. She is visiting us today from Nashville, Tennessee, where she is an accomplished recording artist.

She has cerebral palsy and was raised in foster homes before being adopted at the age of four.

cont'd

She was born prematurely and weighed only 2 pounds at birth. She remained in the hospital for almost three months. A doctor once said she had a great will to live and that she fought for her life. Eventually she was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care.

Because of her cerebral palsy, her foster mother was told that it was doubtful that she would ever crawl or walk. She could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of her foster mother, she eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. Shortly before her fourth birthday, she began to walk with leg braces and a walker.

She continued in physical therapy and after a total of four surgeries, she was able to walk without assistance.

She still falls sometimes, but she says she has learned how to fall gracefully after falling for 29 years.

Two years ago, she walked into a local health club and said she wanted a private trainer. At the time her legs could not lift 30 pounds. Today she can leg press 200 pounds.

She became so physically fit that she began running marathons to raise money and awareness for cerebral palsy. She just returned last week from England where she ran in the London Marathon. It took her more than eight-and-a-half hours to complete. They were taking down the course by the time she made it to the finish line. But she made it, nonetheless. With bloody feet and aching joints, she finished the race.

Members would you help me recognize a modern-day hero -- Gianna Jessen?

At this point the chamber exploded into applause which lasted for 15-to-20 seconds. Gianna had touched their souls.

Ironically, Alice Madden, the majority leader and sponsor of the Planned Parenthood resolution, walked over to Gianna and congratulated her.

As the applause began to die down, I raised my hand to be recognized one more time.

Mr. Speaker, members, if you would allow me just a few more moments I would appreciate your time.

My name is Ted Harvey, not Paul Harvey, but, please, let me tell you the rest of the story.

The cause of Gianna's cerebral palsy is not because of some biological freak of nature, but rather the choice of her mother.

You see when her biological mother was 17-years-old and 7-and-a-half months pregnant, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to seek a late-term abortion. The abortionist performed a saline abortion on this 17-year-old girl. This procedure requires the injection of a high concentration of saline into the mother's womb, which the fetus is then bathed in and swallows, which results in the fetus being burned to death, inside and out. Within 24 hours the results are normally an induced, still-born abortion.

As Gianna can testify, the procedure is not always 100 percent effective. Gianna is an aborted late-term fetus who was born alive. The high concentration of saline in the womb for 24 hours resulted in a lack of oxygen to her brain and is the cause of her cerebral palsy.

Members, today, we are going to recognize the 90th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood…"

BANG! The gavel came down.

Just as I was finishing the last sentence of my speech -- the climax of the morning -- the speaker of the House gaveled me down and said, "Representative Harvey, I will allow you to continue your introduction, but not for the purposes of debating a measure now pending before the House."

At which point I said, "Mr. Speaker, I understand. I just wanted to put a face to what we are celebrating today."

Silence.

Deafening silence.

I then walked back to my chair shaking like a leaf. The Democrats wouldn't look at me. They were fuming. It was beautiful. I have been in the Legislature for five tough years, and this made it all worthwhile.

The House majority leader wouldn't talk to me the rest of the day.

Was it because I introduced an abortion survivor, or was it because we touched her soul? She could congratulate an inspirational cerebral palsy victim and advocate, but was outraged when she discovered that the person she congratulated was also an abortion survivor.

The headline in The Denver Post the next day read "Abortion Jab Earns Rebuke." The majority leader is quoted as saying, "I think it was amazingly rude to use a human being as an example of his personal politics."

Yes, Representative Madden, Gianna Jessen is a human being. She was when she was in her mother's womb, and she was when she sang the national anthem on the floor of the Colorado House of Representatives.

The paper went on to quote Gianna, stating she was glad I told her story.

"We need to discuss the humanity of it. I'm glad to be able to speak up for children in the womb," she said. "If abortion is about women's rights, where were my rights?"

All I can say is, "Glory to God!" He orchestrated it all, every minute of it, and I was so honored to have been chosen to play a part. May we all continue to be filled with and to fight for the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ!

_______________

AMEN!

Abortion foes focus on fall elections

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Anti-abortion activists who have been a big part of the Republican coalition in recent years are working to ensure that President Bush's sagging popularity won't harm re-election prospects for incumbents who've supported their cause.

The activists also are nervous about whether a far-reaching South Dakota law banning almost all abortions could withstand a legal challenge.

Against this setting, leaders of the National Right to Life Committee acknowledged Friday that several congressional races will be tough, with the possibility that discontent with Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress will result in losses in November and a setback for the movement.

"It's going to be a difficult year," said Karen Cross, political director for the group, which is holding its annual, three-day meeting in Nashville. "We're going to try to protect our pro-life incumbents and win open seats and defeat pro-abortion candidates or incumbents."

The group is considered the nation's largest anti-abortion organization with affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters.

Many in attendance were encouraged by the South Dakota law, which bans abortion in all cases except when necessary to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Voters in the state will decide on Nov. 7 if the law should go into effect; opponents recently collected enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

But anti-abortion activists expressed concern about whether it could survive a legal challenge before the Supreme Court.

"The effort there is premature at this point," said Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life. "We know for sure we don't have enough justices to overturn Roe at this point. We feel that any effort to try to prematurely pass legislation that might go before the court is misplaced at this point because we know it will be overturned.

"We want to have the court in place before we have legislation going up there. We want the best possible outcome," she said.

The activists were heartened by Bush's appointment of conservative justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, seeing them as two votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling legalizing abortion.

The activists credit Bush with doing all he can to reshape the federal courts with anti-abortion rights judges. "We think Bush has been a phenomenal pro-life president," Franz said.

Bush spoke to the convention Friday by recorded video message, praising the group's work to ban abortion and citing his own efforts to outlaw what critics call partial-birth abortion.

"Human life is the gift of creation, and it deserves protection at all its stages," Bush said.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said she expects abortion to be a critical issue in the midterm elections and that a backlash against Republicans could endanger anti-abortion candidates.

"We are confident that America's pro-choice majority will go to the polls in November to elect candidates who share their mainstream values," she said.

Operation Rescue buys abortion clinic
Gruesome discoveries after evicting renter, facility now pro-lifers' HQ

The pro-life Operation Rescue shut down an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kan., by purchasing the building that housed it and turning the facility into new headquarters and a "memorial to the pre-born."

The move began when Operation Rescue learned in late April that Central Women's Services was months behind on its rental payments and that the property was for sale.

The pro-life group quickly made an offer on the building through a third party, stipulating in the contract that the current tenant not be retained.

Later, Operation Rescue learned Central Women's Services had come up with the back rent after the building had entered escrow and had asked to continue the rental agreement under the new owner.

Under the new contract, however, the abortion clinic was forced to close.

"We have no doubt that if we had not moved quickly to buy that building, this abortion mill would still be in operation today," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

The clinic had operated under a variety of names since opening in 1983, aborting an estimated 50,000 babies. It drew attention in 1991, when a demonstration there led by Operation Rescue resulted in the arrests of 80 pastors.

Operation Rescue relocated its offices from Southern California to Wichita in 2002 and launched an effort to expose the abortion industry in Kansas. The group says its efforts have resulted in a 16 percent drop in abortions in the state.

Operation Rescue believes the decrease in abortions contributed to Central Women's Services financial difficulties.

"Any company that loses 16 percent of their business is going to be hurting," said Newman.

The group previously bought an empty lot next to the clinic where it placed a large billboard warning women of the dangers of abortion. Since the clinic's closure, the lot has been donated to a crisis pregnancy center called A Better Choice.

