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A Tainted Drug from the Manufacturer of RU-486 Paralyzes Patients

RU-486 Claims Record Number of Victims

Abortion advocates say we're winning

Women and Men Involved in Past Abortions Have Tremendous Impact on Debate

CA Abortion Center Owner Charged With Unlicensed Abortion Practice

Kansas Grand Jury Tells Abortionist George Tiller to Furnish Records

Former Abortionist DeHenre Found Guilty of Killing His Wife

Trial Against Alabama Nurse in Botched Abortion, Falsification Case Postponed

Russian Pro-Life Advocates Protest Abortion

"China-Lite" : Two-Child Policy Bills Proposed in Philippines Include Criminal Sanctions

Mother Refused Cancer Treatment So Baby Could Live

NEW! Italian Doctors: Abortion Survivors Must be Given Care: Promise to Save Babies Who Survive Abortion

NEW! British Report Shows Dozens of Babies Left to Die After Live Birth Abortions

NEW! He Can't Forget the Baby who Fought for Life After Abortion

NEW! Misoprostol and the Hidden Pro-Life Crisis

NEW! Study Finds High Rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Among Women Who Had Abortions

NEW! Judge Upholds Right of Conscience

NEW! Clinical Insanity, & Fetal Pain, & Dates…

Why is it that, when a young woman says she's pro-choice, she's heralded as intelligent beyond her years, but if a similar young woman is passionately pro-life, she's marked as "too young to understand?"  [from Rock for Life e-news 26Jan08]

A TAINTED DRUG FROM THE MANUFACTURER OF RU-486 PARALYZES PATIENTS: FDA continues to refuse to investigate Chinese manufacturer. The sole supplier to the United States of the abortion drug RU-486 has been selling tainted leukemia drugs that have harmed almost 200 Chinese cancer patients, according to reports that appeared today in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

The company's victims have suffered from a variety of health problems, including permanent paralysis, incontinence, and leg pain.

According to the Times, in December, China’s Food and Drug Administration said that the Shanghai police had begun a criminal investigation and that two officials, including the head of the plant, had been detained in an ongoing investigation of what they have called a "cover-up".
Chinese police have shut down the offending plant. However, the Food and Drug Administration is showing little concern about the matter.

The producer, the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company, is a massive enterprise owned by the Chinese communist government.

The drug maker, Shanghai Hualian, is the sole supplier to the United States of the abortion pill, mifepristone, known as RU-486 (Mifeprex). It is made at a factory different from the one that produced the tainted cancer drugs, about an hour’s drive away.

The same division that manufactured the poisoned leukemia drug, Shanghai Hualian, manufactures RU-486 for sale to the US.

Shanghai Hualian is under investigation for other offenses, and China's own State Food and Drug Administration has accused it of "systematically covering up irregularities in manufacturing." At least two other drugs manufactured by Hualian have been pulled from the market by Chinese regulators. However, the FDA is reportedly dismissive of the problem and has announced no plans to investigate.

The FDA's lax attitude toward Hualian Pharmaceuticals (also known in the English language media as "Hua Lin") continues a policy that has allowed the non-profit pro-abortion Population Council to import the drug since 2000, despite more than 18 years of manufacturing abuse by the Chinese company.

In October of 2007, the organization Judicial Watch obtained FDA documents showing that the agency was aware of existing abuses eight years ago, when they approved RU-486 in a highly controversial decision that involved the use of studies by researchers affiliated with pro-abortion organizations, including the Population Council.

But in a statement, the FDA said the RU-486 plant had passed an F.D.A. inspection in May. “F.D.A. is not aware of any evidence to suggest the issue that occurred at the leukemia drug facility is linked in any way with the facility that manufactures the mifepristone,” the statement said.

The director of the Chinese F.D.A.’s drug safety control unit in Shanghai, Zhou Qun, said her agency had inspected the factory that produced mifepristone three times in recent months and found it in compliance. “It is natural to worry,” Ms. Zhou said, “but these two plants are in two different places and have different quality-assurance people.”

The FDA had visited Haulian plants in 1999 and 2000, which, according to Rep. Chris Smith, showed "serious problems including possible mixing of fresh materials with waste material barrels and use of impure source ingredients." The FDA admitted at the time it approved RU-486 for importation that the company had a record of violating US regulations, going back a decade.

In 2006, the FDA also admitted that over 600 adverse effects and six deaths had been attributed to RU-486, but no actions were taken against the manufacturer, and the agency has continued to allow the drug to be sold.

"Today's news, regarding the drug maker, Shanghai Hualian, requires further investigation in order to better protect women's health," Jennifer Lahl, National Director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, told LifeSiteNews.

