Surveys of Doctors Finds Half Oppose Abortion, Others Won't Refer
UK Contraceptive Push Leads to More Abortion
FL Abortion Business Owner Arrested
Black Leader Says Abortion Diminishes African-Americans
Ohio's Partial Birth Abortion Ban Will Stand
China Sticking to One-Child Policy
UN Committee Criticizes Poland for Prohibiting Abortions
Senate Bill Reintroduced on Pain Unborn Children Feel During Abortion
Pro-Life Attorney: Roe Abortion Case CAN be Overturned – Don't Give Up
SD & ND Lawmakers Launch New Abortion Bills
UN Committee Pressures Colombia & Nicaragua for More Abortion
Niece of late civil rights leader addresses pro-life group
Abortionist Levich Lets Alabama License Lapse…
SURVEYS OF DOCTORS FINDS HALF OPPOSE ABORTION. A new survey of doctors nationwide finds 52 percent said they oppose abortion and others wouldn't refer women considering an abortion to a place that does them. The survey also found some physicians believe it is appropriate to withhold information about abortion on moral grounds.
University of Chicago researchers conducted the study with interviews of 1,144 doctors around the country. It is believed to be the first comprehensive survey of the moral attitudes of physicians.
The study found 14 percent of those surveyed do not believe they are required to tell a patient about all treatment options when it comes to morally objectionable procedures such as abortion. And 29 percent of physicians say they do not feel they must refer someone to another doctor for a treatment they oppose or were undecided.
According to the NEJM study, 86% of doctors feel obligated to disclose all options to their patients and 71% believe that, if they themselves object to a requested procedure, they remain obligated to direct the patient to a physician who would not object.
Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical Association, a thriving community of some 16,000 dedicated professionals, referred to the study results and said, “It is encouraging that the majority of physicians oppose such abortions. It’s also encouraging to see that nearly 2/3 of doctors understand that it is good and right to explain their ethical stances to patients.”
Dr. Gary Smith, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Maryland, is one such doctor. Smith does not do abortions or refer women to physicians that do and he won't tell a pregnant woman that abortion is an option.
"They know it's an option," he told the Baltimore Sun newspaper. "They don't need me to tell them abortion exists."
"I was always taught I have two patients: the mother and the baby," he said. "Why would I want to send somebody out to hurt their baby?"
The survey also found that 42 percent of physicians opposed prescribing birth control to a minor without parental approval.
Dr. Farr Curlin, a University of Chicago ethicist and internist, led the study, which was published in 8Feb07 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Some 1,820 practicing U.S. family doctors and specialists chosen randomly from the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile database were mailed a survey and 63 percent of them responded. The study comes at a time where the rights of medical personnel in regards to matters of moral conscience are in particular debate. Several states have been recently embattled in the conscience clause debate and, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.com, Planned Parenthood has spearheaded a national effort to require pharmacists to dispense contraception with the penalty for refusal being termination of employment.
[“Religion, Conscience and Controversial Clinical Practices”, 8February07, NEJM, Read the full NEJM article here: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/356/6/593#T4; Ertelt, LifeNews.com, February 8, 2007, http://www.lifenews.com/printpage.php, http://www.lifenews.com/nat2919.html ]
Coverage:
Target Pharmacist Fired for Refusing to Dispense Abortifacient Morning-After Pill
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jan/06012703.html
[9Feb07, Jalsevac, DC, LifeSiteNews.com]
‘Contraceptive’ Push by Abortion Business Leads to Largest Ever Surge in UK Abortion. Marie Stopes International staff professed themselves “taken aback” at abortion surge. Almost 6,000 abortions were carried out in January alone by the nine Marie Stopes International abortion centers in&
nbsp; the UK, the highest rate ever in the last 32 years.
MSI staff professed themselves “taken aback” at the surge in abortion demand despite a campaign to promote the use of emergency contraception. Described as a massive publicity drive, the campaign urged women to purchase the morning-after pill and promoted the MSI “party purse”, according to a report by the UK News, including the pill, condoms and a guide to sexual health.
“Despite our efforts we have still seen the biggest rise ever in abortion figures in the month after Christmas,” said Liz Davies, director of MSI in the UK, who attributed the rise to “excess partying” and alcohol consumption over the Christmas season.
Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), responded to Marie Stopes's comments on the unprecedented numbers of abortions it performed last month, saying, “Marie Stopes should stop trying to fool the public by feigning innocence and bewilderment about the rise in abortions. There is overwhelming evidence that easier access to birth control drugs and devices, which Marie Stopes promotes and provides, has failed to contain the rising number of abortions.”
“Marie Stopes also spends significant resources promoting and providing abortion,” Ozimic said. “Unborn children are being killed and vulnerable women are suffering post-abortion trauma as a result of Marie Stopes' work.”
A leading UK family planning expert admitted in September that promoting emergency contraception has not decreased the number of pregnancies or abortions in the country, which in fact have continued to rise.
“Despite the clear increase in the use of emergency contraception, abortion rates have not fallen in the UK. They have risen from 11 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 1984 (136,388 abortions) to 17.8 per 1,000 in 2004 (185,400 abortions),” wrote Anna Glasier, director of the Lothian primary care NHS trust in Edinburgh, in the British Medical Journal.
Ms. Davies, meanwhile, called for more campaigning to promote the use of emergency contraception, saying it was a “clear case for an annual government-funded national education campaign to alert women and men to the importance of preventing unwanted pregnancies and STIs, including HIV/AIDS.”
Britain has seen a recent push to make MAP accessible to girls as young as 12 in over the counter sales, as well as a government decision to reduce sales tax on the drug.
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
UK Abortion Rates Continue to Climb Despite Increasing Emergency Contraception Use
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06091507.html
Early Abortion Drug Available Over the Counter
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1999/sep/990922a.html"http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1999/sep/990922a.html
MAP to be Given to British Girls as Young as 12
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/apr/06041008.html"http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/apr/06041008.html
The Contraception Misconception
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004_docs/contraceptionmisconception.htm
[8Feb07, Schultz, London, LifeSiteNews.com]
British Data Shows Repeat Abortions Increasing at Alarming Rate
London, England (LifeNews.com) — New statistics from the British Department of Health show that more than 100 teenage girls every month have a second abortion and some of those girls are having multiple abortions.
The statistics show some teenagers are using abortion as a method of birth control and may prompt calls for tighter regulations. According to the figures, 1,316 girls under the age of 18 had a second abortion during 2005 with 90 girls having a third abortion. Another 44 women had undergone eight or more abortions including 20 who were under the age of 30. A report in The Independent newspaper shows that 14 women under the age of 25 had their sixth abortion in 2005 and at least one of those women were under the age of 18. Among the over 30s, 482 women had their fifth abortion in 2005, 92 were on their sixth and 29 were admitted for their seventh abortion. The new data shows that repeat abortions for all age categories are up from the previous year. [22Dec06, LifeNews.com]
Abortion Business Owner Arrested in Florida Over Unlicensed Employees. The owner of an abortion business has been arrested on charges that unlicensed employees were working there. Belkis Gonzalez, who owns the A Gyn of Miramar abortion center was already under investigation in the case of a baby who was apparently born alive following a botched abortion at another center. Gonzalez was jailed on two felony counts related to abortions at the facility, also known as the Miramar Women's Center. A policeman told OR that Gonzalez was taken into custody over the weekend and later released on $1,000 bond. Gonzalez' partner, Siomara Senesis, was also apparently arrested and later released. Gonzalez and Senises are business partners who have operated a number of abortion sites in the Broward County area. Operation Rescue said the arrests were the result of an investigation that began in November 2004 that has resulted in eight arrests thus far. [9Feb07, Miramar, FL, LifeNews.com]
Black Leader Says Abortion Continues to Diminish African-Americans. A leading pro-life advocate in the black community says abortion diminishes the worth and value of African-Americans in the same way slavery and a lack of civil rights did before.
Day Gardner [president of the National Black Pro-Life Union] hopes Americans will learn more about this travesty during Black History Month. "Throughout the month of February, we take the time … one month out of the year to remember the tragedies and celebrate the triumphs of African Americans in history," Gardner explained.
"We celebrate the fact that we are a strong race that survived the many horrors and inhumane treatment when we were an enslaved people — presumed by many to be less than human," she said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.
