Woman Who Was Comatose for a Month After a Botched Abortion Gets $1.9 Million Settlement From NJ Abortion Business

Commentary: The "Hypocritic" Oath? Abortion Has Consequences for Mental Health

Commentary: Breast Cancer's Link to Abortion - Doctors Can't Do Science? 

CDC Abortion Surveillance: Abortions Rose 3.1% in 2006, Some Stats Shows Decline

UPDATE: Over 292,500 Have Signed Manhattan Declaration  -- http://www.manhattandeclaration.org

MANHATTAN DECLARATION WORLDVIEW RESOURCE DIRECTORY -- http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/resources

Uruguay Facing "Crucial Turning Point" on Abortion with Sunday's Upcoming General Election

Interview with Young MN Pro-Life Counselor Threatened with Knife to Throat

Finnish Study: 20 Percent of Women Using Abortion Drug Face Medical Complications / RU 486 Safe and Simple?

Women in China See 17% Higher Breast Cancer Risk From Abortion

Half of Women Using Prescription Drugs That Harm Unborn Children Get Abortion

Schools Let Students Seek Secret Abortions

Former TX PP Center Director Confirms Abortion Quotas

Hodari Abortion Business Site for Sale as Lawsuit Continues / UPDATE ON LAWSUIT: She Yelled Stop, Hodari Continued With Forced Abortion

Commentary: When Abortion Isn't a Choice

Study Shows 85 Percent of Women Say Abortions Cause Mental Health Issues

The UN Plan to Prevent Maternal Mortality: Kill their Babies

CDC Data: Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined

Surgeon: Abortion, Birth Control Pill Linked to Breast Cancer

Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Abortion on Ultrasound

Pro-Life Group: Fetal Tissue From Abortion Used in Neocutis Anti-Wrinkle Cream

British Report Shows Three Down Syndrome Babies Daily Victimized by Abortions

Abortion is Truly Not the Solution...

Woman Comatose Month After Botched Abortion Gets $1.9 Million Settlement
An abortion business in New Jersey has settled a $1.9 million lawsuit out of court filed by a woman who was comatose for one month following a botched abortion. Metropolitan Medical Associates, based in Englewood, New Jersey and a center that does thousands of abortions annually, was responsible.

Newark resident Rasheedah D. had an abortion in January 2007 at the Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion business that went horribly wrong.

Dinkins, who is now 22, became severely ill following the abortion and was transferred to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center where she needed blood transfusions and had her uterus removed. She also suffered a stroke due to the serious blood loss and had one of her lungs collapse.

"I was laying in my bed and I got the cold shakes," Dinkins told AP in March 2007 about her ordeal. "My body kept going numb. After that, I don't remember anything."

"I think it's horrible what I had to go through," she said at the time.

Dinkins said her mother and hospital officials told her she died en route to the medical facility from the abortion center but medical personnel were able to revive her. She told AP she regards her decision to have an abortion as a bad one, saying "I probably wouldn't have made this choice."

Adam Slater, Dinkins' attorney, filed a lawsuit against Metropolitan Medical Associates on her behalf and said he hoped it would help to "get to the bottom of why this incredibly horrible result could have happened."

He told The Record newspaper yesterday that the high number of abortions MMA does was a factor.

"We learned from the case that their volume of procedures was one factor that led to this problem," he said. "When you do too many procedures, you start to lose sight of the fact that these are all separate patients and separate procedures."

Dinkins had "greater-than-expected bleeding, they couldn't stop it, they eventually took extraordinary measures to stop it, and then they sent her home," Slater said.

"They should have sent her to Englewood Hospital, which is less than a mile away, where they would have examined her and found she had a uterine rupture. They would have treated her, and she would have been fine. But the damage from her excessive bleeding led to catastrophic injuries," he added.

Now, MMA has settled the $1.9 million lawsuit and its lawyer, Frank Capese, told AP yesterday that he couldn't comment on the details of the settlement because the abortion center's insurance carrier set a strict confidentiality agreement.

He claimed the abortions done at Metropolitan Medical Associates are safe.

The Record newspaper indicates the settlement includes $1 million from the abortion business, $575,000 from the main abortion practitioner in the case, Keith Gresham, and $325,000 from another abortion practitioner who assisted, Nicholas Kotopoulos.

However, the botched abortion caused so many medical complications that Newark Beth Israel Medical Center filed a complaint with state officials.

The Department of Health and Senior Services investigated the abortion facility and found dirty forceps, rusty crochet hooks used to remove IUDs, and a quarter-inch of dirt and debris under an examining table.

In ordering the abortion business to close, the Department said the abortion facility had poor infection control, and did not properly sterilize instruments and equipment.

Health inspectors said the violations at the abortion business pose "immediate and serious risk of harm to patients."

It was only the second time state health officials ordered one of the state's 650 ambulatory health centers closed.

D. isn't the only woman who had an abortion at MMA and experienced problems.

Gloria M. of Cliffside Park also sued the abortion center saying staff there misdiagnosed a tubal pregnancy and told her she miscarried the baby when she was actually pregnant with twins.

She told AP an abortion practitioner there did an abortion on her and told her he was just removing dead tissue. But a week later she had to undergo a medical procedure to remove the babies who had implanted into her fallopian tubes, causing her severe internal bleeding.

"I've been waiting for those doors to be locked for 3 1/2 years," she told AP in 2007.

Metropolitan Medical Associates is one of the biggest abortion facilities in the nation, having done 10,000 abortions last year alone. It was also closed down in 1993 for health and safety issues.

While it was closed, the abortion center referred women to the Women's Choice abortion center in Hackensack, run by the same owners as MMA. During its closing, it told callers it was "closed for renovations."
MMA has reopened and advertises its abortions prominently on the Internet.
[13Dec09, Ertelt, Englewood, NJ, www.LifeNews.com; http://www.lifenews.com/state4638.html ]


NJ Abortion Clinic Pays $1.9 Million for Botched Abortion
Huge pay-out raises questions about the dangers of abortion facilities that will be eligible for tax-funding should health care reform include abortion coverage.
A troubled New Jersey abortion clinic affiliated with the National Abortion Federation (NAF) has paid out $1.9 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a Rasheedah Dinkins, who suffered a horrifically botched second trimester abortion in 2007.

The huge pay-out raises questions about the quality and safety of abortion facilities that will be eligible for tax-funding should health care reform now under consideration in the Senate include abortion coverage.

"We also have to wonder if taxpayers will be footing the bill for enormous malpractice settlements for botched abortions done on the public option plan," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "This case should be a wake up to Congress."

Dinkins sued the Metropolitan Medical Associates and abortionists Keith Gresham and Nicholas Kotopouloswas alleging that during her abortion, she suffered a massive loss of blood from a uterine rupture that resulted in a stroke, a collapsed lung, a tracheotomy, and a hysterectomy. She was placed on a respirator and suffered a coma that lasted three weeks. The NAF was also named in the Dinkins suit.

"Businesses don't pay out an amount like $1.9 million unless it fears that a jury would award a whole lot more. It shows how negligent and shoddy this abortion mill is," said Newman.

After Dinkins' suit became public, two other women came forward to tell of botched abortions at Metropolitan Medical Associates that nearly killed them.

Metropolitan Medical then failed an inspection and was closed by the State for nearly a month while they cleaned up filthy conditions including dirty forceps, rusty crochet hooks used to remove IUDs, and a quarter-inch of dark red "dirt and debris" under an examining table. After it failed a second inspection Operation Rescue undercover investigators caught the clinic scheduling appointments, even though it did not have permission to re-open at that time.

"We've seen what NAF affiliation means. We bought and closed an NAF- affiliated abortion clinic [sic] in Wichita, Kansas, in 2006, and discovered dangerous, filthy conditions including roach and mold infestations, out of code plumbing and electrical, and dirty, blood-stained carpets, to name a few," said Newman.

"Considering the appalling conditions at NAF abortion mills, it is disturbing to know that they are pulling out the stops to lobby for abortion funding in the health care bill. It would be monumentally irresponsible to give one cent of our tax money to these [uninspected businesses]."
[Christian Newswire, Englewood, NJ, Dec. 14, 2009, http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/9884112449.html ]

Commentary: The "Hypocritic" Oath? Abortion Has Consequences for Mental Health

By Michael Pakaluk

Imagine that in a certain country there was a pain-killing drug that patients really wanted to take because it improved their mood.

The legislature of this country had passed a law, however, saying that, in view of this drug's power, physicians could prescribe it only if a dose of the drug would stave off some serious threat to a patient's health.

In fact, for someone to get this drug at all, two physicians had to sign a certificate averring that, if the patient did not receive it, then his health would be seriously at risk.

Now imagine that since the time the drug was discovered, and the law passed, various studies had been carried out suggesting that the drug was actually harmful to someone's health. There was evidence that even one dose seemed to increase substantially a person's risk of developing various kinds of serious health problems.

Nonetheless, the doctors in this country still continued to prescribe the drug to their patients, certifying that it was necessary for health reasons, while pocketing handsome consulting fees in the process.

Sounds pretty corrupt, don't you think? A situation ripe for a class-action lawsuit, you might suppose.

Maybe it would even seem unbelievable that professionals, who profess a code of ethics, could act in this way: Certify something as healthy, when they had good reason to think that it was actually bad for their patient's health.

Yet a recent study suggests that this is exactly how doctors in some countries behave regarding abortion.

Conflicted

The study, "Reactions to Abortion and Subsequent Mental Health" (British Journal of Psychiatry, November 2009), by David Fergusson and colleagues, analyzes data collected as part of the Christchurch Health and Development Study (Christchurch, New Zealand), which has tracked and measured on a regular basis 1,265 persons from birth through age 30.

Fergusson found that women in this cohort who have had a single abortion and report feeling conflicted about it (i.e. most of these women) are roughly 80% more likely to develop a diagnosable mental illness than women who in similar circumstances carry their pregnancy to term.

In fact, extrapolating from the data, the authors suggest that at least 5% of the mental illness of women under 30 is ascribable to abortion.

To put this finding in perspective, consider that patients who smoke likewise have roughly an 80% increased risk of a heart attack. That is, abortion seems to be as bad for a woman's mental health as smoking is for her heart.

Fergusson's study does not stand on its own; rather, it confirms earlier findings based on the Christchurch research, as well as other studies. Reviewing the total body of evidence, Fergusson comments that, although there is good evidence that abortion increases the risk of mental illness, "there is no evidence […] that would suggest that unwanted pregnancies that come to term were associated with increased risks of mental health problems."