"God accomplishes his work through the obedient lives of his people. We believe that God brought us to Wichita to stop abortion, and that closing this mill and reclaiming it for Christ was part of his plan for us," said Newman. "We are humbled and thankful that he chose to use us in this way."

Operation Rescue staff member Cheryl Sullenger had an opportunity to see the abortion clinic in May before it closed, during a yard sale of office supplies and equipment. She described it as dingy, cramped and dirty.

After the abortion business moved out, Sullenger got a closer look.

"There was mold, and general filth," she said. "The carpets outside the abortion rooms were stained with blood, even though it was evident that some effort had been made to clean them. The ceiling nearby was broken. All of the walls were dirty and some were covered with cheap contact paper instead of being properly maintained."

Newman, Sullenger and Jeff White, who helped Operation Rescue obtain the property, discovered a small closet between the clinic's two "procedure" rooms. The closet had a sink surrounded by gallon bottles of bleach and drain cleaner.

"Under the sink was one of the biggest garbage disposals I have ever seen," said Newman. "The entire area had the stench of death. It was the sink where the suction machine bottles were washed. In fact, dried blood could be seen that had seeped out from the metal band that surrounded the sink top. There was a bucket marked 'biohazard' next to the sink.

"We were all sickened by the thought of all those thousands of innocent children whose blood had been washed down that sink. It was an experience I will never forget."

Norma McCorvey, the "Roe" of Roe v. Wade who once ran abortion clinics but now is a pro-life activist, confirmed it once was common practice to put aborted baby remains down such disposals.

"Oh, yes!" she told Newman in a phone call. "And you can't pour enough bleach down that drain to get rid of the smell."

Operation Rescue said it has no doubt Central Women's Services once disposed of the babies this way. More recently, as the group discovered last year, the clinic packaged and delivered the remains by courier to Engineered Recovery Systems in Newton, Kan., where they were "processed" and dumped in a landfill near Kansas City.

Sullenger said that after she walked through the clinic with the realtor in May, she was approached by a woman seeking an abortion. Sullenger gave the young woman a tour of the clinic, which, along with a discussion of the "blessings of children," persuaded her to change her mind.

Operation Rescue's plans for the building include a "memorial to the pre-born" and a chapel along with the group's corporate offices.

"We want this building to be a testament to the redemptive power of Jesus Christ," Newman said. "If Jesus can redeem a building, he can redeem lives and heal hurting hearts."

The group says it now plans to focus attention on exposing the work of abortion-provider George Tiller and his Women's Health Care Services in Wichita.

Tiller is under investigation by a grand jury in the third-trimester abortion death of 19-year-old Christin Gilbert.

Clinics promoting birth not abortion get more state funds

The trappings of motherhood greet women who walk into North Side Life Care Center for free pregnancy tests: Hospital photographs of blinking newborns, a cute mural of Noah's Ark, shelves filled with pastel onesies and other baby clothes.

Starting Saturday, the center and 36 other groups that steer pregnant women away from abortion will get a combined $4.75 million from the state over two years. Lawmakers and Gov. Tim Pawlenty approved the "Positive Alternatives Act" last year at the urging of abortion foes.

At North Side, located in a former dentist's office, a $129,180 grant will help expand prenatal care and other services - including free ultrasounds, infant formula and car seats - to more expectant mothers. The staff here are on a mission to persuade low-income pregnant women from north Minneapolis and nearby suburbs to have babies, not abortions.

"We know that abortion kills babies, but it also hurts women," said Cindy Lorsung, the center's executive director. "I know that women suffer and I don't think they need to suffer."

The grants can't go to groups that provide abortions or refer women to others for abortions, but they can mention abortion among the list of options. North Side clients get a Minnesota Department of Health brochure showing images of fetuses from two weeks to birth, describing abortion procedures and their risks, and warning of "emptiness and guilt" after an abortion.

Groups that provide family planning services including abortion still get more money from the state -- some $3.7 million a year, with nearly half of that to Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. But family planning funds are slated to drop to $1.8 million a year starting next summer.

The newest grants will make services such as free ultrasounds and parenting classes available in more communities across Minnesota and help expand services for Hispanic and Hmong women, said Mary Bochek, who coordinates the program at the Health Department.

Cradle of Hope, a Roseville-based group that provides cribs to pregnant women statewide, got the biggest amount -- $285,000. That more than doubled its budget, enough to help cover three or four new outstate locations to process crib applications and more housing assistance, said program director Kathy Rosenthal.

"It's a big help," Rosenthal said. "We're thrilled to reach out to more women."

Some 13,788 abortions were performed in Minnesota in 2004. The Health Department is due to release 2005 numbers Friday.

A handful of Positive Alternatives grantees don't oppose abortion. Face to Face Health and Counseling Service in St. Paul doesn't take a position; it gives teenage and young adult clients information on abortion along with other options, said Dana Hays, director of public funding. The group will use its $145,215 grant to provide pregnancy support services.

Abortion rights supporters criticize crisis pregnancy centers for not discussing all the options for pregnant women, including abortion and contraception. Women may assume centers offering ultrasounds and other medical tests are full-fledged medical clinics, but most aren't, said Connie Perpich of Planned Parenthood.

"These are organizations that don't provide women with all the necessary medical information to make their own informed medical choices," said Perpich, the group's senior director of legislative affairs.

Lorsung describes it differently. North Side's staff recommend sexual abstinence for unwed women and, for married couples, timing intercourse during the least fertile parts of a woman's menstrual cycle to avoid pregnancy. But they also give out brochures on various forms of birth control, she said.

Medical services are provided by midwives and nurses from Fairview Riverside Women's Clinic.

Lorsung said she spends a lot of time listening to women about their situations and finding out how much support they have. Sometimes the promise of some assistance -- medical care, a crib, a partial supply of diapers -- is enough to help a woman decide to have her baby, she said.

"I don't think one thing changes their mind. It's the whole package -- that we care about your baby but we also care about you," said Lorsung, whose glasses and short brown hair give her a librarian look. "It's helping you plan your life."

Some women come for the free secondhand toys and maternity and children's clothing.

Camisha Terry didn't use North Side's prenatal services, but she drops by when the seasons change to get clothes for her daughters, 2-year-old Amari and 3-year-old Philisha.

Terry, a slim 30-year-old from Minneapolis, dug through a plastic laundry basket of children's shoes earlier this week looking for sandals. She got a stack of diapers. Meanwhile, Amari nabbed a plastic dog on a string, while Philisha clutched a Buzz Lightyear figure and a clear bag full of brightly colored dishes.

"She had one Pamper left, and I said, 'Let me call North Side and see,"' said Terry, a single mother who said she's looking for a job, an apartment and daycare. "They don't put you down. They just ask you what you need and make sure you have everything."

The state grant is a big increase in North Side's annual $100,000 budget. Last year, the organization guided 73 women through pregnancy and birth at University of Minnesota Medical Center Fairview and logged 1,800 client visits. Lorsung said those numbers are going up.

Pro-lifers against Buffett-Gates alliance

Warren Buffett's new philanthropic alliance with fellow billionaire Bill Gates won widespread praise this week, but anti-abortion activists did not join in, instead assailing the two donors for their longtime support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programs.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Buffett has pledged the bulk of his $44-billion fortune, devotes the vast majority of its funding to combating disease and poverty in developing countries. Less than 1 percent has gone to Planned Parenthood over the years.

"The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, a Roman Catholic priest who is president of Human Life International.

Referring to Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi death camp doctor, Euteneuer said Buffett "will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents."

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued statements praising Buffett and Gates for their generosity. Gloria Feldt, a former Planned Parenthood president, said she was appalled by the harsh attacks on them.