Gardner, a former Miss Delaware an
d the first black woman to be named a semifinalist in the Miss America pageant, said that black Americans made great strides in the 1960s and afterwards in achieving civil rights and establishing their ability to achieve the American dream. Since that time, African-American people have been able to rise to the highest ranks in the political and business worlds and achieve tremendous success.
But Gardner worries that abortion is taking a heavy toll on her community. "In our quest for higher education, bigger houses, better jobs and flashier cars are we closing our eyes to the fact that more than a thousand of our children die each day by the horrible practice of abortion?" she asked.
"These children are denied their most basic human right — which is the right to life; a right which our ancestors so proudly worked for, marched for and many of them died for," Gardner added. Gardner said that 15 million of the 44 million unborn children killed via abortion since 1973 were black.
"Abortion has become the number one killer of black people in this country — killing more African Americans that accidents, heart disease, stroke, crimes, HIV-AIDS and all other deaths combined," she explained.
Gardner says she's bothered that African-American leaders recognize racism in many places but fail to see how abortion has targeted the black community and how a disproportionate number of the abortions done in the United States are on black women and children.
More than 37 percent of all abortions involve black Americans, she says.
Gardner concludes, "We are the underground railroad of our time and it's up to us to make abortion a thing of our historical past. If we stand united against this horrific practice … we shall overcome this, too." [7Feb07, DC, LifeNews.com]
'We Shall Overcome … Abortion' Says National Black Pro-Life Union President. Throughout the month of February, we take the time … one month out of the year to remember the tragedies and celebrate the triumphs of African Americans in history. We celebrate the fact that we are a strong race that survived the many horrors and inhumane treatment when we were an enslaved people — presumed by many to be less than human.
We came together in the 1960s facing very difficult times when hundreds of African Americans suffered physical torture and sometimes even death .. all for wanting to experience the American dream and for insisting that we be allowed that which we as American citizens are entitled to under the laws of this great country.
And since the '60s we have continued to make great strides in breaking down color barriers and the walls of inequality. We become doctors, lawyers, educators, movie stars, corporations and conglomerates. But I worry that many of us in the black community have forgotten what the struggle was all about. In our quest for higher education, bigger houses, better jobs and flashier cars … are we closing our eyes to the fact that more than a thousand of our children die each day by the horrible practice of abortion? These children are denied their most basic human right — which is the right to life; a right which our ancestors so proudly worked for, marched for and many of them died for.
More than 44 million children have been killed by abortion — 15 million of them were black children. Abortion has become the number one killer of black people in this country — killing more African Americans that accidents, heart disease, stroke, crimes, HIV-AIDS and all other deaths … COMBINED!
What bothers me is we are very quick as a people to recognize racism everywhere else except the one place that truly affects all of us. Most blacks will agree that racism is sill very much alive — yet say nothing when abortion facilities are placed purposefully in minority and poor communities. This is no accident! More than 37 percent of all abortions are performed on black women. Last year alone, more than 400,000 black babies were killed by abortion.
We must realize that abortion is a multi-million dollar a year business that makes most of its money by killing our children. Abortion providers need us to make their blood money. If we as black people say no to abortion — the industry will cease to exist. We are the underground railroad of our time and it's up to us to make abortion a thing of our historical past. If we stand united against this horrific practice … we shall overcome this, too.
Related: African-American Catholic Bishop Hopes to See His Community More Active on Pro-Life
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07013001.html
[Special to LifeSiteNews.com by Day Gardner, President, National Black Pro-Life Union 6Feb07 LifeSiteNews.com]
MS Looks to Restrict Abortions. The Mississippi Senate passed a bill 7Feb that would ban most abortions and charge those who perform the procedures with a misdemeanor. The bill would prohibit abortions except in cases of rape, incest or if the woman's life were endangered. Anyone found guilty of providing an abortion would face misdemeanor charges, a $5,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
Mississippi joins a handful of other states, including South Dakota and Utah, in considering abortion bans or restrictions this year in their statehouses. The measure now goes to the Mississippi House. Last year, the House passed a similar bill that died when the two chambers could not agree on final wording.
"What this bill does is regulate these folks that are making money off these young women," said state Sen. Alan Nunnelee, a Republican and chairman of the Public Health Committee. "It says it will be a criminal act in this state for them to perform this procedure unless it's to save the life of this young woman or in cases of rape or incest."
