Half of All US Women Having Abortions Had at Least One Previous Abortion
Victory for Medical Professionals over Attack on Weldon Amendment
Rape Victim: My Child "No Different"
Alabama Hearing On New Abortion Center Safety Rules
Russia Lawmakers Propose Woman's Abortion Must Have Husband's Input
New Study Says Illegal Abortions Kill Women, Legal Abortions Not Better
Chile Congress Rejects Bill to Legalize Abortions for Rape, Incest
Nicaragua President Signs No-Exception Strict Abortion Ban
HALF OF ALL US WOMEN HAVING ABORTIONS HAD AT LEAST ONE PREVIOUS ABORTION. Almost half of all women who have abortions in the U.S. have already aborted at least one previous pregnancy, according to a recent report by the research affiliate of Planned Parenthood, the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
In the study entitled Repeat Abortion in the United States, released this month, researchers found that 48.2 percent of women who had abortions between 2001-2001 were obtaining repeat abortions. That included 29 percent who had one previous abortion, 12 percent who had two previous abortions, and 7 percent who were aborting their fourth or more pregnancy.
A majority of women aged 25 or older who had abortions had one or more previous abortions. Women having two or more abortions were almost twice as likely to be aged 30 or older, researchers found.
Women who had three or more prior births were more than twice as likely to have repeat abortions. Of the women who had three or more abortions, 33.8 percent had three or more children. Of women who had one or more prior births, a majority reported one or more previous abortions.
However, 43 percent of women obtaining repeat abortions, both those with children and those without, said they wanted to have (more) children, while almost one quarter said they were unsure. Thirty-three percent said they did not want (more) children.
Women having repeat abortions were somewhat more likely to be married, cohabiting, or to have been married in the past, than women having their first abortion.
The average time span between abortions was found to be three and a half years. Even among women aged 35 or older who had repeat abortions, the average time span between abortions was just over four years.
The more abortions women had, the closer together they occurred. Women who had three or more abortions had repeat abortions within two years of the previous abortion 50 percent of the time.
The study was conducted by researchers Rachel K. Jones, Susheela Singh, Lawrence B. Finer and Lori F. Frohwirth. The report relied on data collected from multiple sources including annual abortion surveillance reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Guttmacher Institute’s Abortion Provider Census, the Guttmacher 2000-2001 Abortion Patient Survey, and the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.
Guttmacher report:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/11/21/or29.pdf
[23Nov06, Gudrun Schultz, NYC, LifeSiteNews.com]
Conscience
VICTORY FOR PRO-LIFE MEDICAL GROUPS IN ABORTION GROUP'S ATTACK ON WELDON AMENDMENT: Federal appeals court upholds federal protection for pro-life medical professionals.
A federal appeals court 15Nov06 upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a pro-abortion group challenging the “Weldon Amendment.”
The Weldon Amendment is a federal statute that prohibits the federal government or state and local governments receiving certain federal aid from discriminating against medical professionals who refuse to perform or refer for abortions.
“Doctors and nurses should not be forced to participate in abortions against their religious beliefs or conscience. Under the banner of ‘choice,’ the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association asserted a supposed right to do this, but the court didn’t buy it,” said Casey Mattox, litigation counsel for CLS’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “This decision turns back the effort to enshrine abortion as a right above even the First Amendment.”
NFPRHA challenged the Weldon Amendment just days after it was first signed into law in December 2005. After a federal district court upheld the law, NFPRHA appealed, arguing that the Weldon Amendment was too vague to enforce and that their member organizations had a constitutional right to force medical professionals to provide abortion referrals.
The ruling today held that NFPRHA lacked standing to challenge the Weldon Amendment. The decision in National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association v. Gonzales from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/Gonzales-NFPRHAopinion.pdf.
The Christian Medical Association and American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, represented by attorneys from ADF and CLS’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom, intervened to defend the Weldon Amendment on behalf of members of the two medical associations: over 18,000 pro-life doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and other medical professionals across the country.
CMA and AAPLOG, along with the Fellowship of Christian Physician Assistants, are also defending the Weldon Amendment in California ex. rel. Bill Lockyer v. United States, a case pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Together, ADF, America’s largest legal alliance, and CLS, America’s premier network of Christian legal professionals, defend religious liberty, human life, marriage, and the family.
www.telladf.org www.clsnet.org
[14November06, ADF Media Relations | 480-444-0020; 15Nov06 N. Valko RN; http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2006/11/15/federal-appeals-court-upholds-weldon-amendment/]
ALABAMA HEARING ON NEW ABORTION CENTER SAFETY RULES. Neither side in the abortion debate was happy with the newer more stringent rules on abortion businesses the state health department announced during a hearing yesterday. The new rules come after health officials found numerous violations and problems at abortion centers in Birmingham and Montgomery.