"What an outrage that these people have the gall to cast aspersions on other citizens for standing up for what they believe," Feldt said Thursday. "They have no right whatsoever to criticize people who put their money where their mouths are."

The foundation founded by Buffett, and now named after his late wife, Susan, came under fire from some anti-abortion groups in the 1990s after it gave $2 million to fund clinical trials of mifepristone, more commonly known as the RU-486 abortion pill. The foundation also has supported various abortion-rights and family-planning groups, and Susan Buffett was eulogized after her death in 2004 as a champion of women's reproductive health.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, wrote a commentary this week holding the Buffetts partially responsible for the approval of RU-486 in 2000.

"Since then, approximately 500,000 American babies have been killed with RU-486," Perkins wrote. "Buffett's billions have the potential to do damage like this on a global scale."

Staff at the Susan T. Buffett Foundation office in Omaha, Neb., said its executive director, Allen Greenberg, would have no comment on the criticisms.

The Gates Foundation also is a patron of reproductive-health programs, funding research on new contraceptive technologies and initiatives to improve access to birth control.

Planned Parenthood, which is the leading provider of abortions in the United States, has received $34 million from the Gates Foundation over the years - out of a total of $10.5 billion in grants worldwide, according to foundation spokeswoman Jacquelline Fuller. She said the foundation does not fund abortion services, earmarking the grants for other Planned Parenthood programs.

Joseph D'Agostino, a spokesman for the anti-abortion Population Research Institute, said the foundation position "is simply dishonest."

"Abortion services are the primary mission of Planned Parenthood," he said. "If you fund one side of an organization, that frees them up to transfer funds to the other things they do."

Feldt confirmed that the Gates Foundation stipulated that its gifts to Planned Parenthood not be used for abortion services. But that policy has not spared Bill Gates' Microsoft Corp. from anti-abortion protests over the years.

At the 2003 annual shareholders meeting, anti-abortion activists cited Microsoft's support for Planned Parenthood during an unsuccessful attempt to stop the company from directly contributing to charities.

Beyond the issue of abortion, some critics oppose the Buffett and Gates foundations' support for global family-planning and population control programs.

"Some of the wealthiest men in the world descend like avenging angels on the populations of the developing world," wrote Population Research Institute president Steven Mosher, a frequent critic of Gates and Buffett. "They seek to decimate their numbers, to foist upon vulnerable people abortion, sterilization and contraception."

International Campaign Asks UN To Recognize The Rights of Unborn Babies

In Geneva on Wednesday night John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), launched a UN declaration on unborn babies' rights.

"We appeal to all UN member states to put protection in place for the most vulnerable members of our society; the genuinely voiceless ones; the child before birth. The declaration on the right to life of the child before birth is the first initiative in this campaign and is central to the reason SPUC was founded,” said Smeaton.

The Holy See's permanent observer at the UN in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, attended the launch of the international campaign—called The Amnesty for Babies Before Birth Campaign—which aims to declare and uphold the right to life of unborn children. The campaign, which was announced by Ms Kathy Sinnott, independent MEP for Ireland south, asks nations to sign the declaration. It is also seeking the signatures of pro-life legislators from national and regional parliaments, as well as the endorsement of pro-life, pro-family non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

"The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has attended all major conferences and events at the UN since 1994,” said Smeaton, “and during that time has promoted and fought for the right to life of the child before birth. We have opposed all attempts to make abortion a human right and sought at all times to have language included in UN conventions and other documents that upholds the right to life at all stages and phases of life, from conception to natural death.

"One of the problems we have perceived from our lobbying experience is that so called politically-correct ideologies have been adopted by many governments and powerful NGOs. These are ideologies which are hostile to the life of the child before birth. These ideologies must be confronted and shown to be inadequate and, in fact, detrimental to the future population of all nations and, thereby, their economic viability.

"This is not the first time a declaration on the rights of the child has been made, but it is the first time that anyone has prepared a declaration dealing exclusively with the rights of the child before birth.

"The drawing up of this declaration for consideration of member states is a response to the failure of those charged with the implementation of the UN's 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to properly implement that convention in respect of all children without discrimination.

"We therefore not only encourage all states to sign the new declaration but also to go beyond that and to put in place legislation which will provide the much-needed special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, for the baby before birth, as envisaged by the founding fathers of the UN in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and which was understood by all to be the correct interpretation of the original declaration on the rights of the child at the time that it was made, a full decade after the Universal Declaration had been made."

State's abortion rate hits record low
Waiting period, race, education are factors

Abortions in Minnesota dropped to a 30-year low of 13,362 last year.

That's the lowest number since 1975, when the Minnesota Department of Health started tallying abortions. The decline continues a 26-year trend of mostly falling figures since the number topped 19,000 in 1980.

Minnesota's numbers are in line with a national trend toward fewer abortions.

A state law on the books since mid-2003 requires women seeking abortions to get information about fetal development and medical risks of the procedure and wait 24 hours before the abortion. A spokesman for Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life said the law appears to have had an impact, because 1,400 more women received the risk information than had abortions last year.

The state spends $3.7 million a year supporting family planning services, including abortion. New grants totaling $4.75 million over two years go out beginning today to groups that encourage women with unplanned pregnancies to have children instead of abortions.

According to the Health Department report, the most common reason for an abortion last year was that women didn't want children at the time, and the second-most common reason was economics. Seventy-one women indicated their abortions were related to rape, and six said they were related to incest.

Figures from 2001 and 2005 show abortion numbers haven't dropped among women who are black or have lower education levels. Minnesota is scheduled to reduce family-planning funds next year, which could increase the number of abortions among low-income women who can't afford contraception, said Sarah Stoesz, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

"Beneath that trend line" of declining abortions, she said, "there is a low-income trend line that is going up. That's a pretty serious problem."

Anti-abortion posters draw complaints

Borough Police Chief Ed Cassesse said his department received more than a dozen calls within five minutes regarding several box-van trucks that were driving through city streets with graphic anti-abortion posters on their sides.

According to Kathy Knepshield, a staff member of the Armstrong County YMCA, several of the trucks rolled past the YMCA on North Water Street around noon and one of the drivers was allegedly taking photos of children in an outdoor day camp. Knepshield said the posters, bearing images of an aborted fetus, upset many of the children in the camp.

"The first time a truck passed only a few children noticed it," Knepshield said. "However, within a few minutes two more trucks, all with identical posters, made two more passes, driving very slowly. The children started to ask questions, such as 'Is that an abortion?' and 'Why is there a dead baby...?' I told them I wasn't comfortable discussing it and that they should refer their questions to their parents. This was all witnessed by myself and four other staff members."

One parent, Brenda Sarambo of Kittanning, had her six-year-old twins attending the camp. Sarambo said the images upset her children and prompted her to contact the sponsoring organization, The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, based in Lake Forest, Calif., by e-mail.

"I was really irate," Sarambo said. "I gave them a good piece of my mind. I was so upset, I even threatened to assault a driver if those trucks should comeback again.

In Sarambo's e-mail, she said, "...If I ever catch one of (those) trucks in my town again, I promise you I will personally rip the driver out of the truck and beat him senseless..."

Center for Bio-Ethical Reform spokesperson, Gregg Cunningham, speaking from his home in California," said he intends to turn Sarambo's comments over to local law enforcement and to the FBI. He added that because of the reaction by Sarambo, Knepshield and others, including Kittanning police, his organization may now "target' Kittanning.

"Everything that was said is a lie," Cunningham said. "Apparently the people of Kittanning aren't getting the message. If we get the impression that the people of Kittanning need to learn more about the First Amendment, then we will focus on Kittanning in a way that will make their heads spin. We will lavish unwanted attention on them with our fleet of trucks and aircraft."