Justification

And yet in New Zealand — as well as England and Wales — abortion is typically justified on mental health grounds.

In New Zealand, for example, two doctors must certify that, in the language of the statute, "continuance of the pregnancy would result in serious danger to mental health." Over 98% of abortions are approved on these grounds.

According to the country's Abortion Supervisory Committee, for certifying these abortions, doctors in New Zealand received over $5 million in consulting fees last year alone.

What is going on here? It is tempting to say that in this practice one sees at work a principle that can be observed in other kinds of fraud and corruption — namely, one corrupt practice tends to engender increasingly brazen corruption.

Abortion itself is, strictly, a corruption of the art of medicine, since it represents the use of medical skill for no genuine medical end (In this respect it is on a par with a doctor administering a lethal injection to a prisoner.)

As a direct attack on the life of an immature human being, it has no genuine medical justification, only a utilitarian rationale. Thus it admits of continued practice for utilitarian reasons — as in New Zealand — even when medical reasons are not merely absent for it, but actually countervailing.

Doctors in England show signs of being uncomfortable with the current practice. Back in 1993 the Royal College of Psychiatrists stated that "the risks to psychological health from the termination of pregnancy in the first trimester are much less than the risks associated with proceeding with a pregnancy which is clearly harming the mother's mental health."

However, last year that position was rejected and replaced by a new statement which read: "The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women's mental health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive — some studies indicate no evidence of harm, whilst other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion."

The change looks like movement from recommending abortions for mental health reasons, to a position of neutrality; yet it isn't that, because note how the Royal College now frames the question: What is at issue, they say, is whether abortion, as suspected, leads to mental disorder.

Conclusive evidence

Whether, in contrast, abortion is actually beneficial to a woman's mental health is not an open question for them: The evidence is conclusive that it is not.

Fergusson's findings, and the other evidence, have ramifications beyond those jurisdictions in which abortion is typically justified on mental health grounds — since any woman contemplating abortion should at least be given the information that allows her to make a genuinely informed consent.

Indeed, the mental health consequences of abortion are potentially far worse than Fergusson's study would indicate, for two reasons.

First, Fergusson so far has studied women only up to the age of 30. Yet there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that a woman's distress over abortion can actually be triggered by events later in life, such as pregnancy and birth, or the death of family members.

Second, Fergusson followed a practice set down by earlier studies and looked at only a limited class of mental illnesses from the standard diagnostic manual (DSM-IV): "major depression; anxiety disorders (including generalized anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia and specific phobia); alcohol dependence; and illicit drug dependence."

But seasoned clinicians have pointed out that for women procuring abortion one might expect additionally to see "adjustment disorders" and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), not to mention sub-clinical pain and distress, which would be very real for affected women yet not necessarily captured in a diagnostic category.

So, true informed consent would require women telling a woman who is contemplating an abortion something like: "Studies have suggested that a single abortion increases by as much as 80% your risk of developing certain serious mental illnesses before you reach age 30, and it potentially implies a much higher risk of mental illness in general over a lifespan." Needless to say, women are not told anything like this.

An incidental fact about Fergusson's study tends to confirm the suspicion that the research has revealed only the tip of the iceberg. Fergusson determined whether a woman had procured an abortion by accepting that woman's own reports. Women were asked at roughly three-year intervals whether, in that interval, they had become pregnant, and, if so, what happened with the pregnancy — whether it ended in miscarriage, birth, or abortion. They were also asked the same question retrospectively, about their lifespan as a whole, at 30 years of age.

Note that the replies were given privately and also anonymously, in the sense that the data were collected in such a way that answers could not be mapped to any particular individual.

Yet, curiously, Fergusson found that 32% of the women in his cohort declined to report an abortion — that is, either they did not report, in some interval, an abortion that they later reported retrospectively (at age 30), or they did not report retrospectively (at age 30) an abortion that they had reported in an earlier interval.

Moreover, the women in the study as a whole under-reported the abortions that they had. Through comparisons with data for the general population, it became apparent that women in the study reported (whether prospectively or retrospectively) only 85% of the abortions that they actually procured.

Denial

To translate this point into plain language: In an anonymous study, in which answers are given privately and can cause no embarrassment or public humiliation, nearly half of the women who are asked declined to say that they had an abortion — even though they were asked directly about their pregnancies and the outcomes, and whether one has had an abortion is not something that can be forgotten or easily overlooked.

Another fact about Fergusson's study appears strange when compared with this curious fact of under-reporting.

He also asked women at the 30-year point to give their judgment on the rightness of their choice to have an abortion. Was it "definitely the right decision," "definitely the wrong decision," or was the woman unsure?

Fergusson found that 90% of women replied that their abortion was "definitely the right decision."

These two curious facts — massive under-reporting (which is a form of denial), together with an apparent dogmatism in affirming the rightness of one's choice of an abortion — would seem to indicate severe interior conflict on the part of these women.

Such conflict, even if it does not lead eventually to outright, clinically diagnosable mental illness, would seem at very least incompatible with mental peace and ordinary happiness.

With fear and trembling one is reminded of Mother Teresa's statement that in an abortion two things die: the unborn child, and the mother's conscience.

As for the medical integrity of the physician who recommends or performs the surgery — that has presumably been dead for a long time.

["Reactions to Abortion and Subsequent Mental Health", British Journal of Psychiatry, November 2009, by David Fergusson, et al; Michael Pakaluk is a professor of philosophy and the director of Integrative Research at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, VA, 19 NOV 2009, www.zenit.org]

Breast Cancer's Link to Abortion: Doctors Can't Do Science?

by Karen Malec, president, Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer

On two occasions early in November, The Daily Iowan's opinion editor, Shawn Gude, invited a reader by the name of Rebecca Curtis to send him a 600-word rebuttal in response to a guest opinion written by University of Iowa law students, Amber Fricke and Amy Hirst, on October 27, 2009 that incorrectly stated that abortion does not increase breast cancer risk. [1]

Curtis sent The Daily Iowan a rebuttal, but Gude rejected it on November 5 and invited her to re-write it. She quickly responded by sending him a revised rebuttal, but on November 9, he rejected that too. Gude explained to Curtis, "While I appreciate your submission, I remain skeptical of some of your sources."

Gude objected that Curtis had cited research published in The Linacre Quarterly, and the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, a publication of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, even though both publications are peer-reviewed medical journals and the authors of the research papers in question are esteemed, international experts on the abortion-breast cancer link. [8,9] (The term "peer-reviewed" means that the scientific papers have been evaluated by an impartial panel of experts who recommend the papers for publication or rejection.)

It appears that Gude and other editors had held Curtis' commentary to a higher standard of scrutiny than the commentary by Fricke and Hirst. The editors permitted Fricke and Hirst to cite the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, as well as two studies that have been proven in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons to be fatally flawed. [2,3,4,5] Fricke and Hirst, who are members of the euphemistically named University of Iowa Law Students for Reproductive Justice, also cited the American Cancer Society's web page, "Is Abortion Linked to Breast Cancer?" [6]

Had the editors at the paper conducted a 5-minute search on PubMed, they would have learned that one of Fricke and Hirst's citations, a study named Melbye et al. 1997, actually reported a statistically significant 89% risk increase for women who have abortions after 18 weeks gestation, although researchers found no overall increase in risk. [2] (The American Cancer Society insults women's intelligence by using this study to deny an abortion-breast cancer link.)

Furthermore, Melbye's team found a dose effect of 3% per week of gestation until the abortion takes place, thereby fulfilling one of the criteria needed for establishing a cause-effect relationship.

In other words, the longer a pregnant woman is exposed to the cancer-causing effects of an elevated estrogen level before her abortion takes place, the greater her breast cancer risk is (provided the abortion occurs before 32 weeks gestation).

The breasts grow during a normal pregnancy because estrogen stimulates the mother's cancer-susceptible lobules to multiply. The longer she is pregnant before her abortion takes place, the more places she grows for cancers to start.

Breast cancer risk plunges at 32 weeks and continues to plunge for each week thereafter until delivery at 40 weeks, as the fetus produces hormones that mature an increasing number of the mother's breast lobules into permanently cancer-resistant lobules. [7,8]

By 40 weeks, 85% of the lobules are permanently cancer-resistant. Then, the mother is left with fewer places in her breasts for cancers to start. (That explains why full term pregnancy is protective against breast cancer.)

If The Daily Iowan's editors had conducted a PubMed search, they would have discovered a 1999 study by Melbye's team reporting that premature birth before 32 weeks gestation more than doubles breast cancer risk (a finding that supports an independent link between abortion and breast cancer). [7]

Early premature birth, like abortion, is a short pregnancy exposing the mother's cancer-susceptible breast lobules to virtually the same pregnancy hormones, which result in the same structural changes and leave her with more places for breast cancers to start.

Instead of considering the scientific evidence on how the breasts develop and function that had been presented in the journal,The Linacre Quarterly, Gude and his colleagues decided to shoot its messengers. [8]  Gude wrote to Curtis that he was "uneasy" about the use of a source from The Linacre Quarterly, which "exists to uphold the principles of the Catholic faith and morality as related to the science and practice of medicine."

What was Gude implying? That Catholic doctors can't do science? That they bend science to fit their religious beliefs? The implication is that Catholic doctors are incapable of objectivity when it comes to scientific research on abortion, unlike doctors of other faiths and atheists and agnostics (none of whom could possibly be biased in favor of abortion).

If Gude had dared to imply that a Jewish medical journal was not credible because it exists to uphold the Jewish faith in the science and practice of medicine, consider the outrage that would follow.

Bias is not exclusively a one-way street that occurs only in the pro-life camp, but when bias goes the opposite way, in the direction of the pro-abortion camp, abortion enthusiasts in the media are indifferent, even if that bias endangers women's lives.

For example, although cancer experts universally consider childbearing to be protective against breast cancer and an independent link between abortion and breast cancer has been studied for 53 years, cancer fundraising groups like Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Breast Cancer Action and the National Breast Cancer Coalition, have included radicals among their leaders who had previously been associated with Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the American Civil Liberties Union. Why would it be in their interest to educate women about the three ways that abortion raises breast cancer risk?

Dr. Leslie Bernstein's bias in favor of abortion is overt, but no one would ever dream of insulting her by associating her religious faith (or lack of faith) with the way she has conducted herself as a scientist.