The state Senate also approved another bill requiring doctors to offer women who are considering an abortion the option of listening to the fetal or embryonic heartbeat.
[Associated Press, 7Feb07, Mohr, http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Feb07/0%2C4670%2CMississippiAbortion%2C00.html
OH PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BAN WILL STAND. Ohio is the only state that already has a ban in place. Partial birth abortions are not permitted, and the ruling expected in the coming months by the U.S. Supreme Court on the federal case will have no bearing on this law. Unlike the Nebraska partial birth abortion ban statute that was struck doen by the US Supreme Court Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000) decision, the OH statute has an exception when either the life or health of the mother is "endangered by a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function." The main focus of the
federal litigation is whether a health exception is needed. [Cincinnati Rt to Life Ed Fdn Inc, 1/07, www. cincinnatirighttolife.org]
CHINA STICKING TO ONE-CHILD POLICY. China will not loosen its one-child policy, despite a top family planning official's acknowledgment 23Jan07 that it was partly to blame for a worsening problem of too many boy babies and not enough girls in the world's most populous nation.
In 2005, some 118 boys were born in China for every 100 girls. In some regions, the figure has hit 130 boys for every 100 girls; the average for industrialized countries is between 104 and 107 boys for every 100 girls.
Zhang Weiqing, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said the government is committed to solving gender imbalance within 10 to 15 years with education campaigns, punishments for sex-selective abortions and rewards, like retirement pensions, for parents who have girls.
"This problem is a reality of country life in China," said Zhang. "We have a 2,000-year feudal history that considered men superior to women, that gave boys the right to carry on the family name and allowed men to be emperors while women could not."
He called gender imbalance "a very serious challenge for China."
Bates Gill of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said pension benefits would help, but other financial incentives like school fees for girls, would also need to be included. He also thought the effects of such projects would take several years before families learned they could trust the government to deliver on their promises.
Zhang said China's basic policy, in effect since the late 1970s, was reviewed and renewed without change last month. The policy limits urban couples to one child and rural families to two to control the population and conserve natural resources. Beijing says it has helped prevent 400 million births and has aided the nation's rapid economic development.
Dropping restrictions on childbearing now would risk a population surge as a baby boomer generation born in the early 1980s becomes ready to start families, Zhang said. Another factor in the government's decision is that many migrant workers living in cities have been evading restrictions and having two or more children, he said.
China has about 1.3 billion people, 20 percent of the global total. The government has pledged to keep the population under 1.36 billion by 2010 and under 1.45 billion by 2020, Zhang said.
The one-child policy and easy availability of sonogram technology to determine fetal gender have prompted many families to abort girls, and other couples give up girls for adoption abroad so they can try for a son.
Most people, or 53 percent, are allowed to have a second child if their first is a girl. Poor farmers with a two-child limit account for nearly 10 percent of the population, while ethnic minorities, who are allowed to have two or more children, make up 1.6 percent of the total.
He said the government has begun studying the impact of a generation of "only children", since the late 1970s, nearly 100 million children have been born who will never have siblings.
[23Jan07, AP, Olexen, DiLorenzo, Beijing, http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/23/D8MR75BG4.html]
UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEE CRITICIZES POLAND FOR PROHIBITING ABORTIONS. A United Nations committee has unduly criticized the nation of Poland for prohibiting most abortions. During a meeting this week at its headquarters, the committee that oversees the CEDAW treated said the European nation has not done enough to comply with it.
CFAM, an organization that lobbies at the UN said CEDAW committee members questioned the Polish government on its access to abortion. In the group's Friday Fax publication, it reported that committee members criticized the nation for allowing a conscience clause for physicians who don't want to do abortions. The committee also questioned the Polish representative about illegal abortions in the nation.
According to CFAM's report, the Polish official said that "every abortion is a tragedy" and said the biggest problem is the ability to provide support for single women who are pregnant. He said that need, not abortion, was the biggest question to address.
The European Union and the United Nations have put pressure on Poland to change its pro-life laws and abortion advocates previously anchored an abortion boat outside the country to do abortions just outside Polish waters.
CFAM's Friday Fax report points out that the Human Rights Committee, in 2004, contended that Poland's pro-life laws on abortion “may incite women to seek unsafe, illegal abortions, with attendant risks to their life and health" and it suggested that Poland legalize abortion.