Pro-life advocates reacted to the new rules by saying they don't go far enough and that abortion should be eliminated if the state is serious about protecting women.
Abortion activists said the new health and safety rules would close down abortion centers that put women's health at risk and would lead to illegal abortions.
The new rules include requiring each abortion facility to have a licensed physician on staff or through a contract who is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and has admitting privileges at a hospital not more than 30 minutes away.
That way a doctor can admit a woman who suffers from a botched abortion to a local hospital for emergency surgery to repair the damage.
Rev. Jack Zylman, a retired Unitarian minister and a member of Alabama Clergy for Choice, told the panel he doesn't like that idea, according to a Decatur Daily report. He also brought up illegal abortions, saying legal abortions are safer for women even with the numerous problems at the abortion facilities.
"Abortion clinics are there because hospitals have knuckled under to the anti-abortion forces," Zylman said.
Planned Parenthood of Alabama President Larry Rodick said the admitting privileges rule would be difficult for some abortion centers because hospitals rarely want to work with a facility whose sole purposes is to do abortions.
Tamer Middleton, who does abortions in Alabama and Georgia, also testified, according to the Daily. She complained that most doctors in the state don't know how to do abortions.
But a Montgomery obstetrician/gynecologist said abortions are medically unnecessary and indicated he doesn't know of any physician who would not treat someone injured by an abortion.
He said regulations are needed to force abortion centers to disclose the name of the person doing the abortion because they often refuse to provide that information and make it difficult for physicians who provide emergency care following a botched abortion.
According to the Decatur newspaper, Rick Harris, director of the Bureau of Health Provider Standards for the health department, said the department would look into additional rules and regulations in the months ahead.
The hearing came after one abortion business closed down and two were suspended after health officials found violations.
Last week, the Birmingham New Woman All Women Health Care abortion facility agreed to go on probation over several violations found by state health inspectors including tests not being done on women before abortions and the abortion facility's administrator taking narcotics from the facility for her own personal use.
Some of the violations included patients who were not given medications on time, failing to verify if ultrasound or pregnancy tests had been conducted before abortions, and the administrator's personal use of the abortion center's drugs.
The administrator has since been fired and state health inspectors are monitoring the abortion facility's misuse of the drugs.
The center hadn't been inspected since July 2004 but State Health Officer Don Williamson said staffing increases have made it so he can begin doing annual inspections of the state's nine abortion centers.
Earlier this month, Diane Derzis, the director of the New Woman abortion facility, told AP, it had "nothing to hide" from state inspectors.
New Woman isn't the first abortion business to have health violations as three other Alabama abortion centers have come under fire.
The Summit Medical Center abortion center in Birmingham closed down in July after a nurse illegally gave a woman late in pregnancy the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug. Afterwards, it fabricated its health records in an attempt to cover up what happened.
The woman Summit gave the abortion drug to had a severely high blood pressure and needed medical attention, and later gave birth to a stillborn baby. According to the suspension order LifeNews.com obtained, the woman had a "critical and dangerously high" blood pressure reading of 182/129.
Only a doctor is supposed to dispense the dangerous abortion drug and the mifepristone pills are only intended to be used in
the early stages of a pregnancy. The woman went to an emergency room six days later and gave birth to a 6-pound, 4-ounce stillborn baby.
The state medical board has also temporarily prohibited abortion practitioner Deborah Lyn Levich and Summit Medical Center nurse Janet F. Onthank King from practicing.
Levich and King have been prohibited from working with each other again after Levich allowed King to dispense the abortion drug.
At Summit, state health officials said they found "egregious lapses in care, including non-physicians performing abortions, severely underestimating the gestational age of a fetus, failure to appropriately refer or treat a patient with a dangerously elevated blood pressure, and performing an abortion on a late-term pregnancy." Summit Medical Centers operates seven abortion businesses in five states and has another abortion center in Montgomery, Alabama. It is the abortion business that employed Malachy Dehenre, who lost his medical license in both Alabama and Mississippi because of botched abortions.
Following the incident at Summit, the state began inspecting the state's other abortion facilities, which led to finding problems at Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery. The Alabama Department of Health suspended RHS's license in August saying that the abortion business did not have a backup physician on hand kept inadequate medical records and conducted poor follow-up abortion care.
State health officials postponed a September hearing on the suspension. Because the facility says it is working on making improvements, State Health Department attorney Pat Ivie said the agency decided to postpone a hearing. Previously, the health department had set up a September 18 hearing on the suspension but Ivie told the Associated Press that the abortion center showed a plan for correcting the abuses.