Bernstein was a leader/moderator at the U.S. National Cancer Institute's phony workshop on the abortion-breast cancer link in 2003. After that workshop, she told CancerPage.com why she doesn't want women to know that abortion raises breast cancer risk.

Note that she acknowledged that the younger a woman is when she has her first birth, the lower her breast cancer risk is. (It can't be denied that abortion is used to delay first full term pregnancies.) Bernstein said:

"The biggest bang for the buck is the first birth, and the younger you are, the better off you are. I would never be a proponent of going around and telling them that having babies is the way to reduce your risk.... I don't want the issue relating to induced abortion to breast cancer risk to be part of the mix of the discussion of induced abortion, its legality, its continued availability." [10]

Imagine the howls among abortion enthusiasts in the media if a reverse scenario had taken place. Pretend that Bernstein had been anti-abortion and had said she didn't want women to know there were health benefits associated with having an abortion (not that there are health benefits). There would be no end to the doleful wailing among those members of the press, and the U.S. National Cancer Institute would resemble the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789.

After hearing that The Daily Iowan's opinion editor had objected to a citation from The Linacre Quarterly, one physician declared that if the facts presented in that journal had been published on a bathroom wall, on parchment, on toilet paper or in the National Enquirer, they would still remain biological facts.

If The Daily Iowan's editors had bothered to review the secondary references listed at the end of the article in The Linacre Quarterly, they would have found studies published in medical journals with politically correct names, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, British Journal of Cancer, and Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. [8]

Gude also objected that Curtis used the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons as a source. [9] He told Curtis that the Journal is "a political non-profit" (a description that could be be applied to the American Medical Association); and he criticized the Journal for publishing articles that challenged scientific hypotheses concerning global warming and HIV/AIDS. He claimed,

"It has also published reports claiming 'increases in (atmospheric carbon dioxide) during the 20th and 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate' and that HIV doesn't cause AIDS."

Gude said both the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organization deny the abortion-breast cancer link. If Gude had been an opinion editor during the 1930's, would he have also rejected a commentary discussing Einstein's theory of relativity because 100 scientists had written essays disparaging it?

Jane Orient, MD, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, commented on Gude's arguments. She wrote:

"How can one respond to this kind of attack? It is not a good faith assessment. But one might say:
 
"The validity of a scientific paper should be assessed by reading it, not by skimming the table of contents of the journal that published it.
 
"The Daily Iowan assumes the truth of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, which is based solely on UN computer models, the predictions of which are refuted by actual observations. Around 32,000 American scientists are on the record as agreeing with the statement that The Daily Iowan quotes.
 
"The Daily Iowan assumes the truth of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis; the Journal has published a couple of articles pointing to difficulties with it. All scientific hypotheses are subject to efforts to disprove them; that is the nature of science.
 
"Apparently, the fact that WHO (World Health Organization), a heavily politicized international agency, questioned the abortion-breast cancer link tells The Daily Iowan it must be not worth looking at.
 
"This is apparently the reasoning process used by The Daily Iowan:
 
"A peer-reviewed scientific journal's publication of articles criticizing politically correct theories means everything in the the Journal is worthless.
 
"A political agency's criticism of a politically incorrect hypothesis about an ABC (abortion-breast cancer) link means that all the evidence for an ABC link is worthless.
 
"What conclusions can one reach about the critical thinking skills, the scientific understanding, or the journalistic standards of The Daily Iowan?"


Breast cancer is an extremely common disease, and abortion is a common, elective procedure. Under these circumstances, what possible right do journalists have to commit journalistic malpractice by ignoring the opinion of eight medical organizations that acknowledge that abortion raises breast cancer risk, independently of the recognized breast cancer risk of abortion - the loss of the protective effect of childbearing?

Consequently, the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is presenting the The Daily Iowan's editors with two easy challenges that will help them cast light on the cancer fundraising industry's truthfulness.

First, no expert has ever challenged or even attempted to refute the biological basis for the link presented in The Linacre Quarterly or anywhere else, for that matter. If the editors have a sincere desire to protect women's health, then why not ask the American Cancer Society, the U.S. National Cancer Institute and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to review Dr. Angela Lanfranchi's paper in The Linacre Quarterly and identify any errors? Why not challenge them to refute the biological reasons for the abortion-breast cancer link? Cancer groups won't do it because Lanfranchi's presentation is physiologically correct.

Second, since medical texts acknowledge that childlessness, delayed first full term pregnancy and small family size raise breast cancer risk, the editors should ask the cancer fundraising industry two simple questions with two obvious answers. If a woman aborts all of her pregnancies, will she be childless?  Also, who has the greater breast cancer risk - the 15-year-old who has an abortion or the one who has a full term pregnancy? The second question has to do with the recognized breast cancer risk of abortion - the loss of the protective effect of childbearing.

Even Dr. Lynn Rosenberg (Boston Medical School), an expert witness for Florida abortion providers in 1999 was forced to set aside the cancer establishment's intellectual dishonesty when she testified under oath as an expert witness for the Center for Reproductive Rights in a lawsuit challenging Florida's parental notification law. Preferring not to perjure herself by pretending that abortion does not cause women to delay their first full term pregnancies, she said she agreed with this statement:

"A woman who finds herself pregnant at age 15 will have a higher breast cancer risk if she chooses to abort that pregnancy than if she carries the pregnancy to term, correct?" [11]

Breast cancer increases with age at first full term pregnancy. A delayed first full term pregnancy lengthens the period between puberty and first full term pregnancy (the "susceptibility window") when nearly all of the breast lobules are immature and cancer-susceptible and exposed to the cancer-causing effects of estrogen increases during monthly menstrual cycles, resulting in an accumulation of the effects of cancer-causing substances.

Since the loss of the protective effect of childbearing is considered settled science, most studies on the abortion-breast cancer link do not compare the effect of having an abortion with the effect of having a full term pregnancy. Rather, most studies compare the effect of having an abortion with the effect of not having had that pregnancy (thereby addressing the question of an independent link - whether abortion further raises risk by leaving the breasts with more places for cancers to start). 

Certainly, it would be bad social policy to encourage unmarried teens and young women to have babies.

However, Professor Joel Brind from Baruch College, City University of New York, has rightly argued that the already-pregnant woman has only two realistic choices. Either she aborts, or she has a baby.

She doesn't have the choice of never having had that pregnancy.

Her doctor is ethically and legally obligated to obtain informed consent from her before performing an abortion. That means telling her that experts agree if she chooses an abortion, her risk of developing breast cancer will be greater than it will be if she chooses to have a baby (because she is delaying her first full term pregnancy).

The woman may be able to sue her doctor for medical malpractice if he fails to provide her with this minimal information (as five women have successfully sued their doctors who failed to warn them about the risks of breast cancer and emotional harm). [12]

It takes a special kind of cruelty to cover up a risk that has caused 1.5 million Americans to develop breast cancer and 300,000 deaths since 1973 (based on 50 million abortions, a 30% increased risk of breast cancer for women with abortions, and a 10% lifetime risk for the average American woman without abortion).

The American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer groups could have done a great deal of good by telling women the truth about the abortion-breast cancer link. Instead, they use studies that have been proven in medical journals to be significantly flawed (even fraudulent) to make their argument that abortion does not raise breast cancer risk. [13-22]

They didn't tell women the truth about the risks of using the pill and combined hormone replacement therapy, although the data were available in the 1980s. Now they're not telling women the truth about the abortion-breast cancer link.

Biased members of the media are their enablers.


References:

1. "Recent DI advertising supplement strikingly inaccurate," By Amber Fricke and Amy Hirst, The Daily Iowan, October 27, 2009. Available at: http://www.dailyiowan.com/2009/10/27/Opinions/13910.html?dsq=21109498#disqus_thread

2. Melbye M, Wohlfahrt J, Olson JH, Frisch M, Westergaard T, Helweg-Larsen K, Andersen PK. Induced abortion and the risk of breast cancer. N Engl J Med 1997;336:81-85.

3. Michels K, Xue Fei, Colditz G., Willett W. Induced and Spontaneous Abortion and Incidence of Breast Cancer Among Young Women. Arch Int Med 2007;167:814-820.

4. Brind J, Chinchilli VM. Letter. Induced abortion and the risk of breast cancer. N Engl J Med 1997;336:1834-1835.

5. Brind J.  Induced abortion and breast cancer: A critical analysis of the report of the Harvard Nurses Study II. J Am Phys Surg 2007;12(2)38-39. Available at: <http://www.jpands.org/vol12no2/brind.pdf>.

6. "Is abortion linked to breast cancer?" American Cancer Society web page. Visited November 24, 2009. Available at: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6x_Can_Having_an_Abortion_Cause_or_Contribute_to_Breast_Cancer.asp?sitearea=.

7. Melbye M, Wohlfahrt J, Andersen A-M N, Westergaard T, Andersen PK. Preterm delivery and risk of breast cancer. Bri J Cancer 1999;80:609-13.

8. Lanfranchi, A. Normal breast physiology: The reasons hormonal contraceptives and induced abortion increase breast cancer risk. The Linacre Quarterly 2009;76:236-249. Available at:http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/download/LQ_76_3_2_Lanfranchi.pdf

9. Brind J. Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer: A critical review of recent studies based on prospective data. J Am Phys Surg Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter 2005) 105-110. Available at: <http://www.jpands.org/vol10no4/brind.pdf>.

10. Lowe RM, NCI scientific panel concludes abortion has no impact on breast cancer risk. CancerPage.com, March 3, 2003.  Available at:
<http://www.cancerpage.com/news/article.asp?id=5601>.  Accessed November 18, 2009.

11. Rosenberg (1999) NW FL Women's Health vs. State of FL, FL Circuit Ct., 2nd circ., videotape deposition of 11/18/99, pp. 77-78. Available at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/rosenberg's_testimony.htm

12. See the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer's Legal Issues web page at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/Your_Rights.htm

13. Brind J. Breast cancer in relation to abortion: results from the EPIC study. Int J Cancer. 2008 Feb 15;122(4):960-1.

14. Brind J. California Teachers Study report on incomplete pregnancy is flawed. Contraception 2009;Mar;79(3):240.

15. Brind J. The abortion-breast cancer connection. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly Summer 2005; p. 303-329. Available at: <http://www.AbortionBreastCancer.com/Brind_NCBQ.PDF>.