"Sadly, when it comes to medical practice and pharmaceuticals, we have a long history of doctors prescribing medications for women, only to find out
later how harmful and possible deadly the drugs were. We should not let the politics of abortion get in the way of responsible treatment of women."

Because of opposition from the anti-abortion movement, the F.D.A. has never publicly identified the maker of the abortion pill for the American market. The pill was first manufactured in France, and since its approval by the F.D.A. in 2000 it has been distributed in the United States by Danco Laboratories. Danco, which does not list a street address on its Web site, did not return two telephone calls seeking comment.

Problems with the cancer drugs first surfaced last summer after leukemia patients received injections of one cancer drug, methotrexate. Afterward, patients experienced leg pain and, in some cases, paralysis. At the People’s Liberation Army No. 307 Hospital in Beijing, a 26-year-old patient, Miao Yuguang, was unable to stand up five days after being injected in the spine with the drug. “We were already unlucky to have this illness,” her father, Miao Futian, said of the leukemia. “Then we ran into this fake drug.”

The authorities recalled two batches of the drug, but issued only mild warnings because the cause of the problem was unclear. Officials with Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group stood by their products, saying that drug regulators investigating the plant had found no problems. But when another cancer drug made in the same factory — cytarabin hydrochloride — also began causing adverse reactions, investigators suspected contamination.

In September, health and drug officials announced that they had found that the two drugs were contaminated with vincristine sulfate, a third cancer drug, during production. After issuing a nationwide alert, the government announced a wider recall, and Shanghai’s drug agency sealed manufacturing units at the plant.

“Many people thought there was a problem with the hospitals,” said Zheng Qiang, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Information and Engineering Research at Peking University. “It wasn’t until later that they discovered the problem was with the medicine.”

Chinese media attention on the case has surged, after a terse statement by China’s drug agency in December, accusing Hualian company officials of a systematic cover-up of violations at the facility that made the drugs.

Family members at the No. 307 hospital have counted 53 victims in Beijing, and say they were told that there were least 193 victims nationwide. It is unclear how many were paralyzed, because the authorities have not released an official figure. Relatives have joined to share information and advocate for the victims. Based on interviews with several families in Beijing and Shanghai, it appears that about half of those injected still cannot walk.

Wu Jianhua said his daughter, Wu Xi, 15, collapsed on her way to school after an injection in August. “We thought she was tired,” Mr. Wu said. Doctors now say she may never walk without a cane, he said.

Last week, on a window near the gate of the closed plant was a notice from the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration, dated Sept. 8, accusing the plant of “producing substandard medicine that poses major risks of causing serious harm to human health.” It identified a company official, Gu Yaoming, as the “person responsible” for the plant.

Records show Mr. Gu also met with the United States F.D.A. inspectors last May as part of the routine inspection of the plant that makes RU-486.

Reached by telephone, Mr. Gu declined to describe his role at the two plants. “I cannot answer your questions,” he said.

A spokeswoman for China’s Food and Drug Administration, Yan Jiangying, said that Shanghai Hualian had been stripped of its license to produce antitumor drugs, but that this action did not affect RU-486.

Hualian is the latest in a string of tainted medicine cases that have undermined confidence in the safety of drugs here. In 2006, at least 18 Chinese died after an intravenous drug used to treat liver disease, Armillarisin A, was laced with diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in some antifreeze. Also in 2006, at least 14 Chinese died after taking a Chinese antibiotic, Xinfu, which was not properly sterilized during production. And more than a hundred people died in Panama after taking cold medicine containing a mislabeled and toxic chemical from China.

In each of these cases, the manufacturer failed to follow good manufacturing practices to ensure the final product was safe.

Describing the cover-up at the factory, Ms. Zhou, the regulator who led the investigation, said workers did not tell investigators that vincristine sulfate — a drug too toxic for use in spinal injections — had been stored in a refrigerator with materials for other drugs.

“At the time, we didn’t think they had lied to us,” Ms. Zhou said. The deception sent investigators on a two-month hunt for other possible causes of the adverse reactions. “If they had been open about the vincristine sulfate in the beginning, maybe fewer people would have been harmed,” she added.

While regulators have accused factory employees of a systematic cover-up of violations in production, they have not said whether superiors at Shanghai Pharmaceutical were aware of it. “We’ll have to wait until the police investigation is finished” to make more details public, said Ms. Yan, the drug agency spokeswoman.

Mr. Zheng at Peking University said that producing multiple drugs in a single workshop was risky, but that some Chinese companies saw it as a way to save money. “It was an accident,” he said of the Hualian case. “But it was bound to happen.”