According to the Center's Web site, the organization does have a fleet of trucks and several aircraft. The aircraft fly low over a designated area trailing anti-abortion banners. Cunningham declined to say how many trucks or aircraft the agency has, citing "security" reasons.

"Let's say this," he said, "we have a fleet large enough to swamp Kittanning. Not one resident will be able to go out their door without seeing one of our trucks."

Cunningham said he was angered by reports that Kittanning police stopped one of the organization's trucks.

"Your police chief is a hypocrite," he said. "I'm a lawyer and we violated no statutes that I know of. Our drivers were exercising their First Amendment rights. Your police harassed them. Your police chief was concerned that cameras were being used to photograph children. This is a lie. He has dash board cameras in his police cars. That's all we have for security reasons."

Cunningham also denied that the trucks passed by the YMCA more than one time.

Cassesse said he stopped one of the trucks on North Grant Ave. about 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

"We had a number of calls, more than a dozen in five minutes, and I was concerned that some reports indicated that children were being photographed. I was also concerned for the driver's safety because a number of people on the street were yelling obscenities at them and I didn't want the situation to get out of hand."

Cassesse said the driver he stopped was Quentin Patch of Columbus, Ohio. After stopping Patch, he was approached by the group's apparent spokesman, Dale Hinkel of Strongsville, Ohio.

"They did have video and audio recording equipment in the truck," Cassesse said, "and I believe the cameras could be removed to record from the window. The driver of a car following the truck recorded me as I was talking to the driver. However, we determined that the people in these vehicles were doing nothing illegal. They were within their First Amendment rights so we did not detain them any longer than necessary. We were concerned when it was reported that they were photographing children so we made a routine investigation. That's all.

Cunningham said the stopping of the vehicle by police will cause his organization to "test" Kittanning law enforcement in the future.

"Hypocrisy angers me," Cunningham said. "Killing babies isn't unfair, but showing them is. Criticism of what we do is bogus and the two women who complained are hypocrites."

In an e-mail reply to Sarambo, Cunningham told her she was a "pagan' for sending her children to a "Christian' camp (the YMCA) then being up set by the Center's anti-abortion campaign.

"All we're trying to do is to educate people about what abortion really is," He said. "Perhaps we need to come back and drive our message home."

Cunningham declined to say how many members the organization has but claimed that they are "represented" in all 50 states.

10 million females illegally aborted in India
Parents desperate to bear son changing nation's demographics

By conservative estimates, sex-selective abortion in India accounts for the termination of about 10 million females over the past 20 years.

"This is the world's biggest genocide ever," Chetan Sharma, a campaigner against female feticide, told the Daily Mail of London.

Chetan is founder of the Delhi-based group Datamation.

India's 2001 census shows a drop in the number of girls 6-years-old and under per 1,000 boys, to 927, compared to 962 in 1981.

"The future is frightening. Over the next five years we could see more than a million fetuses eliminated every year," said researcher Sabu George."At this pace we'll soon have no girls born in the country. We don't know where it will stop."

The problem of undervaluing women is an old one. In the 19th century, British leaders tried to eradicate female infanticide. Female feticide, however, is a new phenomenon brought about by advances in technology along with liberal attitudes toward abortion, which was legalized in India in 1971.

Kalpana Sharma, a columnist in The Hindu newspaper, says "anyone can walk into a government hospital and ask for an immediate abortion up to the 20th week of pregnancy, free, merely by saying there has been a failure of contraception."

India has a law barring medical personnel from from using prenatal diagnostic techniques to determine the sex of an unborn child. But the law is widely ignored because local officials are reluctant to fight the will of the people, the Daily Mail said.

Generally, in Indian society, woman who produce only daughters are pitied, in some cases abused and in many cases regarded as betrayers.

A woman who had nine abortions of females said it's important to have a son because of the family's big business.

"I want what my husband has built from scratch to go to his own blood," she said.

It's not just the assets of having a son that motivate feticide – carrying on the family name or business and taking care of elderly parents. The practice of providing a dowry to the grooms' family creates an enormous financial burden on parents who have a daughter.

Kalpana Sharma said the dowry demands today are nothing short of extortion. Many families sell off land and are forced into debt they can never pay off.

The affluent also are choosing feticide, as evidenced by the fact that states with the lowest ratios of girls to boys also are the most prosperous, such as Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana.

Affluent women, the analysts say, believe they will have a better standard of living if they have only sons.

Land inheritance also is an issue, as daughters now are entitled legally to an equal share of land when their parents die.

Many unqualified technicians are operating ultrasound machines throughout the country, finding it relatively easy to get a license. While there are 25,770 officially registered pre-natal units in India, one doctor estimates as many as 70,000 ultrasound machines are in operation.

Long-term consequences of the gender imbalance include the rise of prostitution and sex trafficking and the danger to women's emotional and physical health from repeated abortions.

The Indian government is taking steps to impose regulations on the registered ultrasound clinics throughout the country, but Chetan Sharma, of Datamation, says that local officials are guilty of corruption and will simply continue to turn a blind eye.

As WorldNetDaily reported in 2004, the Bush administration withheld a $34 million payment from the United Nations Population Fund to China over the issue of forced abortions.

The communist government of China maintains, at least in some areas of the country, a one-child policy sometimes enforced through a policy of forced abortions. It is believed China performs some 10 million involuntary abortions a year. The abortions disproportionately affect female babies.

Facing a critical shortage of women that could leave millions of men without wives, China is trying to convince its populace of the value of girls, who have been systematically killed during birth or after as a result of the one-child limit on most families.

Beijing has developed a five-year plan to correct the alarming disparity in the numbers of males and females in the country.

First exposed by WND in 1997, what has come to be known as "gendercide" in China has resulted in the deaths of at least 50 million girls.

Woman Sues For “Wrongful Abortion”: Doctor Said Her Unborn Baby was “just some blood”

A woman seeking justice for almost nine years in a “wrongful abortion” case will be heard by the New Jersey state Supreme Court, the Star Ledger reported Thursday.

Rosa Acuna sued her doctor for telling her that the child she was carrying at seven weeks gestation was not a baby, when he advised her to abort the high-risk pregnancy. The 29-year-old mother of two suffered from a kidney disorder. Mrs. Acuna says Dr. Sheldon Turkish told her, “Don’t be stupid, it’s just some blood,” when she asked if there was a baby present in her womb at that stage of pregnancy.

A severe haemorrhage three weeks after the abortion resulted in her emergency hospitalization, where a nurse told her, “the doctor left parts of the baby in you,” according to court papers. She sued on grounds that she decided to abort based on “erroneous information.”

Dr. Turkish said he did not remember Mrs. Acuna’s question, but he stated that if asked, he would have told her that a “seven-week pregnancy is not a living human being.”

An appeals panel this spring decided the case should go before a jury, who would decide if it was misleading to make a factual statement that a first-trimester abortion did not end the life of a complete, human being. Dr. Turkish appealed that decision, and the Supreme Court then stepped in and agreed to hear the case.

A similar case, also represented by attorney for Mrs. Acuna, Harold Cassidy, is underway in South Dakota. In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, the abortion provider sued S.D. Governor Mike Rounds and Attorney General Larry Long for a 2005 law that they say violates the free speech rights of abortion doctors. The law requires abortionists to tell pregnant women that abortion will end the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.

National Academies of Science: Abortion Linked to Premature Birth Problems

A new report from a committee of the National Academies of Science finds that a first-trimester abortion, the most common abortion procedure, is linked to an increasing risk of premature birth. The report comes from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a NAS organization.

The IOM published a report this month titled "Preterm Birth: Causes, Consequences, and Prevention."

