NEW!  Mississippi Abortionist Convicted in Slaying of Wife

NEW! U.S. Surgical Abortion Rate Falls, "Medication" Abortions Increase (AGI)

Assassinated Pakistan Leader Benazir Bhutto Was Strong Abortion Opponent

NEW! Spanish Abortion Rate Skyrockets to 100,000+ Annually

NEW! United Nations Population Agency Puts Abortion at Top of World Agenda

2006 Annual Summary of Kansas Vital Statistics Released

KS Commissioners OK Phill Kline’s Request for Investigation  

KS Attorney General Resigns During Sex Scandal Kansas Grand Jury in Abortion Business Probe Hires Special Counsel

Mother of Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow Rejected Doctor's Advice to Abort Him

Abortionist Tells MI Medical Students He Has "License to Lie" to Women

Thousands of U.S. Doctors Ask OBG College to Stop Forcing Physicians to Refer for Abortion

Reducing Abortions Would Significantly Cut Premature Birth Rate

Magazine Tips the Scales in Birth Weight Study JAPS Medical Journal Shows How to Reduce Rates of Breast Cancer, Premature Birth

Another Spanish Abortion Center Shut Down, Falsified Late-Term Medical Records

Nicaragua Medical Association President Reports Maternal Deaths Declined After Abortion Made Illegal

Argentine Governor Vetoes Abortion-on-Demand Bill

India Loses 80,000 Women by Maternal Mortality Deaths from Legal Abortions Annually

Out of Business: Longtime San Diego-area Abortion Business Closes its Doors    

The Justice Foundation Invites More Testimonies on Abortion

State Legislation Restricting Abortion Reduces Incidence of Abortion Among Minors
2005 Abortion Numbers in Louisiana

South Dakota Report Shows Abortions Down 7%

Missouri Planned Parenthood Sues a Measure that Would Stop Forced Abortions

Alabama Group Says UAB Health System Doing Abortions 

CT Sees Fourth Case of Abortion Used to Hide Sexual Abuse Crimes...

MS ABORTIONIST CONVICTED. Nearly 10 years after a 1998 mistrial, a jury has finally found abortionist Malachy DeHenre guilty in the 1997 slaying of  his wife.

Dr. Malachy DeHenre was charged with killing his wife, Dr. Myasha DeHenre, with a single pistol shot to the head in their home. The Jones County Circuit Court jury, composed of six men and six women, deliberated 45 minutes before finding him guilty of manslaughter.

10 years ago DeHenre almost escaped conviction for the charge, when the jury in his 1998 trial voted 11-1 for acquittal, resulting in a mistrial. Had it not been for the one juror convinced of the abortionist's guilt, DeHenre would have escaped trial again under the aegis of double jeopardy.

Nationally known forensics pathologist Dr. Michael Baden was called in by the prosecution to testify that Myasha DeHenre's death was no accident, but a homicide. He said the evidence told him that DeHenre fired the pistol from more than 24 inches away from the head of his wife, whom he said must have been lying down on the loveseat, ruling out the possibility that the shot was self-inflicted.

According to Dora Morgan, a dispatcher with the Jones County Sheriff's Office, who took the 911 calls from the DeHenre home, she heard Dr. Malachy DeHenre laughing uncontrollably in the background as she spoke with his daughter, Myasha - named after her mother - who said that her father had "gone mad" and shot her mother.

Dr. Myasha DeHenre died at a Hattiesburg hospital several days after her shooting.

Abortionist Malachy DeHenre had his license to practice medicine in Mississippi, Alabama, and New York suspended after being convicted of "gross malpractice" and "repeated malpractice" on abortion patients beginning in 2003. Three women on whom he performed abortions required complete hysterectomies to control severe hemorrhaging, and another woman Leigh Ann Stephens Alford, died as a result of a perforated uterus after an abortion he committed on her.

DeHenre also faced charges earlier this year of raping a then-21 year old patient in March 1992, however a Jones County jury acquitted him in October.

DeHenre's sentencing in the killing of his wife is scheduled for March 13.