When communism fell in this eastern European nation in 1989, Polish politicians agreed to make abortion illegal in most cases. Poland currently prohibits most abortions but allows them in cases to save the life of the mother or in rape and incest.
The CEDAW committee will soon review the laws of other nations, including the pro-life nations of Colombia, Nicaragua, and Peru.
[21Jan07, Ertelt, LifeNews.com; 19Jan07, CFAM and Human Rights Institute – http://www.c-fam.org]
SENATE BILL REINTRODUCED ON PAIN UNBORN CHILDREN FEEL DURING ABORTION. A leading pro-life lawmaker has reintroduced legislation that would require abortion practitioners to tell women considering an abortion that their unborn child may experience significa
nt pain during the procedure.
Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who is running for president, reintroduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which requires the pain information be given to women contemplating an abortion 20 weeks after fertilization.
“It is a scientific, medical fact that unborn children feel pain,” Brownback said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com. “We know that unborn children can experience pain based upon anatomical, functional, physiological and behavioral indicators that are correlated with pain in children and adults," Brownback added. "Mothers seeking an abortion have the right to know that their unborn children can feel pain.”
The bill also includes a provision allowing women to ask for anesthesia for the baby so she doesn't suffer any pain during an abortion. The House of Representatives voted last month on a similar bill and approved it on a 250-162 vote. However, the measure was brought up under special rules requiring a two-thirds vote and, as a result, the bill was not sent to the Senate for its consideration. With abortion advocates now in control of Congress bills like Brownback's may not get a hearing or a debate and vote. [24Jan07, DC LifeNews.com]
PRO-LIFE ATTORNEY: ROE ABORTION CASE CAN BE OVERTURNED, SO… DON'T GIVE UP. Ending the darkness of Roe v. Wade is not only possible, it is more than likely to occur if those who understand what's at stake don't give up, having tired of the seemingly long battle.
For, as social-reform movements go, the 34-year struggle to overturn Roe and its judicial progeny is still a relatively young one. The lessons of the long struggle for black civil rights are instructive. From the advent of the first African slave being taken to the American colonies in 1619 to the end of the Civil War was a period of 246 years.
The cause for life is, in comparison, only 34 years old. The ratification of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in 1865 to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 was a period of approximately 100 years. We who fight for life having been laboring for only one-third as long.
From the announcement in 1896 by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" public accommodations for blacks and whites was constitutional to the reversal of that decision by the same Supreme Court in 1954 in the Brown v. Board of Education case was a period of 58 years – almost a quarter of a century longer than our present struggle.
The period from the Civil Rights Act in 1964 to the present is approximately 42 years, eight years longer than we have presently struggled.
The lesson is that American social-reform movements sometimes take time.
We will win the battle to overturn Roe if we do not lose heart.
But as we maintain a long-term vision, we must also come to terms with today's brutal facts.
The numbers are staggering and so, sometimes, is the temptation to despair. As we soberly mark the 34th anniversary of the judicial atrocity known as Roe v. Wade, the sheer number of innocent victims of that act of judicial tyranny overwhelms our everyday experience.
Even under the most conservative of estimates (and we lack certainty because we do not have a national, uniform mandatory abortion reporting requirement), somewhere between 40 and 50 million unborn children have died under this nation's regime of abortion.
To put that number in some context, the best estimate is that the total war dead, of all causes, for all of America's major and minor wars since 1775 is 1,329,991 or an amount equal to just one year of Roe's infernal tally.
It is true that a prudent, incremental strategy of judicial, legislative, and public media efforts, including test cases, test legislation, and consistent public education, have led to noticeable gains in reducing the number of abortions and educating the public (and perhaps, soon, ending the legal support of partial-birth infanticide).
However, the relentless daily, monthly, and annual toll of unborn lives lost, mothers and fathers physically and emotionally devastated, and cultural and political disunity of the country, leads many to wonder if the fight, after so many years of battling, is really winnable.
Can we honestly expect things to change when so many lives have been lost, so many families affected, so many legal battles and legislative arguments made and ignored, so much money spent and so many years of our lives gone by?
The answer is a resounding "yes." Positive signs are all around us.