In the report is a list of "immutable medical risk factors associated with preterm birth" and "prior first-trimester abortion" is listed third among other risk factors that increase the risk of having a subsequent premature birth.

The report has huge consequences for abortion because premature birth can lead to a host problems, including cerebral palsy for the child and breast cancer for the mother.

The IOM reported that premature births before 37 weeks gestation represent 12.5 percent of all U.S. births, a 30% increase since 1981. Abortion became legally accessible in 1973 and the number of abortions peaked in the early 1980s as it became more ingrained in society.

The IOM said premature birth cost U.S. society $26.2 billion in 2005.

This isn't the first time a study has found that abortion increases the risk for premature birth. A 2003 article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons finds at least sixty significant studies published since 1963 report an abortion-premature birth link.

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, a group that monitors the link between abortion and breast cancer for women, says the "IOM's findings provide further support for an abortion-breast cancer link."

"If, after having had an abortion, a childless woman is unable to carry subsequent pregnancies, then she could remain childless for the remainder of her life. Cancer organizations say childlessness (nulliparity) is a risk factor for breast cancer," the group said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.

Other research shows that a premature birth before 32 weeks gestation increases the mother's breast cancer risk, including articles in the British Journal of Cancer and Lancet, both in 1999.

The biological reasons for this are the same as for the abortion-cancer link, the Coalition explained.

"Breast tissue is only matured from cancer-susceptible tissue into cancer resistant tissue during the last eight weeks of a full-term pregnancy. During this time, women receive protection from estrogen overexposure experienced during the first two trimesters of pregnancy," the group said.

Meanwhile, teenagers who have an abortion also have a higher premature birth risk than adults, according to several research articles, because of the higher risk of infection and weakened cervix.

The abortion-premature birth link also has legal ramifications.

The Coalition says abortion practitioners "may be sued for causing cerebral palsy, but non-abortion-performing obstetricians can use the IOM's report to defend themselves against cerebral palsy lawsuits."

The group points to a decision by an Australian court in 2004 that Dr. Alan Kaye was not responsible for Kristy Bruce's cerebral palsy because her mother had had an abortion shortly before she became pregnant with Kristy.

Ultimately, the group suggests that lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures pass legislation making sure that women are informed of the abortion-premature birth risk before having an abortion.

Christian Doctor Says Congressman Wrong About Abortion

(AgapePress) - A Christian OB-GYN from Tennessee says Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman is the one who is misleading girls, not pregnancy resource centers.

Waxman, a representative from California, serves on the House Government Reform Committee. He recently asked staff to check on pregnancy crisis centers, which received $24 million in federal aid between 2001 and 2004. The subsequent report claims that federally-funded, faith-based pregnancy centers give false information connecting abortions with breast cancer, infertility, and mental illness.

Waxman claims research has shown abortion does not have severe, long-lasting psychological effects. Government organizations such as the Institute of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute say there is no such connection. Their research is based on a 2003 study involving over 100 scientists who examined women based on their medical records rather than "self-report" and gathered data before cancer was diagnosed.

Dr. Omar Hamada believes that Waxman is misled and that accurate scientific information supports abortion's connection with cancer, infertility, and mental illness. "We see that even since the 1970s throughout the world journals," he says.

Hamada believes Waxman did not put out this report to see pregnancy resource centers improve.

"And I think it's important, really, to see that it's not just a singular issue that he's attacking, but it's really an aggressive, multifaceted attack on the values that make up the very fabric of our society here in America," Hamada said. "And it's not just him: I think he's being used as a mouthpiece by the lobby that includes those who are pro-choice."

Lending credibility to that accusation is the fact that Waxman has been a strong critic of the Bush administration's push for federal funding of abstinence-only education programs, which typically find little support among abortion proponents. Waxman has contended that curricula for those programs is both scientifically and medically inaccurate and misleads young people.

_____________________

There is nothing misleading about abstinence-only education. It is a very simple message. Don't have sex until marriage = don't get pregnant, don't get diseases, no need for life destroying procedures.

Moving on from aborted babies to making their own for research?

_________________________

Human Eggs As Currency?
IVF Clinic Given OK to Accept Eggs as Payment for Fertility Treatments

A UK fertility clinic has been given the green light by the country’s fertility authority to allow women undergoing in-vitro fertilization to trade costs of the treatment in exchange for any surplus eggs. The eggs are to be fertilized, and the resulting embryonic babies mined for cells to be used in research.

The decision marks the first instance where human eggs are being legally sold as items of commerce.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority licensed the North East England Stem Cell Institute to exchange embryos in lieu of payment for IVF services. The Newcastle-based Institute utilizes the cells derived from embryonic humans to investigate potential stem cell treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

Before now, women were allowed to voluntarily donate “spare” eggs derived from IVF treatments, although the demand has exceeded the supply, according to the Newcastle team.

Paul Tully, General Secretary for the UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told LifeSiteNews.com today that he was “deeply concerned” over the prospect of women being paid for their “spare” eggs.

“Women will be under enormous pressure to engage in these practices,” he emphasized. “There is a huge potential for exploitation."

Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of Hands Off Our Ovaries, told the BBC that the needs of researchers who want more eggs for research will supersede the best interests of the women donors. “It is coercion under another name,” she said. She described the HFEAs actions as the “worst example of HFEA arrogance” she had observed.

Did privacy law figure into newborn’s death?
Report: Girl charged with murder used law to hide pregnancy from parents

Authorities said a 17-year-old girl facing a murder charge in the death of her newborn told lies and used privacy laws to hide her pregnancy from her parents, even as they tried to get medical attention for her.

Prosecutors said Cheyenne Corbett gave birth to a girl in the shower of her parents' home on Sunday. Police discovered the infant's body wrapped in a towel in her bedroom. An autopsy determined the baby died of asphyxiation.

Corbett's adoptive father had taken her to a physician in Phoenix in July, but she signed a form requesting that no information be given to her parents under the privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA, The Denver Post reported Friday.

"She had a supportive family. Here they are, trying to do something, and their hands are tied," Deputy District Attorney Tammy Erett told the newspaper. "When they deny that information, what are you going to do?"

Erett did not immediately return an after-hours call on Friday.

Corbett's attorney, Gordon Gallagher, said she concealed her condition because she was frightened.

"Obviously she was trying to hide it from her parents. She was scared and terrified about being pregnant," he told The Associated Press.

Gallagher said he had not yet seen paperwork on any privacy rights Corbett may have invoked.

Erett said Corbett's parents did not know she had delivered a baby until after her mother took her to the hospital for heavy bleeding.

Rules create dilemma
Dr. William Plested, president of the American Medical Association, said medical privacy rules create a dilemma.

"They have given some important protections, but they have brought up a lot of problems," he said. "We're going to continue to see issues like this. It's a combination of medical issues and ethical issues, and we have to decide whose issues are pre-eminent."

Corbett surrendered to police on Tuesday. Prosecutors said she will be charged as an adult with first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.

Gallagher said he hopes prosecutors take into account Corbett's age, her lack of a criminal record and "the fear and confusion and mental issues that were going on."

"I can't imagine how frightening that was for a 17-year-old girl to go through in the shower," Gallagher said.

He said psychological tests were planned for Corbett but none had been done.

"I think it's a very tragic situation for everybody involved, for the child, for both families, the community and Cheyenne. She's young, fragile and scared," he said.

ALL's Judie Brown: 'Most Important' Pro-Life Bill Could End Abortion If Passed

(AgapePress) - One of the nation's premiere pro-life leaders says a bill currently before a House committee could bring an end to abortion in America. Ironically it originated with strong sponsorship from the Republican Party -- a group she contends is not as "pro-life" as some people think.