16. Lanfranchi A. The abortion-breast cancer link revisited. Ethics and Medics (November 2004) Vol. 29, No. 11, p. 1-4.  Available at:http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/041120/index.htm

17. Furton E. Editorial. The corruption of science by ideology. Ethics and Medics (Dec. 2004) Vol. 29, No. 11, p. 1-2.  Available at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/E+MDec2004-EFurtonarticle.PDF

18. Schlafly A. Legal implications of a link between abortion and breast cancer. J Am Phys Surgeons2005;10:11-14. Available at:http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/aschlafly.pdf

19. Lanfranchi A. The science, studies and sociology of the abortion-breast cancer link. Research Bulletin 2005;18:1-8. Available at: http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/June2005.pdf

20. Lanfranchi A. The breast physiology and the epidemiology of the abortion breast cancer link. Imago Hominis 2005;12(3): 228-236. http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/Lanfranchi060201.pdf

21. Brind J. Induced Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk: A Critical Analysis of the Report of the Harvard Nurses Study II. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons(Summer 2007) Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 38-39.  Available at: <http://www.jpands.org/vol12no2/brind.pdf>.

22. Lanfranchi, A. The federal government and academic texts as barriers to informed consent. J Am Phys Surg (Spring 2008).  Available at: <http://www.jpands.org/vol13no1/lanfranchi.pdf>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                               

Editors at The Daily Iowan were happy to invite Rebecca Curtis to write a rebuttal to a guest opinion by two, impressionable law students from the University of Iowa, until they learned what she had to say about the link between abortion and increased breast cancer risk. Then they fell back on the arguments that limited editorial space is available and that Curtis isn't from the Iowa City area.

Write to The Daily Iowan and ask the editors to take on the challenges that our group has presented to them. We asked them to make some simple requests of the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the U.S. National Cancer Institute, which will help the editors to shed light on the cancer establishment's honesty. These requests include:

1) Review Dr. Angela Lanfranchi's paper in the journal, The Linacre Quarterly, and identify what, if any errors, are in her presentation of the physiology of the breast.

2) Refute the biological reasons for an independent link between abortion and increased breast cancer risk.

3) Is childlessness a risk factor for breast cancer? If so, then please answer this question. If a woman aborts all of her pregnancies, will she be childless?

4) Who has a greater breast cancer risk - the 15-year-old who has an abortion or the 15-year-old who has a full term pregnancy (all other factors being the same)?

If the editors care about the young college students they serve, they will take us up on our challenge.
The Daily Iowan's contact page is at: http://www.dailyiowan.com/pages/lte.html
[PharmFacts E-News Update -- 5 Dec 2009 ]
 

New CDC Abortion Surveillance: Abortions Rose 3.1% in 2006, Other Research Shows Decline
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control claims the number of abortions has rose during 2006, the last year for which it has national data available. However, a January 2008 report from a pro-abortion group that is considered more effective in tabulating abortions shows abortions declining.

Each year, the CDC requests abortion data from 52 reporting areas, including New York City and the District of Columbia. However, just 49 areas gave the CDC abortion stats and only 46 have reported consistently over the last 10 years.

California, Louisiana, and New Hampshire are not included in the annual abortion totals the CDC reports.

The new report indicates there were a total of 846,181 abortions during 2006, which the CDC says is a 3.1 percent increase over its 2005 numbers.

CDC notes the abortion rate was 16.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years and the abortion ratio was 236 abortions per 1,000 live births, or 23.6 percent of pregnancies ending in abortion.

Those figures are lower that and different from the statistics compiled by the Guttmacher Institute, the pro-abortion group that is the former research arm of Planned Parenthood.

In its January 2008 report, considered more accurate because Guttmacher goes through abortion businesses themselves rather than relying on state health department figures and because it gets figures from the entire country, Guttmacher said abortions dropped to 1.21 million in 2005 from 1.31 million in 2000.

Guttmacher notes that 22 percent of pregnancies end in abortion, a lower abortion ratio than the CDC figure.

Despite the increases in the numbers, CDC joins Guttmacher in saying that, during the previous decade (1996-2006) reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 5.7%, 8.8%, and 14.8%, respectively.

Digging deeper into the new CDC report, in 2006, as during the previous decade, women aged 20--29 years accounted for the majority (56.8%) of abortions and had the highest abortion rates (29.9 abortions per 1,000 women aged 20--24 years and 22.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 25--29 years).

By contrast the abortion ratio -- the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion -- are highest at the extremes, with women in their 40s and teenagers more likely to have an abortion when confronted with an unplanned pregnancy.

The CDC indicates the majority (62.0%) of abortions in 2006 were done on unborn children at 8 weeks gestation or sooner. Some 3.7 percent of all abortions are done on babies greater than 21 weeks gestation.

During 1997--2006, the percentage of abortions done earlier in pregnancy increased 11.7 percent -- likely because of more women switching from surgical abortions to abortions using the dangerous mifepristone (RU 486) abortion drug.

The report indicates 87.6 percent of abortions are still done using the curettage (including vacuum aspiration, sharp curettage, and dilation and evacuation) surgical procedure while 10.6 percent of abortions rely on the abortion pill.

Although abortion was supposed to make it safer for women, the CDC indicates women continue to die from botched legal abortions.

"Deaths of women associated with complications from abortions for 2006 are being investigated under CDC's Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. In 2005, the most recent year for which data were available, seven women were reported to have died as a result of complications from known legal induced abortions," the report says.

Six of the women who died from botched abortions had surgical abortion procedures while one woman died from the mifepristone abortion drug.

No women died from illegal abortions during the year.

Looking at the state figures, New York continued leading the nation in terms of the number of abortions with 83,220 while Wyoming saw 275 get abortions in state.

Just 39 states submitted date about the racial makeup of women getting abortions.

White women accounted for the largest percentage (55.8%) of abortions, black women accounted for 36.4% and women of other racial groups for 7.8%. As has been the case in previous years, black women had higher abortion rates and ratios than white women and women of other races.

Some 83.5% of all women obtaining abortions were unmarried and unmarried women accounted for a slightly higher percentage of abortions in 2006 than in prior years.

Among the 41 areas for which the number of previous live births was reported for 2006, 41.3% of women had already had at least one child at the time of their abortion. On the other hand, 44.8 percent of women getting abortions in 2006 had already had at least one abortion and 19.2 percent had at least two prior abortions.

[25 November 2009, Steven Ertelt
Washington, DC, www.LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/nat5707.html]

Each year, CDC requests abortion data from the central health agencies in 52 reporting areas (the 50 states, New York City, and the District of Columbia). For 2006, a total of 846,181 abortions were reported to CDC. Among the 46 areas that provided data consistently during 1996–2006, a total of 835,134 abortions (98.7% of the total) were reported. During the previous decade (1997–2006), the number of reported abortions decreased 5.7%; most of this decline occurred before 2001. During the previous year (2005–2006), the total number of abortions increased 3.1%, and the abortion rate increased 3.2%; the abortion ratio was stable.

CDC, MMWR Abortion Surveillance, 27 November 2009, 58 (S S08); 1-35  

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5808a1.htm?s_cid=ss5808a1_e

Over 155,000 Sign Manhattan Declaration in Less than a Week
http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/
The unprecedented pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-religious freedom Manhattan Declaration, unveiled in a press conference last Friday, has already been signed by over 150,000 individuals in less than a week, and the numbers are continuing to rise by the second.

The 4,700-word "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience" was drafted by Dr. Robert George, Dr. Timothy George and Chuck Colson. At the time of its release last week it was signed by more than 125 prominent religious figures, including figures from Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian denominations. That number has now risen to over 170, including 18 Roman Catholic bishops, in addition to the 150,000 ordinary Christians.

Colson says he hopes that the document will eventually be signed by more than 1,000,000 individuals, which, given its current momentum, hardly seems out of the question.

The Declaration is a non-denominational statement that throws down the gauntlet to a secular culture that is increasingly encroaching upon the rights of Christians who hold to traditional moral values, especially on the issues of marriage and the right to life.  "We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers," says the document, "that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence."

The document goes on to challenge the growing movement to silence Christians by force of the law in the strongest terms, going so far as to intimate civil disobedience. "Unjust laws degrade human beings," says the document. "They lack any power to bind in conscience. [Martin Luther] King's willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring."

The enormous popularity of the document appears to arise largely from its ability to bind together Christians from diverse theological and denominational backgrounds to fight for a common cause - the right to life, the preservation of true marriage, and the right to religious liberty.

Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the original signatories to the document, admitted earlier this week that he usually does not sign on to such statements, which often require the signatories to compromise on key doctrinal issues. 

However, he said, the Manhattan Declaration is "not a wide-ranging theological document that subverts confessional integrity." Rather, "It is a statement of urgent concern and common conscience on these three issues - the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage, and the defense of religious liberty."

While, he says, he still believes that the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations have got it wrong on important theological issues, "when Catholic Charities in Massachusetts chose to end its historic ministry of placing orphaned children in good homes because the State of Massachusetts required it to place children with same-sex couples, this is not just a Catholic issue."

Indeed, he said, the issues at stake are simply too urgent to ignore. "I believe," he said, "we are facing an inevitable and culture-determining decision on the three issues centrally identified in this statement. … There is every good reason to believe that the freedom to conduct Christian ministry according to Christian conviction is being subverted and denied before our eyes."

The Declaration has become a rallying point for Christian leaders, like Mohler, who have read the signs of the times and come to believe that the public square is becoming increasingly hostile to basic Christian values.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said about the Declaration that, "Standing in the shadow of the cross, Christian leaders have drawn a cultural and political line in the sand from which they have pledged they will not be moved."

"We are bringing our faith to bear on public policy because we see the efforts of the Left as a frontal assault on human dignity, the American family, and the future of our children," he continued. "For this reason, we will not retreat an inch and will make the case for life, marriage, and religious liberty in the public square."

In the U.K., where the rights of Christians are under attack more fiercely than almost anywhere else in the West, Telegraph writer Gerald Warner wrote that, "For harassed, demoralised faithful in the pews [the Manhattan Declaration] will come as the long-awaited call to resistance and an earnest (sic) that their leaders are no longer willing to lie down supinely to be run over by the anti-Christian juggernaut."

The timeliness of the document is highlighted by the fact that earlier this month the House of Commons in the U.K. voted for the fourth time to remove conscience protections from proposed "equality" legislation that explicitly would have allowed Christians to continue to express moral disagreement with homosexual behavior.