The ever more detailed pictures of unborn babies in the womb manifest their humanity in ways that only the most hardened can deny. More young adults and high school students are pro-life than ever before. The accumulating weight of serious medical studies details the truth conclusively that abortion, in addition to killing her unborn child, is harmful to the woman who subjects herself to it.
On the legal front there are also hopeful signs. In addition to new principled justices, at no time in the last 34 years has the Supreme Court ever found a solid constitutional basis for the so-called "right to terminate a pregnancy."
Combine this with the equally revealing, albeit maddening, point that the Supreme Court conceded in the Casey decision 19 years after Roe – that no single constitutional argument standing alone could buttress the "right" to abort (i.e., without the added legal doctrine of stare decisis abortion jurisprudence is a house of cards) – and the overturning of Roe is inevitable.
Ultimately, the realization that the radical ideology behind the abortion industry is bankrupt morally, culturally, economically, and spiritually will lead to the collapse of the current abortion regime, just as surely as the deadly decay and false reality of Marxism led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
All this is the good news if we just keep up the struggle.
[24Jan07, DC LifeNews.com, by Nikolas T. Nikas]
NORTH DAKOTA STATE HOUSE STRONGLY BACKS ABORTION BAN TRIGGER LAW. The North Dakota state House approved a measure that would prohibit most abortions, leaving it legal only in extremely rare cases when it might be necessary to save the life of the mother.
The legislation, known as a trigger law, would go into effect once the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. The House voted 61-26 to pass a measure (HB 1466) which would charge anyone who does an abortion with a five year prison term and a $5,000 fine.
The bill would also give parents of pregnant minors and partners of pregnant women the right to file suit to stop an abortion. Rep. James Kerzman, a Democrat, is the primary sponsor of the measure and he said unborn children must be protected in all circumstances, even if a pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.
"My parents raised me to accept all life, and I have never questioned that," he told the Bismarck Tribune newspaper. Other states are considering trigger laws as well, including Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Utah. [1Feb07, Bismarck, ND, LifeNews.com] NORTH DAKOTA LEGISLATORS FILE BILL TO BAN ABORTIONS IF ROE REVERSED. Four North Dakota state legislators have filed a bill that would prohibit most abortions, leaving it legal only in extremely rare cases when it might be necessary to save the life of the mother.
The state legislature has defeated previous abortion bans — 69-19 in 2005 and 79-13 in 2003, but those bills sought to prohibit abortions outright rather than making them illegal once Roe is reversed. They also did not contain an exception protecting the life of the mother. The past bills also put in place fines and prison terms for women, which Kerzman's measure doesn't have. [22Jan07, LifeNews.com, Bismarck, ND]
S.D. LAWMAKERS LAUNCH NEW ABORTION BILL. Rep. Mary Glenski, D-Sioux Falls and other legislators introduced a bill that would ban most abortions in South Dakota. This marks the fourth year in a row that state lawmakers will debate the issue.
An abortion ban bill introduced 31Jan in the South Dakota state House would allow exceptions for rape and incest, but only if the crimes are reported to authorities with DNA evidence.
People who oppose abortion hope the measure becomes the vehicle for a legal challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
A bill passed last year contained an exception only to save the life of a woman. A petition campaign forced that bill onto the ballot and voters rejected it in November by a margin of 56% to 44%.
Opponents of the legislation have said the issue was settled in the November election and lawmakers should not have revived it. This year's bill would allow rape victims to get abortions if they report the rapes to police within 50 days.
Doctors would have to confirm the report with police and would have to take blood from aborted fetuses and give that information to police for DNA testing.
In the case of incest, a doctor would have to get the woman's consent to report the crime along with the identity of the alleged perpetrator before an abortion could be performed. Blood samples from fetuses would have to be provided to police in incest cases, too.
Abortions could be done only until the 17th week of pregnancy in cases of incest and rape.
One of the 25 sponsors, state Rep. Gordon Howie, said the rape and incest provisions are strict to ensure that women don't say they have been victims in order to obtain abortions. "Frankly, Planned Parenthood would drive a semi truck through an exception that wasn't clearly defined," he added.
The bill carries a tougher maximum penalty for illegal abortions than last year's bill — 10 years in prison instead of five. It would allow abortions to save women's lives and in cases in which their health would be seriously jeopardized by a continued pregnancy.