The Right to Life Act, sponsored by California Congressman Duncan Hunter, contains no exceptions for an abortion or compromises any pro-life principles, says Judie Brown of American Life League (ALL) -- and that's why she calls it "the most important piece of pro-life legislation under consideration today."

H.R. 552, which now has 100 co-sponsors in Congress, establishes "equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person" -- then goes on to define "human person" as a member of the species homo sapiens "at all stages of life," including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or "other moment" at which the person "comes into being." ALL president Brown believes such legislation is critical in fight against legalized abortion.

"Establishing personhood for the preborn baby is the only way we will see a concrete end to decriminalized abortion in this country," she says. And it has been a long battle, Brown adds. "After 33 years of gnawing at the edges of legal protection for abortion, now is the time for a substantial challenge to the status quo. Without total protection under the law," she says, "preborn children will continue to die."

Congressman Hunter introduced the Right to Life Act in February 2005 with 36 co-sponsors, and it has picked up 25 more since the first of the year. It has now been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee awaiting hearings. "For the first time in years," says Brown, "we have a politically significant number of supporters in Congress who are willing to stand up for life. Now is the time to act."

It isn't lost on Brown that the bill's sponsor is a member of the Republican Party -- a party about which she has voiced repeated disappointment as the GOP, the majority party in both chambers, appears to be unable to get pro-life bills enacted. The pro-life leader's frustration was evident recently when the Republican-led Senate voted to approve funding for embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR).

"You know, I think it's about time that pro-lifers understood where they need to go: they need to go to God on their knees," she says. "And they need to understand that this struggle is for the heart and soul of this country -- not partisan politics," she adds.

Brown contends the nation will change as people go to God -- not to the GOP. "I honestly believe that if everybody, every one of us, did that we would see a miracle," she remarks. "But until we get our priorities straight, politics not being one of them, we're going to continue to see this -- and it's not us who are being betrayed; it's little babies."

President Bush eventually vetoed the ESCR bill, as he promised he would. Still, says Brown, the fact that a Republican-led Congress passed such a measure should be a wake-up call to those who still believe the GOP is a pro-life party.

The true face of a core liberal voting block. Read the article and behold the callous blindness of evil.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wad of cells does not equate to human life, abortion isn't murder

mugshot

Krouse

Conception — the point at which life begins. At least it is according to the fundamentalist community, anyway. The stance of Right to Life supporters is that abortion is outright murder and deprivation of life. I disagree.

How can you kill something that is not yet living? Besides, banning abortion deprives the mother of her rights to property and to the pursuit of happiness. A fetus is not a living human, and the mother has the right to decide to abort it.

During the first trimester of the pregnancy, the fetus is merely a wad of cells. A mere wad of cells doesn't equate to a fully functioning, living human being. A wad of cells cannot make its own cognitive decisions. A wad of cells doesn't have the capability to inhale or exhale with its lungs. A wad of cells cannot survive independently, as it relies completely on its mother for all its nutriment.

So why would anyone provide a wad of cells with the outrageous status of a living human being?

The point I am trying to make here is that a fetus is not a living human, and therefore, an abortion is not responsible for annihilating a human's life. Besides, in legal terms, the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade concluded that human life does not begin until life can be sustained outside of the womb. Medically speaking, premature fetuses can very rarely be kept alive if they are born before the pregnancy's sixth month, or the end of the second trimester.

The mother deserves every right to make a decision to abort her fetus. The supreme law of our land, the U.S. Constitution, guarantees Americans have the right to their property. Are pets not considered the property of a human? Humans provide pets with food, water and a habitat, just as a mother provides a fetus a habitat inside of the womb, along with food and oxygen.

And because mom houses the fetus — that not only required her X sex chromosome, but also gained half its chromosome pairs from her ovum — the fetus should be considered property of its mother. Not to mention, the wad of cells inside her doesn't have the ability to choose for itself.

Banning abortion would be a greater deprivation of basic human rights than continuing to uphold it. So why not allow the mother her innate right to decide whether or not this wad of cells will grow into a human?

If anything, a fetus is merely a parasitical creature that uses the mother as its host.

Tapeworms are parasites that house themselves in the intestinal tracts of humans, feeding off the food the host consumes. Comparatively, a fetus is little more than a tapeworm. It is quite common for humans to annihilate parasites with medications or toxins, so why not allow for fetuses to suffer the same fate?

Now let's compare the Right to Life stance of abortion to the tragic fate of many fertilized eggs.

Fundamentalists fiercely oppose abortion because they believe it is murder. They often recognize those who are "slaughtered" by holding vigils and other ceremonies.

Do any of these individuals realize that according to the National Institutes of Health, 25 percent of conceived embryos perish within the first six weeks due to complications such as failure to implant to the uterus wall? That's right — a quarter of all "humans" conceived end up "dying."

It would appear that the "loving" God of these fundamentalists is many more times guilty of murder than all the human race's abortionists combined.

If life begins at conception, why is it that Catholics and other fundamentalist groups don't have funerals for all these dead "babies"? Why not hold candlelit vigils for all who fail to implant themselves? Or wait, better yet, why don't we supply a birth certificate to all those embryos who died shortly after conception? Why not make them legal citizens too?

Do these last few statements seem absolutely asinine? Then some of you are in dire need of rethinking your anti-abortion stance.

Life begins when the baby is passed through the birth canal and exits the womb. At this point, the baby is no longer physically connected to the mother and no longer freeloading its nutrients and oxygen from mommy.

http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=36986

Now this is totally sick, morally decadent. Canabalism.

Aborted babies used in cosmetics
Women from around world traveling to clinics for injections, face lifts

Clinics Use Tissue From Babies Killed in Abortions for Cosmetic Injections

London, England -- Women from around the world are traveling to clinics in various locations that are now offering face lifts and cosmetic surgery using tissue from babies who have been killed by abortions.

Pro-life advocates are strongly condemning the practice and saying the taking of human life is never warranted -- especially for such a self-serving purpose.

Women like Susan Barrington, a 52-year-old housewife from England, are heading to places such as Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Moscow and Rotterdam to obtain the treatments.

She has been given the final go-ahead form a local clinic to travel abroad for the treatment that promises to make her look 10 years younger and doesn't mind that lives have been sacrificed to enhance her beauty.

To produce the treatments, clinics are using tissue from babies killed in abortions from 6 to 12 weeks into pregnancy and stem cells obtained from destroying human embryos to inject into a client's face. The fetal cells then begin a supposed rejuvenation process that makes the skin look younger.

To obtain the cells, women in underdeveloped nations are paid up to $200 dollars to carry a baby up to the optimum eight to 12 week period when the fetuses are “harvested” for their stem cells which are then sold to exclusive cosmetic clinics.

Both pro-life advocates and scientists who favor stem cell research are upset by the promotion of these injections.

UK stem-cell researcher Colin Blakemore told the London Daily Mail newspaper that the therapies are "highly experimental" and risk damaging the reputation of legitimate stem cell researchers.

He also complained that these clinics were located in tourist destinations and unregulated by any international body.

"And if anything goes wrong afterwards, it is hushed up to prevent damage to the business," he told the newspaper.

In a statement given to LifeNews.com, Concerned Women for America condemned scientists for using tissue from abortions and embryonic stem cells for the treatments.

“This fad illustrates the extremes to which embryonic stem cell use can lead," CWA senior fellow, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, said. “It is hard to believe that such atrocities are going on today."

"The ethical and moral ramifications of such treatments are staggering; the experimental aspects are equally troubling," Crouse explained.

"Not only is the origin of the fetuses immoral and inhumane; there are medical problems and complications associated with the injections," Crouse concluded. "This savage and repulsive ‘brave new world’ of human sacrifices in the quest for eternal youth is a prime example of the end results when all moral boundaries are destroyed.”