While the conscience language was later reinserted by the House of Lords, the momentum in the U.K. is clearly on the secuarlists' side, for the moment.

Numerous adoptions agencies were either forced to close or secularize after the government passed the so-called Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) in 2007, and there are increasing reports of Christians being forced out of their jobs or visited by the police simply because they expressed their moral convictions, usually on the issue of homosexuality.

It is precisely the increasing occurrence of these types of anti-Christian actions on the part of government that have led the organizers of the Manhattan Declaration to issue and sign the document.

"In a world" continued Gerald Warner, "where a Swedish pastor has been jailed for preaching that sodomy is sinful, similar prosecutions have taken place in Canada, the European Court of Human Rights (sic) has tried to ban crucifixes in Italian classrooms, Brazil has passed totalitarian legislation imposing heavy prison sentences for criticism of homosexual lifestyles, Amnesty International is championing abortion, David Cameron has voted for the enforced closure of Catholic adoption agencies, and Gordon Brown's government has just been defeated in its fourth attempt to abolish the Waddington Clause guaranteeing free speech - this robust defiance [of the Manhattan Declaration] is more than timely."  http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/
[26Nov09, John Jalsevac, LifeSiteNews.com]

Uruguay Facing "Crucial Turning Point" on Abortion with Sunday's General Election
The South American country of Uruguay faces what pro-life advocates have identified as a "crucial turning point" with their national elections on Sunday November 29th.

Uruguayan affiliates of Human Life International (HLI) have asked for prayers in the lead-up to the country's elections, saying that a win for the conservative National Party will block the push from the left and from international population control groups to legalize abortion. 

Despite a strong political left in Uruguay, abortion has remained illegal in the country and is punishable by up to 9 months in prison. Those committing abortions face a possible two years in prison.

But the new presidential candidate for the ruling Broad Front party, Jose Mujica, has promised not to veto legislative attempts to legalize abortion.

Some polls have shown that the major parties are neck and neck, but a recent Angus Reid poll found that the socialist Broad Front remains well ahead of all rival parties with 44 percent support. The National Party was second with 35 percent.

National Party candidate Luis A. Lacalle has warned that Mujica, a former leader in the violent Tupamaru guerrilla that attempted to install a Cuban-inspired socialist state in the 1960s, will push the country from a stable democracy toward socialism.

The elections of 2004 brought a strong majority government by the Broad Front, a leftist coalition of socialists, communists and social democrats. The new president, however, Broad Front leader, Tabaré Vázquez, has held fast against efforts to legalize abortion.

In 2009, Vazquez, an oncologist, vetoed a bill that proposed to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Senate had voted 17 to 13 to legalize abortion for the "health" of the mother, a tactic that has created virtual abortion on demand in several other countries.

At the time he vetoed the attempt, Vazquez said, "Our laws cannot ignore the reality of the existence of human life in the gestation period, as scientific evidence clearly shows.

"It's more appropriate to look for a solution based on solidarity, giving a woman the freedom to make other choices and thereby save both her and the baby."

But Vázquez is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term and since 2005, the party has seen new influences shifting the party further to the left.

Human Life International said, "It is a thousand times easier to prevent legal abortion than it is to reverse it once it has taken root." HLI organized a large rally in the capital, Montevideo, to demonstrate that public opinion remains against legalization of abortion.
[26Nov09, Hilary White, Montevideo, Uruguay, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Interview with Young Pro-Life Counselor Threatened with Knife to Throat
Less than two months after the gunning down of pro-life activist Jim Pouillon in September, a young pro-life activist has had a knife put to her throat by a woman entering an abortion facility in Duluth, MN.  21-year-old pro-life activist Leah W., her mother Sarah and the director of a local pro-life group, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) about the harrowing incident which took place early Tuesday morning.

Leah's mother, Sarah, was present with her daughter at the time of the attack, but each were standing at opposite sides of a large opening to the Building for Women in Duluth, inside of which the Women's Health Center of Duluth abortuary is located.

When a woman approached, Leah was set to speak to her, but says that the woman then snapped out a long-bladed folding pink-camouflage knife and ordered Leah to not to move or to speak.  Leah did not move, but before the woman left earshot said, "Please don't kill your baby."  At that point, recalls Leah, the woman turned around and approached Leah with the knife. 

Leah told LSN that the woman was facing her, with the knife at Leah's neck.  Leah said that she was initially scared, thinking, "what if she stabs me?"  But then, she thought, "If she stabs me that's okay, I will go to heaven to be with Jesus."  Leah recalled she was then given peace. She said, "After that I was not afraid, I was concerned for her soul."

"I looked in her eyes and said, 'Fear God, you have to fear God, Ma'am," she recalled.  After which the woman turned and walked toward the building.   As she passed Leah's mother Sarah, who had not seen the knife previously, Sarah says she pleaded with the woman, saying, "Please, we love you, we care about you," at which point the woman also waved the knife at her threateningly.

Sarah then approached her daughter with concern. When she learned of the threat with the knife to her daughter, she said she was shocked and alarmed.  In retrospect, she says that she's thankful she did not recognize the object as a knife at first since she would have run over to her daughter and "perhaps something terrible would have happened."

Sarah, mother of five, told LSN that despite the incident she is undeterred from counseling at the facility or allowing her children to do the same. While her elder three children have families of their own, her daughter Leah and her youngest son, 20, accompany her to the abortion center to counsel at least once a week.

Sarah said that the family forgives, and continues to pray for the woman.

Jim Tuttle, the director of Pro-Life Ministries of Duluth was also at the abortion mill Tuesday morning, but he did not witness the incident as he was counseling at the alley entrance to the center.  Tuttle told LSN that his organization has arranged for pro-life witness and counseling outside the abortion center every day of its operation for the past 11 years.  The group's efforts, he said, have saved at least six or seven lives a year.  Tuttle holds the Winandy family among his most faithful volunteers.

Duluth Police arrested the suspect, 25-year-old Mechelle T.H., inside the abortuary and found a knife in her purse matching Leah's description.   She has been charged with second-degree assault.  Hall told the judge considering the conditions of her release, "I know what I did was wrong."

The family says they still hope to minister to Mechelle despite the incident, and may get their chance.  After police departed with Mechelle, a friend who had come to the center to support her was only told by abortuary staff that she had left quickly.  Sarah and Leah approached her and when they realized who she was there for they explained the situation.  They spoke with the friend and gave her a Bible.  They exchanged phone numbers and hope to follow up with the friend and perhaps even with Mechelle herself one day.

Anyone wishing to contact Leah and her family may do so through

Pro-life Ministry of Duluth
P.O. Box 161018
Duluth, MN 55816
E-mail:

[26Nov09, John-Henry Westen, Duluth, MN, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Finnish Study: 20 Percent of Women Using Abortion Drug Face Medical Complications

Planned Parenthood says "Our monitoring shows that mifepristone medication abortion continues to be a safe abortion option."

The distributor of Mifeprex (the trade name for RU 486) says that "Mifeprex is 92-95% effective for safely ending early pregnancy."

But a new study from Finland says that 20% of the women using the abortion pill suffer at least one significant complication.

Nearly 4% reported two or more complications or "adverse events."

The record-based study, "Immediate Complications After Medical Compared with Surgical Termination of Pregnancy," appeared in the October 2009 issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

A team of Finnish Researchers headed by Maarit Niinimi of the Oulu University Hospital looked at all abortions, surgical and chemical, performed up to 63 days after gestation, in Finland between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2006.

To identify and tally the complications, researchers looked at all abortion patient inpatient and outpatient visits occurring within 42 days after the abortion. A national health records system enables researchers to track the medical outcomes with individual patients over time.

Researchers found that 15.6 % percent of those undergoing chemical abortions hemorrhaged, 1.7% encountered infection, and 6.7% had incomplete abortions.

Less than a tenth of 1% of women aborting chemically reported the other adverse events measured by the study – injury, thromboembolic disease (e.g., pulmonary embolism), psychiatric morbidity (e.g., depression, psychoses), or death. But it should be noted that any latent psychological or physical consequences (such as impaired fertility) might not be manifest at 42 days post abortion.

A few things are very much worth noting about the complication rates. The rate of those having "incomplete abortions" and infections increased as the length of gestation increased.

In the U.S., the FDA tried to limit abortions using RU 486 to 49 days gestation. But the industry has been openly performing them up to 63 days gestation and sometimes even later. Most of those in the Finnish study who had incomplete abortions went on to have some sort of what the authors term "surgical (re)evacuation."

Cross referencing demographic data, the Finnish researchers found that the risk of hemorrhage increased among aborting women using RU 486 who were aged 20-24, having had a previous birth, from a lower socio-economic class and living in a densely populated or rural area. Risk factors associated with an incomplete abortion were the same, but also included those having a previous abortion, single, or having an advanced gestation.

In comparison to surgical abortion, the risk of hemorrhage with chemical abortions with RU 486 was nearly eight times higher, while the likelihood of an incomplete abortion was five times higher.

It was not that surgical abortion was safe, however.

About 5.5% of Finnish women having surgical abortions reported at least one adverse event. The rate of hemorrhage was significantly lower (2.1%), as was the rate of incomplete abortion (1.6%), but infection rates were about the same (1.7%). As might be expected, injury rates from surgical abortion were about 20 times higher than those found with chemical abortions, though not high as an overall percentage of adverse events (0.6%).

Surprising from these figures is that there were a substantial number of surgical abortions that were somehow "incomplete," with a number of women returning for "surgical (re)evacuations."

This is a much different picture of abortion than one encounters in the United States, where the safety of abortion, chemical or surgical, is regularly touted by the abortion industry and its defenders.

Risks are mentioned, sometimes at the bottom of the page in small print (on the mifepristone web site), or are said to be "rare" (Planned Parenthood), but the overall message of safety and convenience shines through.

Though the authors of the Finnish study label both the chemical and surgical methods of abortion "generally safe," it is clear that complications are more common than many might have been led to believe, and that contrary to expectations that the chemical method was safer and easier, the data clearly show that "medical abortion results in an increased incidence of adverse events."
[November 11, 2009, Dr. Randy O'Bannon, www.LifeNews.com;
LifeNews.com Note: Randall O'Bannon, Ph.D., is the director of education and research for the National Right to Life Committee]

RU safe and simple?
A new study provides fresh information on potential harm of the abortion drug, RU-486.