Related coverage: New FDA Documents Reveal Abortion Pill RU-486 Made in Substandard Chinese Plant When Approved
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/oct/07101703.html

Massive Chinese Recalls, but FDA Silent Over RU-486 Chinese Manufacturers
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07072607.html

FDA Issues "Information" on Two Recent RU486 Deaths
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/apr/06041105.html

Two More Women Die After Medical Abortion with Abortion Pill RU-486, FDA Warns
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06031702.html

FDA Reveals 607 Adverse Events Related to RU-486 Abortion , Including Five Deaths
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jan/06010301.html
[31Jan2008,  
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/world/asia/31pharma.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print; Beijing, M.C. Hoffman, LifeSiteNews.com]

RU 486 CLAIMS RECORD NUMBER OF VICTIMS. Although pro-lifers are hailing a decline in abortion, the widespread use of RU-486 is arousing fresh concern. According to an article in today's Washington Post, abortions by RU-486, the chemical alternative to surgical abortion, have risen 22 percent a year and are now responsible for 14 percent of the total abortions performed in the first nine weeks of pregnancy.

For nearly eight years, FRC has documented the health risks surrounding the abortion drug–and the list continues to grow. We have taken our objections to Capitol Hill, to the Food and Drug Administration, and to the Internet.

In spite of the outcry from both medical and conservative groups, all of which caution that the drug seriously endangers women's health, more than 840,000 U.S. women have been persuaded to use RU-486 as part of a broader political agenda that is claiming women and children as its victims.

There are at least 1,000 documented reports of side-effects from taking RU-486, ranging from infection and hemorrhaging to ectopic pregnancies and even death, yet more than half of abortion traders are now offering RU-486 as an option.

As Dr. E. Hakim-Eliahi noted after looking at Planned Parenthood's 2003 list of complications from the drug and wrote in a letter to Ob.Gyn News, "If I were to receive such a report from a surgical abortion clinic, I would recommend to health authorities that the clinic be immediately shut down."

RU-486 has compromised women's safety and the integrity of the FDA's drug approval process. To learn more, log on to www.frc.org and order "Politicized Science: The Manipulated Approval of RU-486 and Its Dangers to Women's Health," for an in-depth look at the history, regulation, and dangerous side effects of RU-486. [FRC, 22Jan08] FRC offers a brochure:
Politicized Science: the Manipulated Approval of RU-486 and Its Dangers to Women's Health at
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BC07A01&f=WA08A32 (free download).

ABORTION ADVOCATES SAY PRO-LIFE IS WINNING. The Los Angeles Times [22Jan08] contained an opinion piece that salutes the power of truth. The 800 word missive noted the gains the pro-lifers have made in swaying more and more of the American public to "anti-abortion" beliefs, noted the effective nature of a "culture of life" focus and proclaimed that the pro-choice movement was in need of a serious reassessment. Who wrote it? Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Frances Kissling, founder and former president of the misnamed 'Catholics' for a Free Choice. [Rock for Life e-news 26Jan08]

 

WOMEN & MEN INVOLVED IN PAST ABORTIONS HAVE TREMENDOUS IMPACT ON THE DEBATE. As Americans mourn 35 years of legalized abortion, some of the men and women involved in abortion decisions say the pain and regret from the abortion has prompted them to become strongly pro-life. These post-abortive men and women are the face of not only the pro-life movement but of the problems abortion causes.
 
Matt Barber, the director of policy and cultural issues for Concerned Women of America told LifeNews.com about his personal account of how abortion affects men.
 
"Abortion doesn't only hurt women and kill children; it can also deeply wound the men it touches," he says. "I'm sad to say that I know this from personal experience."
 
"Along with the realization that a woman has chosen to end the life you helped to create, comes a profound sense of loss and guilt," he explains.
 
Barber talks about the kinds of daydreams he has about the baby who could have been — and recounts experiences similar to women who terribly regret their abortions.
 
"I can't know for sure, but I sometimes imagine my first child was a girl," he said. Today she would have been about 22 years-old, finishing college, and, I suspect, ready to take on the world."
 
"Perhaps I'd be walking her down the aisle soon. I can't know. I'll never know. Only God knows. My child was torn from this world before anyone could know," he concludes.
 
Max Baker, 44, also talked about the pain after an abortion in which he was involved in the decision.
 
"The shame and the guilt, I guess is the way that I dealt with it," Baker told CBN News. "Don't talk about it. We don't talk about it. We don't bring it up, but the shame was always there."
 