However, a doctor could perform an abortion only if a doctor from another practice concurs that a woman's health is in jeopardy. [AP, 31Jan07, Pierre, SD, Joe Kafka, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-31-abortion-south-dakota_x.htm; N Valko RN, 1Feb07]
FREE RESOURCES ONLINE: www.unchoice.info/resources.htm. You can download and print copies for your waiting/examination rooms: Coerced Abortion, Forced Abortion in America Special Report, Teen Abortion Risks Fact Sheet, Hard Cases, Research Summary, Key Facts About Abortion, plus ads and posters.
UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEE PRESSURES COLOMBIA FOR MORE ABORTION. The United Nations is pressuring another nation to legalize abortion after criticizing Poland earlier this month. The UN committee charged with overseeing implementation of the CEDAW treaty chided Colombia last week for legalizing some abortions but not making abortion legal in general. Colombia's Supreme Court weakened the country's pro-life law last May changing it from a complete ban on abortions to allowing them in cases of rape or incest of if the baby has severe physical deformities. The court also allowed abortions in very rare situations when it could be necessary to save the life of the m
other. The UN committee commended Colombia for legalizing abortions in those instances but asked the country's delegation when it planned to legalize more abortions. According to the Friday Fax report from the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, a pro-life group that lobbies at the UN, Martha Lucia Vasquez Zawadzky, the head of the Colombian delegation, told the committee that more abortions would only happen if all three branches of the Colombia government wanted it. Appearing to misrepresent the pro-life views of her nation, Zawadzky added that “now is a time to rejoice” about the abortions the nation's legalized. According to the pro-life group's report, Cuban delegate Magalys Arocha said she was concerned that abortions wouldn't expand in Colombia because the nation's court allowed doctors to opt out of doing them if it violates their religious or moral views.
EU Threatens to Withdraw Aid to Nicaragua if Pro-Life Law Remains. Representatives from the European Union are increasing pressure on the government of Nicaragua to reverse its recent law which unilaterally forbids abortion under any circumstances. According to a report from the Catholic News Agency, the EU representation has threatened to withdraw economic assistance to the country if the abortion law is not reversed.
Nicaragua’s new abortion law was unanimously voted in by the Nicaraguan Legislature in October, 2006 and signed into law by then President Enrique Bolanos the following month. Nicaragua’s new president, Daniel Ortega voiced his support of the pro-life law in his election campaign. Toward the end of the legislative discussion, each city was inundated with massive media publicity campaign in favor of abortion. In response, more & more letters began to appear in the media for the right to life. Then, a massive campaign brought forth a March for Life on the final day of the assembly (6Oct06). Over 200,000 people marched, and 290,000 people signed a document to the National Assembly leaders calling for the end to "therapeutic abortion so that all abortions would be illegal. On 26Oct, National Day of the Nicaraguan Doctor, the NA voted 52-0 to do just that. [Special Report, HLI, 1/07]
Marc Litvine, the EU representative to Nicaragua, said that the EU regards legalized abortion as “linked to aid programs against poverty and to the rights of women”. He expressed hope that “the new government will be capable of opening the debate and discussing it outside the passion of the electoral season.”
According to an interview published in Managua’s El Nuevo Diario newspaper, Litvine said that the EU is “concerned” about the recent law. Litvine also accused the supporters of the law of pushing it through in a “hurried” fashion in the days leading up to the election.
Opponents of the pro-life law have argued that it was used as a platform for electoral candidates. The United Nations, organizations such as Human Rights Watch and various feminist groups have condemned the law arguing that it will lead to more clandestine abortions which will, in turn, lead to the deaths of more women. Several organizations have said that they will challenge the constitutionality of the law, calling abortion a “fundamental human right.”
Litvine commented on the new government and its support of the pro-life legislation saying, “That’s where I see one of the contradictions of the new government; it claims to be progressive, very modern, and it is going backwards because for us [the pro-life law] is a step back.”
Nicaragua’s previous abortion law had a loophole which allowed for the killing of the unborn child if the life or health of the mother was determined to be in danger. The ambiguity of the “health” clause in most countries around the globe has eventually led to practical abortion on demand. Nicaragua’s previous law also allowed the child to be killed in utero if she was conceived through rape.