Related on Malachy DeHenre:Mississippi Abortionist says He won't Commit Abortions Again http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/dec/04122003.html

Mississippi Abortionist's Medical License Suspended for Malpractice

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/aug/04082004.html

Alabama Abortion Clinic Surrenders License After Woman Delivers Dead Full-Term Baby

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061504.html

[31Jan08, P. J. Smith, Laurel, MS, LifeSiteNews.com]

U.S. ABORTION RATE FALLS TO LOWEST LEVEL IN THREE DECADES: New report does find medication abortions on the increase.

"We don't know why," said study author Rachel Jones [senior research associate, Guttmacher Institute, nonprofit group that focuses on reproductive issues]. The findings will be published in the March issue of the institute's journal, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.
 
The actual number of abortions dropped to a new low, the lowest level since 1976 (1.179 million), with 1.2 million abortions in 2005, compared to a high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990. The numbers have dropped 25% from 1990 to 2005. According to the Guttmacher data, the number of abortions declined by 8 percent between 2000 and 2005, from 1.31 million to 1.21 million.

[To view abortion numbers since 1968, click here .]

The institute's president, Sharon Camp, noted that despite the decline, more than one in five pregnancies ended in abortion in 2005. The report does not include an analysis of why the levels have continued to decline. "We don't regard [the findings] as good or bad," Jones said. "It's a descriptive study."
 
The abortion rate for 2005 was 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 (down 9 percent from 2000; lowest rate since 1974). In comparison, the rate was 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 1981, 21.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 2000, and 19.7 abortions per 1,000 women in 2004.
 
Abortion rates were highest in Washington, D.C., New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, Maryland and California. Rates were lowest in largely rural states: Wyoming, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Idaho and Utah. The report noted that the rates reflected the state in which the abortion occurred, thus including nonresident women who crossed state lines to get an abortion.
 
By region, the Northeast had the highest abortion rate, followed by the West, the South and the Midwest.
 
To arrive at their findings, Jones and her team contacted all known abortion providers in the United States and also used U.S. Census Bureau data to look at national and state trends.
 
Among the trends they uncovered was an increase in medication abortions between 2000 and 2005. "A majority of providers offer both RU-486 [mifepristone/Mifeprex] as well as surgical [abortions]," Jones said. "The number offering just RU-486 went up."
 
Jones and her team found that 57 percent of all known abortion providers now offer such abortion services, compared with 33 percent in early 2001. Medication abortions accounted for 13 percent, or 161,000, of all abortions done in 2005, more than double the number of such drug-induced abortions in 2001. Danco Laboratories said that it was excited by the increases and added that about 80 percent of facilities that only do abortions now have the Mifeprex abortion drug.
 
More than six of 10 abortions were performed within the first eight weeks, the researchers reported. And almost three of 10 were done at six weeks or before.
 
Jones' team also found that the average cost of an abortion at 10 weeks was $413, about $11 less than in 2001 when inflation is taken into account.
 
The number of providers in 2005 was 1,787, two percent (2%) fewer than in 2000...
 
While the study didn't include an analysis of why the rate is declining, Janice Crouse [director,  Beverly LaHaye Institute, Concerned Women for America, conservative public policy organization] said one reason could be a decline in abortions among teen girls.
 
That drop, she added, is partially explained by the success of abstinence programs. "Abortion definitely has gone down, particularly among young people," Crouse said.
 
"We'd like to take a look at the dynamics [behind the statistics]," said Jones, adding that Guttmacher plans to look more closely at the use of RU-486 in future research.
 
[17January2008, Kathleen Doheny, U.S. News & World Report, HealthDay News, ScoutNews, http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080117/us-abortion-rate-falls-to-lowest-level-in-decades.htm; Guttmacher Institute, http://www.guttmacher.org/ ; 18Jan08, LifeNews.com; http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hKEE0dpB9sBkDB225XZQGKkzyJ8wD8U7QHVG3]

ASSASSINATED PAKISTAN LEADER BENAZIR BHUTTO STRONGLY OPPOSED ABORTION. The world mourned the loss of assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto on Thursday, but her death was more than a setback for those hoping for democracy in this war-torn nation.

Bhutto was a member of an international pro-life women's movement that understood abortion causes medical, mental health and other problems for women.