RU 486 The study comes from Finland and was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Dr. Randall O'Bannon of National Right to Life tells OneNewsNow that what the public typically sees from the abortion industry is a claim that RU-486, also known as Mifeprex, is a safe and simple process for abortions.
 
"But this latest study from Finland shows that at least 20 percent of the women that use RU-486, the abortion pill, they suffer from at least one significant complication, and in many cases, from two complications," O'Bannon reports.
 
The three most significant problems are hemorrhaging, infection and incomplete abortions, which are the same troubles patients face in surgical abortions. Resulting from the chemical method, 15.6 percent of those undergoing this form of abortion hemorrhaged while 1.7 percent encountered infection and 6.7 percent experienced incomplete abortions.
 
O'Bannon feels that one of the reasons America does not report the figures is because, "we have people that control the data. The abortion industry keeps all of this very close to the vest, and so the only time you can get data is if they are willing to share it," he says. "They report some of these things to the FDA, but whether they report all of them, we don't know."
 
The lesson from the new study is that people need to make themselves aware of the hype about RU-486's safety and the pitch that it is somehow more safe or simple than other abortion methods. The public needs to consider the possibility that RU-486 is not being honest about its issues.
[Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 11/18/2009, http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=772426

Research: Women in China See 17% Higher Breast Cancer Risk From Abortion

Chinese researchers have issued a new study indicating women who have had abortions face a 17 percent higher chance of contracting breast cancer than women who carried their pregnancy to term. One leading American scientist says he believes the increased risk is even higher.

Peng Xing and his colleagues conducted a case-control study in northeast China examining reproductive factors associated with subtypes of breast cancer.

They found a statistically significant overall odds ratio of 1.17 (17% increased breast cancer risk for all subtypes combined) among women who had induced abortions.

The study excludes the possibility of a flaw called "report bias" because abortion isn't stigmatized in China. Communist officials frequently require women who violate the one-child family planning policy there to have abortions so Chinese women are considered reliable reporters of their abortion histories.

Xing and his colleagues also found an increased risk of breast cancer for women who delayed their first full-term pregnancy, a frequent phenomenon among women who have an abortion of their first baby.

Professor Joel Brind of Baruch College maintains that the Chinese study underestimates the risk of abortion because of its high prevalence in China.

Half of Women Using Prescription Drugs That Harm Unborn Children Get Abortion
 New research out of Canada shows that half of women who use prescription drugs that harm their unborn children ultimately wind up having an abortion. The statistics is so high that the lead author of the new study says the numbers left him shocked and surprised.

Anick Berard of the University of Montreal headed the new study that examined data from the Quebec Pregnancy Registry on 109,344 women between the ages of 15 and 45.

They study found 6,871 pregnant women consumed one of 11 prescription drugs known to be harmful to their unborn child during either the first, second or third trimester of pregnancy. Of those women, 3,229, or nearly 47 percent, had an abortion, 6 percent miscarried and 8.2 percent of the women gave birth to who a baby with major congenital malformations resulting from the use of the harmful drugs.

"I never expected such results and I was extremely surprised," Berard said in a statement about the new research.

“If there are 80,000 births in Quebec per year, a one percent difference translates into an additional 800 children born with serious malformations,” she said.

The results make it appear more educational work needs to be done to show women how certain drugs are harmful if taken during pregnancy.

Berard, currently a visiting professor at the Universite Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, said she is concerned there are 11,400 prescriptions for dangerous medicines to treat acne, anxiety and epilepsy that increase the risk of malformations by 30 percent yet are freely available without proper risk management.

The study’s researchers also found that 11,400 prescriptions for dangerous drugs such as isotretinoin (for treatment of acne and rosacea), anxiolytic benzodiazepines (anti-anxiety treatment), and antiepileptics (for epileptic seizures) were taken by women during pregnancy. Other drugs that can harm the baby, including those for hypertension and infections, were also widely used.

Berard discovered that, of the 73 pregnant women who used isotretinoin in Quebec, 78 percent got an abortion. Use of isotretinoin increases the risk of birth defects by 30 percent.

Some drugs, Berard said, may be overused -- such as benzodiazepine to treat symptoms of anxiety -- but anti-epileptics may be necessary.

"In those cases, the pregnancy must be carefully planned and medication use must be at a strict minimum during the first trimester," Berard stressed. "And the expectant mother must meet with her physician regularly."

The results of the new study also show some women may approach their pregnancy with a cavalier attitude or may plan to have an abortion -- making it so concerns about the effect of the drug on the unborn child don't matter because the baby will be killed before birth.

At least 3.3 million children younger than 5 years of age die each year because of serious birth defects, and an estimated 3.2 million of those who survive may be physical or mentally disabled for life.

The findings are published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
[20Nov09, http://www.lifenews.com/int1386.html, Montreal, Canada, www.LifeNews.com]
  

Schools Let Students Seek Secret Abortions
Parents not notified when 12-year-olds obtain 'confidential' medical procedures

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116315

http://www.ednews.org/articles/schools-let-students-seek-secret-abortions.html 

[www.lifesitenews.com, 21 November 09 ]

Former TX PP Center Director Confirms Abortion Quotas
Former Bryan, Texas, PP director Abby Johnson’s conversion is shedding new light on the inner workings of PP’s abortion machine.

She told World Net Daily that PP was pushing employees to bring more abortions through the door in order to boost profits. "There are definitely client goals," the former clinic director said. "We'd have a goal every month for abortion clients and for family planning clients."

The facility profited at least $10,000 per month from surgical abortions, Johnson said. To boost its abortion income, the organization followed the lead of Planned Parenthood Federation of America to dramatically increase its number of chemically induced “medication” abortions with no need for a physician’s presence, thus increasing their profit margin.

"One of the ways they were able to up the number of patients that they saw was they started doing the RU-486 chemical abortions all throughout the week," Johnson said.

She said the cost of the abortion held steady between $505 and $695, regardless of whether the preborn child was killed surgically by a physician or by taking drugs to kill the baby and induce labor.

"Abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood's operations," she said. "Even though they're two separate corporations, all of the money goes into one pot. With the family planning corporation really suffering, they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company."

She continued, "They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income."

Johnson has now joined forces with Coalition for Life, the group that has prayed for her conversion since 2004 outside the PP facility where she worked.  

PP has attempted to gag Johnson and Coalition for Life with a restraining order. "PP is an organization that really runs on fear. If somebody crosses them, they are quick to threaten that person. I've worked for them for a long time and seen them threaten lawsuits multiple times," she said. "I'm not sure what they're scared of. When I first got the restraining order, I was so surprised. My initial response was, what do they think I know? What are they feeling guilty about?"
{11Nov09, STOPP Report]



Hodari Abortion Business Site for Sale as Lawsuit Continues
At least one abortion site owned by abortionist Alberto Hodari in Flint, Michigan is now up for sale.

Flint Right to Life president Judy Climer told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that she spotted the sign advertising the Feminine Health Care Clinic building at 2032 S. Saginaw St. for rent when she arrived to pray at the site today.  Climer says she had earlier noticed strange behavior by Hodari.

"I knew something was going on because last Tuesday, I saw Hodari carrying big file boxes out to his trunk before he left, and he was hurrying because we were still there," said Climer.

"He accidently bumped the trunk lid, and the boxes bounced all over the ground.  He, also, threw a chair in the dumpster and put another chair in a van that took it away."

Genessee County files show the property owned by Alberto Hodari at the Saginaw St. address has real estate taxes owed.  

Climer says she believes Hodari's abortion business site in Southgate is also up for sale.

In June, Caitlin Bruce, a former client of Hodari, filed a lawsuit against him and an assistant whom she claims forced her to have an abortion in April 2008.  

The lawsuit filed in the Gennessee County District Court claims Hodari "had his assistant ... restrain Caitlin Bruce and cover her mouth" and began the abortion procedure "despite Caitlin Bruce's objecting and screaming, 'Stop, stop, I don't want this,' and despite her desire not to undergo the procedure."  

The lawsuit charges Hodari with medical malpractice, battery, and fraud, among other things.

Tom Pabst, Caitlin's attorney, told LifeSiteNews.com that Bruce had changed her mind after initially agreeing to have an abortion.  "If you change your mind, that's it, you walk out," said Pabst.  "But he went ahead and did it anyhow, according to Caitlin Bruce."

Bruce's story aligns with testimonies from other women who have described similar horror stories of coerced abortions at Hodari's hands.  A report by Operation Rescue shows Hodari has a record of 49 documented lawsuits over a span of decades.

Hodari's practice has also been implicated in the deaths of at least four women from abortion-related complications.  In June, the Disciplinary Subcommittee of Michigan's Board of Medicine fined Hodari $10,000 for negligence in connection with the botched abortion death of Regina Johnson.  

Numerous complaints have been filed against the abortionist for improper disposal of human remains and abortion records found in Hodari's dumpster.  Hodari received a sentence of six months' probation on one such count in February. [11Nov09, Kathleen Gilbert, Flint, MI, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

NOTE: More of Hodari's abortion businesses continue to go for sale as his wife filed for divorce and he appears to be liquidating.

Woman's Lawsuit: She Yelled Stop, Hodari Continued With Forced Abortion
Alberto Hodari owns six abortion centers in Michigan and LifeNews.com has delivered multiple reports on how he has three of them up for sale. A new lawsuit from a woman who says he forced her to have an abortion could explain why Hodari is quickly moving to divest himself of his abortion business.

Hodari, who has killed at least two women in botched abortions, put a for sale sign on his Flint, Michigan center last week and also on his facilities in Livonia and Southgate.

Local pro-life advocate Judy Climer of Flint Right to Life told LifeNews.com that there is a "a fresh lawsuit against him, the clinic and former employee(s)," filed by Caitlin Bruce.

Climer noted Bruce says Hodari forced her to have an abortion after she declined.

Today, Operation Rescue president Troy Newman provided LifeNews.com with more details of the lawsuit based on the records filed in court.

Bruce filed a suit against Hodari and his assistant, "Victor" on June 17 over an incident that took place at Hodari's Flint abortion center in April 2008.

Bruce alleges that she went to Hodari's clinic seeking an abortion, but, before the abortion began, she changed her mind, decided against it and told Hodari. However, Hodari and his assistant forcibly restrained Bruce and held her down, according to her suit.

Bruce screamed "Stop, stop, I don't want this," but her mouth was covered to muffle her pleas while Hodari forced her to have the abortion.

The lawsuit notes six counts against Hodari including lack of informed consent/medical malpractice, battery, fraud, misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and ethnic/gender intimidation.