Ivie indicated RHS must satisfy its requirements and sign a consent agreement to abide by the state health rules before it can reopen.
["comments about rules for abortion centers to John Wible, P.O. Box 303017, Montgomery, AL 36130-3017"; Ertelt, LifeNews.com 28November06, Montgomery, AL]
NEW STUDY SAYS ILLEGAL ABORTIONS KILL WOMEN, LEGAL ABORTIONS NOT BETTER. A new study concerning illegal abortions across the world suggests as many as 68,000 women die annualy from having one.
The study, conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute [research arm of Planned Parenthood] and published in the British medical journal Lancet, says millions of women are hospitalized from illegal abortions.
Guttmacher, which is the research arm of Planned Parenthood and conducted the study with money from the pro-abortion Hewlitt Foundation, examined data from 13 countries to come to its conclusions.
They claimed about 19 million unsafe abortions occur around the world every year, including both illegal and legal abortions.
Susheela Singh, who led the study, said the only way to make abortions safe is to make them legal, even though that hasn't made abortion any safer for women. [ed. This is a typical PR ploy of the pro-abortion industry to cover genocide and the quest for financial gain.]
"The most effective way of eliminating this highly preventable cause of maternal illness and death, would be to make safe and legal abortion services available and accessible," Singh said.
"When legal restrictions on abortion are reduced, the rate of deaths and morbidity decreases greatly," Marge Berer, editor of the journal Reproductive Health Matters, said of the study.
But facts in the United States don't validate that conclusion.
The National Center for Heath Statistics reveals that before 1941, there were over 1,400 abortion-related deaths. Yet after Penicillin became available to control infections, the number of deaths was reduced in the 1950's to approximately 250 per year. By 1966, with abortion still illegal in all states, the number of deaths had dropped steadily to 120 and was at just 25 when abortion was legalized nationwide in 1973.
Statistics from the agency afterwards show that the number of abortion deaths rose in 1974 and 1975, despite abortion's legality.
New and better antibiotics, better surgery and the establishment of intensive care units in hospitals helped reduce infections and post-surgery complications.
Some of the countries in the Alan Guttmacher study are second and third-world nations such as Nigeria, Uganda, Guatemala, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Kenya. These are countries that don't have the same type of medical care to provide to their people that industrialized nations do.
Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a British pro-life group, also said the Guttmacher study was based on guesses and estimates. He also said data in other nations show that making abortion illegal didn't hurt women's health.
"This is contradicted by hard data from Poland, which imposed new legal restrictions on abortion in the mid 1990s and consequently showed improved maternal and infant health," he told the BBC.
"The burden of the study is clearly to promote the killing of more unborn babies in poorer countries, regardless of the fact that women do not want abortions," he added.
The Guttmacher study also doesn't shed any light on the medical and mental health problems legal abortions cause women.
In the United States alone, seven women have died in the last few years form using the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug. The Food and Drug Administration indicates more than 950 women reported complications from using it with many requiring hospitalization, blood transfusions, and even emergency surgery to complete a botched abortion.
Recent research from New Zealand has also shown that as much as 40 percent of women having legal abortions suffer from a variety of mental health problems including depression, thoughts of suicide and addic
tions to drugs or alcohol. [24Nov06, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, NYC]
Abortion 'Study' Claiming 68,000 Women Die Per Year Only Based on Pro-Abortion Guesses. A study by Dr Shusheela Singh on unsafe abortion, due to appear in this week's edition of the British medical magazine, the Lancet, uses flawed data to promote abortion, says the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary, commented: "The author of this story works for one of the most wealthy and politically powerful pro-abortion lobby groups in the world, the Wall Street-based Guttmacher Institute. The "research" was funded by the Hewlett Foundation, a notoriously pro-abortion body.
"Reports of the study claim that Dr Singh found out about the rate of admission to hospital following complications from unsafe abortion. This is not what she did. Dr Singh's "findings" were not factual data established by research, but guesses extrapolated from estimates.
"The burden of the study is clearly to promote the killing of more unborn babies in poorer countries, regardless of the fact that women do not want abortions.
"Marge Berer (Editor, Reproductive Health Matters), supports Singh's study, saying: "When legal restrictions on abortion are reduced, the rate of deaths and morbidity decreases greatly." This is contradicted by hard data from Poland, which imposed new legal restrictions on abortion in the mid 1990s and consequently showed improved maternal and infant health."
Abortion advocates have for many years been notorious for greatly inflating the numbers of deaths of women from abortion in order to advance their cause. This has been one of their most successful tactics to build public and political support for their agenda.