When Bhutto was the prime minister of Pakistan, she helped lead a delegation to the 1994 Cairo population conference that confronted abortion advocates looking to make abortion an international right.

"I dream ...of a world where we can commit our social resources to the development of human life and not to its destruction," she told the United Nations panel at the time.

Bhutto was one of only two women to address the conference. Bhutto warned conference participants that "this conference must not be viewed by the teeming masses of the world as a universal social charter seeking to impose adultery, abortion...and other such matters on individuals, societies and religions which have their own social ethos."

One of the leading pro-life women's groups in the United States, Feminists for Life of America, honored Bhutto in the 1998 issue of its publication The American Feminist. The group named Bhutto as one of the first and best "remarkable pro-life women" around the world. [28Dec07, Islamabad, Pakistan LifeNews.com]

 



UN POPULATION AGENCY PUTS ABORTION AT TOP OF WORLD AGENDA. UNFPA’s recently released annual report says that promoting “reproductive rights” and contraception, especially among adolescents, is the primary focus of the organization's work.

Claiming that “every minute, 190 women are forced to confront the possibility of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy—one that could have been easily prevented if only they had access to contraceptives,” the report justified the UN agency's spending two-thirds of its annual budget on the reproductive health agenda, but said that even more would be needed in the future.

UNFPA intends to put pressure on countries to spend more money for “reproductive health services” but spending more on national health priorities will not be enough, according to the report.

The report acknowledges that many governments have already established reproductive health programs but laments that “millions of pregnancies are still unwanted or mistimed.” Besides spending money governments will be pressured to change policies.

Specific measures to get countries to comply will be: undertaking advocacy to increase national investments in family planning services, promoting increased access to condoms and advocating more condom distribution, “expanding the choice of methods,” improving the quality of services, increasing the number of service delivery points and undertaking advocacy and capacity-building to expand services to adolescents.

Despite numerous claims that the organization is “abortion-neutral” and that “UNFPA does not speak for or against the legalization of abortion,” the report states that the organization is working to promote “family planning as a means to reduce unsafe abortion.”

The term “unsafe abortion” is used by UNFPA officials to mean “illegal” abortion. The report also states that UNFPA will promote “reproductive rights” and “reproductive health services,” both of which have been misused by UN agencies and committees to be synonymous with abortion.

During the last meeting of UNFPA's executive board meeting, several nations expressed serious concern about UNFPA’s lack of accounting transparency and accountability and demanded reform of the agency.

Executive Director Thoraya Obaid does not acknowledge these concerns in her forward to the report and the report is silent on these concerns.

Obaid says she is heartened by UNFPA’s successes but that even “more needs to be done” and that the future work of UNFPA will seek “to link reproductive health, population and gender with the broader issues of poverty reduction.”

The report stated that 60% of UNFPA’s budget of $389 million, or $148 million, went to the reproductive health programs, compared with $51 million dollars on population and development programs.

UNFPA was charged by investigators from the US and British governments with aiding and abetting the forced abortion program of the government of China. As was reported in the New York Times, UNFPA was also charged with supporting a coercive family program in Peru, where native women were sterilized without their consent or were made to exchange their fertility for bags of groceries.

The US government withdrew its annual contribution from UNFPA many years ago and has never reinstated it. [[4Jan08, Samantha Singson, C-FAM Friday Fax; 4Jan, LifeNews.com]

Spanish Abortion Rate Skyrockets to over 100,000 Annually
SPANISH ABORTION RATE SKYROCKETS TO OVER 100,000 ANNUALLY: Coinicides with large increase in use of contraceptives and morning after pill. Spain's annual surgical abortion rate, which has increased dramatically since the socialist government's decriminalization of the practice in 1985, has now reached over 100,000 annually, according to recently-released government figures. The increase represents a doubling of the number of surgical abortions since 1997, when the rate was a little less than 50,000.

As the Spanish pro-family website "Forum Libertas" observes, this increase has occurred despite the promotion of contraception and the introduction of the "morning after pill", which are touted by their promoters as a means of avoiding the "necessity" of a later abortion.