Also, Bruce believes that Hodari forced the abortion on her because she is black, even though Michigan law forbids intimidation based on gender or ethnicity.

"This man should be in jail," Newman said. "To avoid having to pay for his crimes, it looks like Hodari is trying to liquidate his assets, take the money, and run."

Newman also notes that this is not the first time Hodari has been accused of forcing a woman to have an abortion.

In February, former Hodari patient Jennifer McCoy told Operation Rescue of her 1988 abortion at age 16.

McCoy never intended to get an abortion and was lured to Hodari's clinic under the false pretenses that she would be receiving her first obstetrical examination. Instead, Hodari forced an abortion on her, she told the pro-life group. He then returned her to her 40-year old high school teacher who had fathered the baby in a relationship that qualified as statutory rape.

McCoy attempted unsuccessfully to have Hodari criminally charged.

Newman added: "Over a twenty year period, we can only imagine how many times Hodari has done this to women. If we know of two, you can bet there were more that we don't know about. It is one depraved man that could do that to women."

Hodari has also killed women in failed abortions and, in June, Hodari was fined $10,000 by a state board in connection with a woman's botched abortion death.

One of Hodari's staff did an abortion on Regina Johnson who, afterwards, suffered respiratory and cardiac arrest.

Staff at Hodari's abortion center allegedly failed to help her or call for an ambulance and she was deprived of oxygen for an extended time. She died a short time later at Hodari's Womencare clinic in Lathrup Village.
Johnson's death is one of several women to have died over the years under Hodari's care.

The September 17, 2003 abortion saw Milton Nathanson, then employed by Hodari, do an abortion on Johnson. She died the next day from "anoxic encephalopahy due to cardiac arrest" resulting from the abortion, according to official reports.

In addition to Hodari and Nathanson, anesthesiologist Barry Thompson and the abortion clinic's nurse, Cathy Litchig were also implicated in Johnson's death.

The Michigan Attorney General imposed the fine on Hodari on March 4, 2009.

This finding of the Attorney General's office comes just one year after members of Citizens for a Pro-life Society discovered the remains of aborted babies in Womencare clinic trash dumpsters as well as bio-hazard waste and hundreds of patient records.

Hodari was investigated by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and received a warning from that office.

He was also prosecuted by the Oakland County District Attorney's Office for violating Michigan statutes regarding the improper disposition of patient records. Hodari pled “no contest “ to the first of 12 counts and is currently on probation in that case.

A complaint filed by Miller's group with the Michigan Bureau of Health Professions regarding the patient records issue is currently under review by the Attorney General.

At least two other women have also died from failed abortions at Hodari's abortion centers and many more have been injured.

Tamia Russell was only 15 years old in January of 2004 when her 26 year old boyfriend paid Hodari $2,000 in cash to abort her baby at over 26 weeks gestation. She died less than 24 hours after obtaining an abortion at Womancare of Southfield/Lathrup Village.

Her guardian was unaware she was pregnant, and had no knowledge of the abortion - until it was too late.

Chivon Williams received a suction abortion by Hodari at an unknown clinic. An hour and forty minutes later, she was discharged even though she was complaining of pain in her stomach and chest. Soon after she arrived at her home, she "became unresponsive." At 5:17, on the same day as the abortion, she was pronounced dead.

Related web sites:
Lawsuit file - http://operationrescue.org/pdfs/brucevshodari.pdf
[http://www.lifenews.com/state4585.html, November 18, 2009, Flint, MI]

Commentary: When Abortion Isn't a Choice
 One of the few incontrovertible assertions one can reasonably make is that no one supports forced abortion.

Yet, coerced abortions, as well as involuntary sterilizations, are commonplace in China, Beijing's protestations notwithstanding.

While the Chinese Communist Party insists that abortions are voluntary under the nation's one-child policy, electronic documentation recently smuggled out of the country tells a different story.

Congressional members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard some of that story Tuesday, two days before President Obama was slated to leave for Asia, including China, to discuss economic issues.

Among evidence provided by two human rights organizations, ChinaAid and Women's Rights Without Frontiers, were tales of pregnant women essentially being hunted down and forced to submit to surgery or induced labor.

Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China's one-child policy "causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth."

I met Littlejohn for breakfast the day before the hearing. A petite wife and mother -- as well as a Yale-educated lawyer -- Littlejohn gave up her intellectual property practice in San Francisco after a life-altering illness to become a full-time activist for Chinese women. She is remarkably buoyant, considering the knowledge she has absorbed. Action, she says, is her way of coping with the unconscionable.

Here's the question Littlejohn insists we consider: What really happens to a woman who doesn't have a "birth permit" and has an "out of plan" pregnancy?

The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development.

Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient.

On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: "What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?" ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure.

"Xuexia" wrote: "Actually, you should have punctured the fetus' skull." Another poster, "Damohuyang," wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and "would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days."

To be clear, some of the doctors online expressed concern for the rights of the child. Others, however, worried only about potential legal ramifications. Technically, it is illegal in China to kill a baby, one is relieved to learn, but family-planning imperatives sometimes prevail.

According to a 2009 State Department report, monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets, creating what amounts to bounties on the unborn.

As recently as July, officials of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission said that the one-child policy "will be strictly enforced as a means of controlling births for decades to come," according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.

The violence of these procedures doesn't only kill the child in some instances. In two of the cases described in a document leaked this past August, the mothers died, too. Those who dissent, meanwhile, are persecuted.

Such has been the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng, who is serving a four-year sentence after exposing 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong province, in 2005.

Named by Time magazine as one of 2006's top 100 people "who shape our world," Guangcheng, who is blind, was severely beaten and denied medical care the following year, according to an Amnesty International report.

The one-child policy has created other problems that threaten women and girls. The traditional preference for boys has meant sex-selected abortions resulting in a gender imbalance.

Today, men in China outnumber women by 37 million, a disparity that has become a driving force behind sex slavery in Asia. Exacerbating the imbalance, about 500 women a day commit suicide in China -- the highest rate in the world, which Littlejohn attributes in part to coercive family planning.

Obviously, the United States is in an awkward position with China, our second-largest trading partner and the largest holder of our government debt.

But Littlejohn hopes Obama will "truly represent American values, including our strong commitment to human rights." She is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China.

On this much, both sides of the abortion issue can agree: Forced abortion is not a choice. Averting our gaze from China's horrific abuse of women is.

[11Nov09, Kathleen Parker, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111013891_pf.html ; ; N Valko RN, 11Nov09]

Study Shows 85 Percent of Women Say Abortions Cause Mental Health Issues
A new report from researchers at a university in New Zealand indicates 85 percent of women who had abortions report negative mental health issues as a result. The report is the latest from professor David Fergusson and his team showing abortions cause problems for women.

The University of Otago team examined the medical history of over 500 women and concluded having an abortion generally “leads to significant distress in some” women who have them.

It noted women reporting adverse reactions to their abortions were up to 80 percent more likely to have mental health problems and risk of mental illness was “proportional to the degree of distress” associated with the abortion.

The study, which appears in the latest issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, examined data from women who had been interviewed six times between the ages of 15 and 30 and who were asked if they were pregnant and, if so, the outcome of the pregnancy.

More than 85 percent of women reported negative reactions to their abortions including sorrow, sadness, guilt, regret, grief and disappointment.

The study revealed that women who have abortions face more negative mental health problems resulting from that pregnancy outcome as compared with women who keep their baby and carry to term. Women having abortions had rates of mental health problems “approximately 1.4 to 1.8 times higher than women not exposed to abortion."

Ultimately, Fergusson and his team said there is little justification for saying that legal abortions should be promoted on the basis of a improving a woman's mental health.

“Collectively, this evidence raises important questions about the practice of justifying termination of pregnancy on the grounds that this procedure will reduce risks of mental health problems in women having unwanted pregnancy," the team wrote.

The team said the study showed no reason to “support strong pro-choice positions that claim unwanted pregnancy terminated by abortion is without mental health risks.”

The new study is a follow-up to previous studies Fergusson and his team conducted showing women who have abortions are more likely to become severely depressed.

The original 2006 study found some 42 percent of the women who had abortions had experienced major depression within the last four years. That's almost double the rate of women who never became pregnant. The risk of anxiety disorders also doubled.

According to the study, women who have abortions were twice as likely to drink alcohol at dangerous levels and three times as likely to be addicted to illegal drugs.

A second study Fergusson's team released found that women who had abortions had rates of mental health problems about 30% higher than other women. The conditions most associated with abortion included anxiety disorders and substance abuse disorders.

The authors concluded that anywhere from 1.5 to 5.5 percent of all mental health disorders seen in New Zealand result from women having abortions.

British Victims of Abortion, which helps women who suffer medical and mental health problems after an abortion, has welcomed the results of the new report.

Margaret Cuthill of BVA commented: "What we at British Victims of Abortion hear in the counseling room confirms the truth of Professor Fergusson's results." [November 3, 2009, #4744,http://www.lifenews.com/int1371.html, Ertelt, DC]

The UN Plan to Prevent Maternal Mortality: Kill their Babies
The United Nations' Millennium Develop Goal #5 (MDG5) is to reduce worldwide maternal mortality by 75% by the year 2015-- a very laudable goal. (About half the deaths occur within 24 hours of delivery.) Cause of deaths: 24% from hemorrhage, 20% from "malaria, anemia, heart disease" group, 15% from sepsis, 13% from unsafe abortions, 12% ecclampsia, 8% obstructred labor, remainder anesthesia, embolism, ectopics.

Worldwide, a maternal mortality death occurs every minute of every day. Some more immediate solutions: make available uterotonic agents, malaria meds, antibiotics, anti-convulsants, anti-hypertensives.

More long-term solutions: increase in trained obstetric medical caretakers, improvements in prenatal care, and universal access to safe abortions. What?
You heard it right. A major push worldwide is being made to reduce maternal mortality by reducing the number of "unsafe" abortions. By definition, an "unsafe" abortion is one done in a country where the procedure is illegal, a "safe" abortion is one done in a country where it is legal. Thus any country where abortion is illegal must change it's laws, if it wants to decrease this maternal mortality (and be favored with international money grants for "reproductive health service." ) So the pressure is on those countries to conform to the universal access to abortion agenda.