Related: "Back-Alley Abortion" Myth Perpetuated on Film Nets Grand Prize at Venice Film Festival, http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/sep/04091302.html
[London, 24November06 LifeSiteNews.com]
RAPE VICTIM: MY CHILD "NO DIFFERENT THAN A CHILD NOT CONCEIVED IN RAPE". The Dakota Voice told the story of South Dakotan mother Megan B…whose child was conceived when she was raped at 19. Megan says that after the attack she was offered "emergency contraception," an abortifacient drug, by emergency room attendants. She refused the drug saying that it would be wrong to kill her child even at the embryonic stage.
"When I felt the baby, it really became real for me," she told the Voice.
"I hadn’t given it [abortion] much thought before this happened," Megan said. "I grew up in a small community and didn't know anyone who had an abortion or anything like that, and I just didn't think about it much. But my religion classes taught me that it was the wrong decision."
Megan thanked her family for supporting her and telling her she had nothing to be ashamed of. Her daughter Maria is now two years old.
Megan conveyed a message to women who find they are pregnant following a rape: "The most important thing would be to not think about all the facts and legal rights, but think about how the child is no different than a child not conceived in rape."
The extreme rape exception is most frequently used by abortion lobbyists to tug at the compassion of voters and politicians. The startling statistics, however, have long been pointed out by pro-life advocates as evidence enough that this tactic is largely a political ruse.
As an example, the Louisiana Department of Health statistics show that the justification for 99.12% of abortions in that state were "mother's mental health." Those women who had been raped or suffered incest made up only .04% of abortion cases, and yet the exception for incest or rape has been used successfully to legalize abortion without restrictions.
http://www.dakotavoice.com/200608/20060802_3.html
Related: Rape & Incest Victims Call for Congressional Hearings on Abortion
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jun/04062409.html
[3Aug06, Hilary White, ND, LifeSiteNews.com]
RUSSIA LAWMAKERS PROPOSE ABORTIONS MUST HAVE HUSBAND'S INPUT
Two Russian lawmakers say that legalized abortion leaves out the opinion of husbands and have proposed legislation allowing them to have input before their spouse can abort their child.
The bill requires spousal consent before an abortion facility can do an abortion on a married woman. Alexander Krutov and Nikolay Leonov of the Rodina political faction proposed the bill in the State Duma. "No abortion unless husband allows it," Krutov told the Interfax news agency about his legislation.
The draft text of the bill says that an unmarried woman can have an abortion on her own but both the married woman and her husband must both consent to the abortion in the case of a married couple.
In order for the abortion to be done, the husband must appear at the abortion business with his wife and sign a consent form along with her. Anyone forging a consent document could be jailed. [26Nov06, Moscow, LifeNews.com]
Russia Sees 1.5 Million Legal Abortions Annually, 120K Women Injured. The number of abortions in Russia is now about 1.5 million annually, just under the number of births there, which number 1.6 million per year.
However, despite abortion's legal status, women continue to be injured by it and as many as 120,000 women experience medical problems following abortions.
The number has been alarmingly high for years as Russian women use abortion as a method of birth control. New figures show that abortions are on the decline there, but some estimates indicate as many as 10-15 percent of all abortions aren't recorded by the government meaning abortions probably still outnumber births there.
Vladimir Serov, the deputy director of the Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Perinatology Center at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, told the Russian media source Regnum that 120,000 women are injured each year from legal abortions. He said numerous Russian women suffer from sterility, endometriosis and other problems following abortions. [23Nov06, Moscow, LifeNews.com]
NICARAGUA PRESIDENT SIGNS NO-EXCEPTION STRICT ABORTION BAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/world/americas/20nicaragua.html
CHILE CONGRESS REJECTS BILL TO LEGALIZE ABORTIONS FOR RAPE, INCEST. The lower house of the national Congress in Chile rejected a measure that would have legalized abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Tuesday vote came on a measure presented by deputy lawmakers of the ruling party, which did not endorse the legislation. The measure would have allowed abortions in cases of rape or incest of the mother's life is at risk from the pregnancy. Chile is one of more than 30 nations that prohibits abortions in all cases. Congress leader Antonio Leal called the bill unconstitutional because it went against the nation's constitution, which enshrines protection for the right to life of unborn children. He said the Congress could only debate the bill after an amendment to change the constitution "because our constitution guarantees the right to life." Leal's opinion on the bill prevailed and members of Congress voted 61-21 against having a debate on the legislation. Raimundo Rojas, the Hispanic outreach director for the National Right to Life Committee praised the vote. "This pro-life victory is yet another example of how Latin Americans will not succumb to the well funded efforts of international pro-abortion groups and relinquish their right to protect unborn children," he told LifeNews.com. "The slick campaigns with distorted truths held no sway over the Chilean people." [23Nov06, Santiago, Chile (LifeNews.com]