According to Forum Libertas, the use of contraceptives has increased 60% since 1997, and "morning after pill" use has increased 67% since it was introduced in the year 2000. And still, or more likely because of these factors and some others, the abortion rate has doubled since 1997.

In reality, "morning after" drugs are abortifacient themselves, and therefore their use has actually added to the total number of abortions performed annually, on top of the increasing rate of surgical abortions.

Since 1985, Spain has allowed abortions up to twenty-two weeks of pregnancy in cases of "grave" threats to the mother's psychological or physical health. The "psychological" rationale is widely believed to account for almost all abortions, although the official statistics do not distinguish between physical and mental health reasons. Outside "maternal health", fetal abnormalities, rape cases, and "other" comprise slightly more than three percent of the total number of surgical abortions.

In the last year, Spanish and foreign news broadcasters have done exposes on Spain's astounding abortion industry, showing that the private clinics that perform the abortions routinely do so in violation of the abortion laws of Spain and other European countries, manufacturing diagnoses of "psychological risk" to justify the abortions under Spanish law.

In recent weeks, numerous abortion clinics have been closed by Spanish authorities for violations of the nation's abortion laws, and several doctors and clinic personnel are being prosecuted. At least one foreign woman who obtained an illegal abortion in Spain has also been arrested (see LifeSiteNews coverage at http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/dec/07121402.html).

Based on statistics provided by the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Forum Libertas observes that at least 166 of the babies aborted in the last year survived the initial procedure and were born alive, taking up to 80 minutes to die outside the womb.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais, while attempting to attribute the increase to a lack of contraceptive use and a "failure" in sex education, admitted that "the perception that abortion may be, in some cases, one more contraceptive method" may be the cause of the increase.

This reason, wrote the newspaper, "is supported by the data: in some 31% of the cases, the woman had had at least one previous abortion. One thousand two hundred and forty cases were fifth (or later) abortions."

Related: New Report Admits: Emergency Contraception Does Not Reduce Abortion
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07010908.html
[7Jan08, Spain, Hoffman, LifeSiteNews.com] 

2006 ANNUAL SUMMARY OF KS VITAL STATISTICS RELEASED by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). Program managers, epidemiologists, researchers and federal, state and local governments as well as the public use the annual summary to conduct studies and evaluations to guide policymaking decisions.
Topeka, KS - infoZine- The tables and charts contained in the summary reflect data that is reported to KDHE regarding births, stillbirths, deaths, marriages, marriage dissolutions (divorce and annulment) and abortions. Analysis of trend data, county data and a comparison of Kansas to the nation are included in the report.
Some of the highlights:
    * In 2006, a total of 40,896 births were registered to Kansas residents, 1,195 more than in 2005. This 3 percent increase is the highest since a 3.2 percent increase between 1997 and 1998. The number of births in 2006 is the highest reported since 1981 (41,202).
    * The percent of Kansas mothers receiving inadequate prenatal care increased 6.6 percent between 2005 and 2006.
    * Out-of-wedlock births followed national trends, increasing to a record high (14,376 or 35.2 percent of all births).
    * After a steady decline in the pregnancy rate for females ages 10-19 from 1994 to 2004, the rate increased over the following two years. In 2006, the rate (27.1 per 1,000 female age-group population) was up 1.5 percent from 2005 (26.7) and 3.8 percent from the record low (26.1) in 2004.
    * Almost half of the abortions performed in the state occurred to non-Kansas residents. The abortion ratio for Kansans increased 36.5 percent between 1987 (105.4 per 1,000 live births) and 2006 (143.9).
    * Wide discrepancies in the infant, neonatal and post neonatal death rates between white non-Hispanics and black non-Hispanics have continued. The black non-Hispanic infant death rate (17.5 per 1,000 live births) is 2.8 times higher than the rate for whites (6.2).
    * Marriage and marriage dissolution rates have dropped by nearly a quarter and a third, respectively, since 1987.
    Related: The 2006 Annual Summary of Kansas Vital Statistics is available at www.kdheks.gov/ches/. Requests for single, printed copies of the annual summary can be made to the KDHE Center for Health and Environmental Statistics, Office of Health Assessment at 785-296-8627 or 1-800-332-6262 (TDD/TT). [13Dec07, infoZine.com]