Coverage:
Nicaragua Congress Passes New Law Outlawing All Abortions
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/oct/06102604.html
Nicaraguan President Signs into Law Bill Banning All Abortion Despite UN Intimidation
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112002.html
Pregnant 9-Year Old Rape Victim Being Used to Push Abortion Legalization
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/feb/03021802.html
[9Feb07, Jalsevac, Managua, LifeSiteNews.com]
NIECE OF ML KING, JR. ADDRESSES PRO-LIFE GATHERING. The niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., energized pro-life activists 27, urging them to continue to speak out against abortion, during an annual gathering to remember the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.
"The babies need us," Alveda King told a packed state House chamber. "You know, they're like a slave in the womb of a mom. The mom's deciding whether they will live or die. It's civil rights."
More than 350 protesters braved subzero temperatures marching through the city streets to the Statehouse for the rally. Adults of all ages and children carried "Defend Life," "Stop Abortion Now," and "Abortion Kills Children" signs while a group of teenagers, members of a youth council, chanted at the end of the parade.
Olivia Durham, 42, of Barre, marched with her husband and three sons. "It's good for them to see that abortion is a real thing," she said of her sons. "They get to see the effects of abortion on families."
Eileen Haupt, 47, of Jericho, who attended the rally with her husband and two young daughters, said she made the trip to Montpelier "to be a witness for the sanctity of life."
King said supporting abortion rights contradicted her uncle's dedication to nonviolence.
She cited a speech in which King, the civil rights leader who was shot dead in 1968, said, "The Negro cannot win if he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for personal comfort and safety."
Planned Parenthood, which praised King with an award in 1966 for fighting bigotry and his dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
King, 56, had two abortions herself. She says one was administered involuntarily by doctors two years before Roe vs. Wade and the second occurred after abortion was legalized. She planned to have a third abortion when she said she was urged by two African American men, her grandfather, the father of Martin Luther King, Jr., and her boyfriend, not to.
"A woman has a right to choose what she does with her body; of course she does. But I had to admit right then, that baby was not my body," she said. "I did not have the right to kill another person, and so I admitted that, and as soon as I admitted that, things began to change for me." [28Jan07, N Valko RN; New York, LifeNews.com; AP, Montpelier, VT, http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO41364/]
ABORTIONIST LETS ALABAMA LICENSE LAPSE; Nurse Practitioner Faces Charges. Abortionist Deborah Levich allowed her Alabama medical license to lapse last week. She now is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Alabama State Board of Medical Examiners, which investigates doctors.
"Once the physician lets his or her license lapse, we no longer have jurisdiction, especially if the physician lives in another state," Larry Dixon, executive director of the medical examiners board in Alabama, told the Associated Press. "The Medical Practice Act only gives us jurisdiction on license applications and active licenses."
Dixon indicated that Levich's file would be flagged and officials would be alerted to past problems should she reapply for a medical license in the future.
While no formal charges were ever filed against Levich, she was the abortionist at Birmingham's Summit Medical Center when it was permanently closed by the state last June after it was discovered that abortions were taking place without a doctor present. 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." Her license had been temporarily suspended amid allegations that she aborted late-term babies without checking for viability in violation of Alabama law.
Levich is currently still licensed in Georgia where she continues to work for the "Metamorphosis Medical Group" in Roswell. Her website indicates that she no longer supplies "obstetrical" services. Levich appears to have stopped doing abortions.
The report may be viewed/downloaded at http://www.albme.org/Documents/PublicDocs/BME_FILES/md.00025207.pdf
http://www.albme.org/Default.aspx?Page=LicenseeDetails&ID=25756
Following the incident, Levich's Alabama associate, nurse practitioner Janet King, fabricated the abortion center's records in an attempt to cover up what happened. Authorities arrested King in December and charged her with misdemeanor charges including performing illegal abortions. King was charged with three counts of having done illegal abortions at the Summit abortion site. King allegedly was involved in a botched RU486 abortion on a nearly full term baby. She is still licensed in Alabama and is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on February 12 where she is expected to enter a "not guilty" plea. [3Feb07, LifeNews.com; Christian Newswire, 5Feb07, B'ham AL]