Some of the clinics include the Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Barbados where injections are done using tissue from aborted babies. The clinic is located in the luxurious Villa Nova hotel, where American and Russian scientists have targeted upper class British and American women.

More than 50 clinics exist in Moscow, the Russian capital, including the Cellulite Clinic. There, cells from a wide range of sources including aborted babies and human embryos are used.

Abortion clinic won't be sanctioned for frivolous suit
'Instead of suing the picketers, they sued their attorneys'

A state appeals court Wednesday declined to sanction an Englewood abortion clinic that was accused of filing a frivolous lawsuit against an antiabortion group.

Metropolitan Medical Associates -- known for dramatic protests it attracted in the 1990s -- sued the Legal Center for Defense of Life two years ago, saying the group organized pickets who intimidated patients and blocked public access to the clinic.

The clinic also sued the city for not enforcing ordinances against obstructive sidewalk activities, and sought a protest-free buffer zone around the Engle Street facility.

A state Superior Court judge in Hackensack dismissed the lawsuit, saying the claim should have been made in federal court, where the clinic was tangled for years in litigation with protesters represented by the Morristown-based center.

The center, a law firm of volunteer lawyers representing clients in abortion, euthanasia and other right-to-life cases, then filed a complaint alleging that the clinic's lawsuit was frivolous and filed in bad faith, costing the center nearly $20,000 in legal fees.

Now-retired Superior Court Judge Gerald C. Escala dismissed the center's claim, but an appellate panel reversed the decision, saying the judge did not articulate the reasons for the dismissal. Escala then issued a procedural explanation, which the center challenged on a second appeal.

The three-judge appellate panel ruled Wednesday that the judge applied proper procedural rules in dismissing the center's claim. Steering clear of any precedent-setting, the four-page opinion did not address the issue of whether the clinic's lawsuit was frivolous.

"It seems the judges are going out of their way to avoid saying that," said Richard Collier, president of the center. "They are coming up with all sorts of reasons to avoid a hot issue."

Collier called the clinic's lawsuit clearly frivolous.

"Instead of suing the picketers, they sued their attorneys," he said. "That's like suing the attorney for an insurance company after you get in a car accident."

That's not even a close comparison, said Lawrence Kleiner, the attorney for the clinic.

Despite the center's denial, there is evidence that the firm went beyond representing demonstrators in court, he said. "The organization instructed picketers how to picket more effectively," he said.

The battle between the clinic and the center dates back to the mid-1990s, when the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office charged several demonstrators, some of whom entered the clinic and chained themselves. The charges were dismissed after a Superior Court judge in Hackensack struck down a 1974 consent order that required protesters to remain across the street from the clinic.

The protesters, who were represented by the legal center, were then allowed to picket outside the clinic as long as they didn't block the entrance.

The two clashed again when the federal government sued 29 antiabortion protestors in 1997, seeking a 60-foot buffer zone around the clinic. Again represented by the legal center, the demonstrators invoked their right to free speech.

A federal judge did not approve the buffer zone but prohibited protesters from blocking access to the clinic.

Abortion Advocates File Supreme Court Brief in Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Case

Leading abortion advocates, including the ACLU and a trade group for abortion businesses, filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court Friday asking it to reject the Congressional ban on partial-birth abortions. They said the gruesome abortion procedure, opposed by as many as 80 percent of Americans, should stay legal.

The ACLU and the National Abortion Federation (NAF) said the court should uphold appeals court rulings striking down the ban because they claim partial-birth abortions are necessary to protect women's health.

That's despite numerous doctors and medical groups have said the three-day long abortion procedure is never medically necessary.

Vicki Saporta, NAF president and CEO, claimed the partial-birth abortion ban "prohibits abortions as early as 13 weeks in pregnancy that doctors say are safe and among the best to protect women’s health."

“We hope that the Supreme Court will recognize the danger this ban poses to women’s health and allow doctors to continue to make appropriate medical decisions," she said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained.

However, when the American Medical Association convened to study the issue of partial-birth abortions, an expert panel “could not find ‘any’ identified circumstance” where partial-birth abortion “was ‘the only appropriate alternative’” to preserve the health of the mother."

In its brief defending the partial-birth abortion ban, the Justice Department also points to Congressional findings indicating that partial-birth abortions may pose health risks for women. Such risks include cervical incompetence, trauma to the uterus, and lacerations or hemorrhaging.

“Decisions involving pregnancy and medical care are among the most serious a woman will make in her life,” Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said about the brief. “These are personal decisions for a woman, her family, and her doctor to make and such decisions should not be mandated by politicians.”

After President Bush signed the partial-birth abortion ban, pro-abortion groups launched three lawsuits against it and federal appeals courts in Nebraska, New York and California declared the ban unconstitutional.

Pro-life groups are hopeful the Supreme Court would take a new position on partial-birth abortion thanks to new Justice Samuel Alito, who replaces Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

O'Connor wrote the 5-4 majority opinion in the 2000 case saying that a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional because it lacked a health exception.

The high court is expected to hold hearings this fall and announce a decision in early 2007.

The California case is Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the high court will likely combine the cases into one. The Nebraska case is Gonzales v. Carhart.

Teens Cope With Unwanted Pregnancies Better Than Abortions, Study Shows

A new study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence refutes a long-standing contention that teenagers are better able to handle an abortion than dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. The study finds that adolescent girls who have an abortion are five times more likely to seek help for psychological and emotional problems than those who keep their baby.

Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling Green State University, led the study.

Coleman also found that teenagers who have abortions instead of carrying the pregnancy to term were also over three times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping, and nine times more likely to report subsequent marijuana use.

To factor out other reasons that may have prompted the need for psychological help, sleep difficulties or drug use, Coleman examined 17 other variables such as prior mental health history and family factors.

That helped narrow down the study to make sure it focused only on the results after the abortion or birth decision.

Data for the study came from a federally-funded longitudinal study of adolescents from throughout the U.S. who participated in two series of interviews in 1995 and 1996.

About 76 percent of girls who had abortions and 80 percent of girls who gave birth were between the ages of 15 and 19 during the survey and the rest were younger teenagers.

Previous studies have found that younger abortion patients may be more likely to experience difficulties coping after abortion compared to older women. That may be because they are more likely to be pressured into unwanted abortions or to undergo abortions later in the pregnancy, leading to more physical and emotional risk.

A 2004 survey of American and Russian women published in the Medical Science Monitor found that 64 percent of American women reported that they felt pressured into abortion.

Coleman said that for teens, the pressure probably comes from the fact that they are more likely to be perceived as unready to be parents and that abortion is often seen by those around them as the best solution.

"When women feel forced into abortion by others or by life circumstances, negative post-abortion outcomes become more common," she wrote. "Adolescents are generally much less prepared to assume the responsibility of parenthood and are logically the recipients of pressure to abort."

Coleman pointed out that, while having a child as a teen may be problematic, "the risks of terminating seem to be even more pronounced."

"The scientific evidence is now strong and compelling," Coleman said. "Abortion poses more risks to women than giving birth."

In a statement LifeNews.com obtained, Dr. David Reardon, the director of the Elliot Institute, said that Coleman's study was particularly important because it examines pregnancy "wantedness."

"Over the last six years, numerous studies have conclusively linked higher rates of mental illness and behavioral problems associated with abortion compared to childbirth," Reardon, who has contributed to more than a dozen studies examining psychological outcomes after abortion, said.

"But abortion advocates have generally dismissed these findings, insisting that while women who abort may fare worse than women who give birth to planned children, they may fare better than the important subgroup of women who carry unintended pregnancies to term," Reardon explained. "Coleman's study addresses this argument and shows that the facts don't support abortion advocates' speculations."