FIGO, the International ObGyn Federation met in South Africa in early October. Here's a news release from the meeting--- and you will hear a lot more of this in the future:
"CAPE TOWN, Oct 8 (IPS) - One hundred African women and girls die unnecessarily from unsafe abortions every day because they have to rely on unqualified medical practitioners or self-induce abortion by ingesting poisonous substances or inserting tools into their uterus.

Africa has the highest percentage of maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion. 60 percent of abortion-related deaths occur in women and girls under the age of 25.

"Abortions that have to be performed illegally translate directly to higher maternal mortality," warned Dr Anibal Faundes" (professor of obstetrics at the State University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brasil,)

AAPLOG COMMENT: In the USA, about 5000 illegal abortions in 1971 became 1.5 million legal abortions yearly. Translate that kind of increase into the African medical world, and see how many women's lives are "saved."
[AAPLOG, 26Oct09]

Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined: CDC data

Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.

Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined.

These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year. [http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55956CNS News; ALL Pro-Life Today, 26Oct09]

Abortion, Birth Control Pill Linked to Breast Cancer, surgeon says

Angela Lanfranchi, a clinical assistant professor of surgery at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey and president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute labeled hormonal contraceptives “a Group 1 carcinogen” [WHO report] and said that “breasts are different after an induced abortion because they’ve grown and there are more places for the cancer to start.” She said the same thing happens in premature delivery. In contrast, she said, a full-term pregnancy offers protection against the disease because the mother’s mammary glands have fully matured into cells capable of producing milk and most resistant to carcinogens.

Having children in the early twenties or as a teenager also decreases the breast cancer risk.

Among the other strategies for lowering breast cancer are limiting alcohol, exercising, not smoking, maintaining a normal body weight, breast-feeding your children, avoiding induced abortions, avoiding premature deliveries, and reducing exposure to estrogen. Lanfranchi advocates natural family planning rather than birth control pills, patches or injections, which are steroidal. For more info: www.bcpinstitute.org
[http://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyle/ohio-health-news/abortion-birth-control-pill-linked-to-breast-cancer-surgeon-says-366699.html?cxtype=ynews_rss, Dayton Daily News; ALL Pro-Life Today, 26Oct09]




Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Abortion on Ultrasound
Abby Johnson, 29, stands outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Tex., alongside Shawn Carney of the Campaign for Life. Johnson quit after watching an ultrasound of an abortion.

The former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in southeast Texas says she had a "change of heart" after watching an abortion last month — and she quit her job and joined a pro-life group in praying outside the facility.

Abby Johnson, 29, used to escort women from their cars to the clinic in the eight years she volunteered and worked for Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. But she says she knew it was time to leave after she watched a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed out of a patient's uterus in September.

'When I was working at Planned Parenthood I was extremely pro-choice," Johnson told FoxNews.com. But after seeing the internal workings of the procedure for the first time on an ultrasound monitor, "I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart ... a spiritual conversion."

Johnson said she became disillusioned with her job after her bosses pressured her for months to increase profits by performing more and more abortions, which cost patients between $505 and $695.

"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming,'" Johnson told FoxNews.com. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood told FoxNews.com that it offers a range of services at it 850 health centers nationwide, providing pregnancy tests, vaccinations and women's health services, "including wellness exams, breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraception, and STD testing and treatment."

"Planned Parenthood's focus is on prevention," wrote Diane Quest, the group's National Media Director. "Nationwide, more than 90% of the health care Planned Parenthood affiliates provide is preventive in nature," explaining that a "core component the organization's mission is to help women plan healthy pregnancies and prevent unintended pregnancies."

But Johnson said her bosses told her to change her "priorities" and focus on abortions, which she said made money for the office at a time when the recession has left them hurting.

"For them there's not a lot of money in education," she said. "There's as not as much money in family planning as there is abortion."

Without a doctor in residence, she said, her clinic offered abortions only two days a month, but the doctor could perform 30 to 40 procedures on each day he was there. Johnson estimated that each abortion could net the branch about $350, adding up to more than $10,000 a month.

"The majority of the money was going to the facility," she said.

Johnson said she never got any orders to increase profits in e-mails or letters, and had no way to prove her allegations about practices at the Bryan branch. She told FoxNews.com that pressure came in personal interactions with her regional manager from the larger Houston office.

But she said she got involved with the clinic "to help women and ... [do] the right thing," and the idea of raking in cash seemed to go against what she felt was the mission of the 93-year-old organization.

"Ideally my goal as the facility's director is that your abortion numbers don't increase," because "you're providing so much family planning and so much education that there is not a demand for abortion services.

"But that was not their goal," she said.

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood refused to answer questions about Johnson's accusations, but released a statement noting that a district court had issued a temporary restraining order against the former branch director and against the Coalition for Life, an anti-abortion group with which Johnson is now affiliated.

"We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance it is absolutely necessary," said spokeswoman Rochelle Tafolla.

It is unclear what made Planned Parenthood seek the restraining order. Johnson said she did not intend to release any sensitive information about her former patients at the clinic.

A hearing is set for Nov. 10 to determine whether a judge will order an injunction against Johnson and the Coalition for Life, which has led protests outside the clinic and joined her in a prayer vigil there last month.

Johnson hasn't found a job since she quit on Oct. 6, but she said she's enjoying the time off to be with her 3-year-old daughter.
[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,571215,00.html, 2Nov09, Joseph Abrams]

Planned Parenthood Director Quits Abortion Business, Experiences Conversion at Starting Place of 40 Days for Life
The director of the Planned Parenthood abortion center in Bryan/College Station, Texas has resigned her job. Abby Johnson had worked at the business for eight years, but departed from the facility following a profound change of heart about abortion. The Planned Parenthood business was the location of the first-ever 40 Days for Life campaign in the fall of 2004, and the prayer and fasting initiative has been held outside the doors of Johnson's former workplace five additional times since 40 Days for Life began its rapid spread to 282 cities across all 50 states and several other countries.

"This amazing conversion demonstrates the importance of a constant, peaceful prayer presence in front of abortion facilities," said David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life. "From that first campaign in 2004, we've prayed for Abby - and for all abortion workers - that they would come to see what abortion really is, and that they would leave the deadly business. In this case, those prayers have been answered. We are so proud of Abby's courage to leave the abortion industry and publicly announce her reasons for leaving."

Johnson said, "I left on good terms and simply had a change of heart on this issue. Over the past few months I had seen a change in motivation regarding the financial impact of abortions and really reached my breaking point after witnessing a particular kind of abortion on an ultrasound."

In the wake of her departure, Planned Parenthood has gone to court to seek a restraining order against both Johnson and the Coalition for Life, the local group that originated 40 Days for Life and continued regular prayer vigils in front of the business for the past five years. A court hearing on the order, which addresses disclosure of confidential information, is scheduled in a Texas court on November 10.

Shawn Carney, the director of the Coalition for Life and a 40 Days for Life board member, has been working with Johnson since she left her job last month. The former director has even begun to pray outside the site where she formerly worked. "It's truly been a testament to the power of prayer and the courage of Abby to leave a job she felt she could no longer do in good conscience," Carney said. "It has been a joy for all of our volunteers who have prayed outside of the business for the conversion of the workers to witness that conversion actually happen."

Johnson is one of eight abortion industry workers who left their jobs during the fifth coordinated 40 Days for Life campaign that concluded yesterday in 212 cities. She was the highest-ranking of the eight. Others who quit their abortion business jobs included nurses, office staffers and security personnel.

In addition, a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Kalispell, Montana announced that it will close its doors on November 20, citing a decline in business as the reason for the closure. That business was the site of a 40 Days for Life prayer vigil this past spring. [2Nov09, Christian Newswire, BRYAN, TX]

Pro-Life Group: Fetal Tissue From Abortion Used in Neocutis Anti-Wrinkle Cream
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The pro-life group Children of God for Life announced last week that Neocutis, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology and skin care, is using tissue form the remains of babies who are victimized by abortions to produce several of their anti-aging skin creams.

“It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain, the gorup's director, Debi Vinnedge, told LifeNews.com. “There is simply no moral justification for this.” For years Children of God for Life has been a watchdog on pharmaceutical companies using aborted fetal cell lines in medical products and they have received thousands of inquiries from the public on the use of aborted fetal material in cosmetics.

Until now, this was the first time they have encountered any company bold enough to put the information right on their own website and product literature.

Neocutis’ key ingredient known as “Processed Skin Proteins” was developed at the University of Luasanne from the skin tissue of a 14-week gestation electively-aborted male baby donated by the University Hospital in Switzerland.

Subsequently, a working cell bank was established, containing several billion cultured skin cells to produce the human growth factor needed to restore aging skin. Contact Neocutis at Neocutis Inc., 3053 Fillmore Street # 140, San Francisco CA 94123 and call 866-636-2884 or see http://www.neocutis.com
[31Oct09, www.LifeNews.com, #4742]



British Report Shows Three Down Syndrome Babies Daily Victimized by Abortions
A new report out of England shows three Down's syndrome babies are victims of abortion on a daily basis.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has responded to the news by proposing research on abortion for disability.

John Smeaton, SPUC's national director, said: "We must find out whether pre-abortion counseling includes a warning that women are more likely to suffer psychologically if they abort a child because of his or her disability. We shall also carry out research among politicians. We'll ask them whether they support abortion on the grounds of gender or race. I hope that few of them will. We'll then ask them if they support abortion because of disability. If they do, we'll ask how they can reconcile that with opposing abortion because of the baby's sex or skin color."

The research among politicians will begin with questionnaires to UK MPs but will be extended to other elected representatives.

The increased likelihood of psychological problems among women who abort because of their babies' disability is described in "The psychosocial sequelae of a second-trimester termination of pregnancy for fetal abnormality" by M C A White-Van Mourik, J M Connor and M A Ferguson-Smith, published in Prenatal diagnosis in 1992.
[London, England [31Oct09, www.LifeNews.com, #4742] 

I heard that the abortion center in Pensacola has closed. I witnessed an abortion take place at a Pensacola abortion center.

I was with my confused girlfriend at the time, who I thought wasn’t going to go through with the abortion. I tried to talk her out of this horrible procedure, and I thought that in the end she would open her heart and her eyes to see that abortion was not the answer.

After all of this she still went through with the procedure, which I know she deeply regrets.

I know she wishes she hadn’t done this, because just a month or so later she was talking about trying to have another baby ["replacement baby"]…

I’m still praying for her, and for all the other men and women who are confused and think that abortion is the best solution.

It is not, it truly is not...