The results of the study are also important because about one-fourth of the abortions that take place annually in the United States are done on teenagers, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a Planned Parenthood affiliate.

As such, the study shows that teenagers should be advised to not have an abortion in order to avoid both short and long-term emotional and psychological complications.

Source: Priscilla K. Coleman, "Resolution of Unwanted Pregnancy During Adolescence Through Abortion Versus Childbirth: Individual and Family Predictors and Psychological Consequences," Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2006).

6 abortion clinics
forced to close
Florida, Alabama health boards cite
illegal late procedure, drug violations

Half-dozen abortion clinics shut down
Claims include 3rd-trimester procedure, rule, drug violations

Half a dozen abortion clinics in Florida and Alabama have had their doors locked after state health boards became concerned by alleged rule and drug violations, including claims of an illegal late-term procedure in Florida.

The Florida Department of Health issued a notice confirming that there was an emergency suspension of the license for James Scott Pendergraft, who runs clinics in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, for allegedly doing an abortion in the third trimester.

"Temporarily, women are a little bit safer," Linda Bell, with Florida Right to Life, told WorldNetDaily.

And in Alabama, the state Board of Health suspended the license for Reproductive Health Services of Montgomery because the business lacked a physician with admitting privileges at a local acute care hospital.

It's been a difficult August for the abortion industry, with an investigation into what appears to have been a homicide at an abortion clinic in Hialeah, Fla., going on, and the pro-life group Operation Rescue taking possession of a Wichita, Kan., building that for decades was used as an abortion business.

Now come the latest complaints over the dangers of abortion businesses.

In Florida, Bell said Pendergraft is known well to those in the pro-life movement.

"He obviously has performed two late-term abortions without getting a second doctor to sign off or doing them in the hospital," Bell said. "Sadly enough, this is nothing unusual. This is an industry that is based on pure finance. It is big, big money. The later the abortion, the more money the abortionist makes."

She said the state "thankfully" is doing its job to protect the women of Florida.

John Giles, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, had a similar response to the situation in his state.

"The action taken today confirms that the abortion industry is only interested in profits, and not the healthcare of women before or after an abortion. In fact, women leave abortion facilities all over this state and report the buildings look as if they are furnished from a second hand store and resemble a third world medical facility," he said.

He told WND that a hearing on the admitting privilege issue is scheduled Sept. 18, when health officials will ask the clinic to defend its actions regarding the regulation.

There, the state order said the abortion clinic did not have any physician with admitting privileges or any contractual arrangement for those services, despite a state requirement for that.

"The failure … is not only a violation of State rules, but also constitutes conduct or practices detrimental to the welfare of the patients of RHS, and constitutes a danger to public health and welfare," the state said.

Giles said his group and others have been meeting regularly with the health department about improving standards, increasing inspections and enforcing regulations.

He also said the Summit Clinic, in Birmingham, had been closed several weeks ago after a nurse allegedly administered the abortion drug RU-486.

In the Florida case, a report said health officials alleged Pendergraft performed an abortion on a woman seven months pregnant in 2005. The state also alleged he gave her drugs without the proper license.

In a statement, Pendergraft said the procedure was medically necessary and he would fight the state decision, according to a report on WESH2 News.

The report said state investigators concluded the emergency suspension was needed because, "Dr. Pendergraft demonstrated a flagrant disregard for the laws of the state of Florida and a willingness to endanger the lives and health of pregnant patients by performing third-trimester abortions."

In Florida, those abortions only are legal within a hospital.

Bush okays over-the-counter Plan B
Abortion opponents say approval contradicts president's pro-life stance

President Bush Approves Over the Counter Early Abortion Pill, Pro-Life Base Decries Move

WASHINGTON, August 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - For his pro-life supporter base, President George W. Bush stepped into one of the biggest political landmines of his Presidential career today with his approval of over the counter status for the abortion-causing morning after pill Plan B.

A press release by Human Life International underscored the seriousness of the move as it was titled, "President Bush Files for Divorce with Catholic Base." Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of Human Life International commented, "President Bush's implied support for the abortion-causing drug Plan B is completely inconsistent with his recent veto of the embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) funding bill. What the president apparently fails to realize is that Plan B kills the same innocent unborn children that the ESCR process does."

At a White House press conference this morning, the President was asked by Bill Sammon a reporter from the Washington Examiner about Plan B and his new FDA commissioner who supports its over the counter status. "Mr. President, some pro-life groups are worried that your choice of FDA Commissioner will approve over the counter sales of Plan B, a pill that, they say, essentially can cause early-term abortions," said the reporter. "Do you stand by this choice, and how do you feel about Plan B in general?"

The President replied, "I believe that Plan B ought to be -- ought to require a prescription for minors, is what I believe. And I support Andy's decision."

Andy, as the President referred to him, is the new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. Pro-life groups last week called for von Eschenbach's resignation over his deal with a drug company to make a high-dose of a drug (Plan B, a morning-after pill) available without a prescription to women 18 year of age and older.

Concerned Women for America (CWA) blasted the decision noting that it is ludicrous to allow Plan B without medical supervision when a low-dose of the same drug (birth control pills) requires medical oversight to protect women from serious health complications.

"It is deplorable that the head of the FDA would put his career ambitions and a drug company's interests above women's health," said Wendy Wright, CWA's President. "CWA provided legal and regulatory evidence that the FDA does not have the authority to do what it is proposing and medical evidence that any dose of the drug requires medical oversight to protect women's health. The drug is known to cause serious complications such as blood clots and stroke."

Rev. Euteneuer added, "The president must demonstrate a consistent respect for the sanctity of all human life or he risks provoking a great divorce with the conservative Catholics that compromise a large part of his support base. Human beings in the embryonic stage of development deserve equal protection under the law and the president's position falls far short of that mark."

Plan B backers
fight age limit
Battle shifts to making abortion drug
available without prescription to teens

The maker of the morning after pill, along with women's groups and lawmakers, plans to press its success a step further, seeking to make the controversial abortion drug available without prescription to girls 17 and under.

After a three-year battle, the Food and Drug Administration announced an easing of restrictions yesterday, making it possible for anyone 18 and older to pick up the drug over-the-counter.

"The battleground now shifts to availability for women under 18, and that is likely to prove very contentious since it is tied to strongly held beliefs about abstinence education and parental rights," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, according to MSNBC.

Advocates of making the drug available to youths argue any restrictions might hinder efforts to curb the estimated 3 million unplanned pregnancies in the U.S. each year.

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood said it's "troubled by the scientifically baseless restriction imposed on teenagers."

"The U.S. has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the Western world," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. "Anything that makes it harder for teenagers to avoid unintended pregnancy is bad medicine and bad public policy."

The backers of the drug point to studies showing Plan B cuts the chances of pregnancy by 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of gotcha146.

Opponents, including the Family Research Council, fear easy accessibility will promote promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases, along with use by sexual predators.

Some opponents insist the age restriction won't work anyway.

"If the FDA thinks that enacting an age restriction will work, or that the drug company will enforce it ... then they are living in a dream world," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

The FDA is requiring the drug's manufacturer, Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., to use various methods, including anonymous shoppers, to help ensure pharmacists enforce the age restriction.

The White House announced its support for the FDA's move this week.

"The FDA made clear that it will insist on stringent conditions and restrictions on access to reduce both health risks and opportunities for abuse, especially to protect minors," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

ChristiansUnite Forums

Theology => Prophecy - Current Events => Topic started by: Soldier4Christ on February 21, 2006, 01:44:34 PM