Baker and his wife Judy had an abortion before they got married. They say it's the worst decision they ever made.
 
"When I laid down on that table, I knew it was wrong," Judy told CBN.
 
"I knew that I was making the wrong decision. I felt horrendous pain after the procedure. It was very painful," she said. "Then they put you in a room in a recliner and you sit there by yourself and you contemplate what you've just done for the next hour and a half until they allow you to go home."
 
Today, post-abortion groups across the nation hold retreats, Bible studies and group and individual counseling sessions to help men, women and couples like the Bakers.
 
Such sessions didn't exist in the same numbers or receive as much attention even a decade ago and people like the Bakers and Matt Barber have emerged as top pro-life spokespeople and are helping the next generation of Americans avoid abortions. [21Jan08, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, DC]

Women Victimized by Abortion Say 35 Years is Enough Pain and Agony, and they don't want any other women to be subjected to the same agony they faced after an abortion.

As the nation mourns the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision allowing abortions, women who had them say they were wrong. “It is a sad day as America reflects on the tragic loss of 50 million lives lost to abortion,” said Caron Strong, who heads the Women’s Council on Abortion for the Trinity Legal Center.

Strong, a long-time advocates for post-abortive women who had four abortions in her younger years, told LifeNews.com, "There is much untold grief and heartache in the lives of the mothers, fathers, and siblings who have lost these children to abortion."

"We will never know the wonderful impact these precious lives may have had. May God forgive us,” she said.

Joyce Zounis, who had seven abortions beginning at age 15, says, "“I was wrong, and so was the Supreme Court."

“I grieve for my children lost to abortion, and I grieve for the lost heritage of their children," she told LifeNews.com.

Both women say they are looking to the day when women and babies are protected from the harm of abortion. They point to the price women pay when they choose abortion: grief, fear, shame, physical and emotional problems, broken relationships and marriages, and destructive behaviors.

The women have joined Sandra Cano, who was Mary Doe in the companion Doe v. Bolton case that opened up legalized abortion under Roe to the entirety of pregnancy, in a new video “I Was Wrong,” that allows post-abortive women to persuade women to not follow in their footsteps.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says pro-life groups join the women in their grief over their abortions: "We grieve over the killing of at least 50 million unborn children and the devastating wounds inflicted on uncounted women and men who have chosen abortion during that time…We must be vigilant to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves".
Related: I Was Wrong video – http://www.beyondthebandaide.com [23Jan08, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, DC]

CA ABORTION BUSINESS OWNER CHARGED WITH UNLICENSED ABORTION PRACTICE. Officials in Los Angeles are pursuing a case of practicing medicine without a license against southern California abortion business chain owner Bertha Bugarin. Los Angeles police began the case last fall but details are only now coming to light after a pro-life organization obtained records from authorities.

A special unit of the LA Police Department called the Health Authority Law Enforcement Task Force raided a handful of area abortion centers last August.

There, they found 47-y

ear-old Bugarin and her sister doing abortions and both were arrested.

According to a September 1 statement by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, Bugarin allegedly managed four abortion businesses and has been charged with practicing medicine without a license.

The office said Bugarin is charged with five felony counts of practicing medicine without certification and two misdemeanor counts of dispensing medication without a license.

Her sister, Raquel Bugarin, 49, of Los Angeles, is charged in the same complaint with five felony counts of aiding or abetting the practice of medicine without certification.

The office said that when abortion practitioners were not present, Bertha Bugarin "allegedly performed medical procedures on five patients."

"In some incidents, she was allegedly assisted by her sister, Raquel Bugarin. The incidents allegedly occurred in February and March," the district attorney said.

Bertha Bugarin was arrested Aug. 1 and released on $500,000 bail. Raquel Bugarin was released on $100,000 bail. If convicted, each faces up to five years, eight months in state prison.

They were ordered to stay away from the Clinica Medica Para La Mujer De Hoy abortion businesses Bertha runs, but officials with the pro-life group Operation Rescue say, two months after her arrest, Bertha Bugarin was photographed at the abortion chain's Chula Vista office in San Diego County wearing a stethoscope around her neck.

"Since then Bugarin's stay away order has been expanded to include the Chula Vista office and police have asked pro-lifers to notify them immediately if they observe her there again," the pro-life group told LifeNews.com.

The abortion chain was temporarily closed then reopened under the name Clinica Medica Feminina Para La Communidad. Abortion practitioner Nolan Jones now claims to be the new owner.

The Bugarin sisters are scheduled to make a court appearance on March 3, 2008. [28Jan08, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, CA] 

KS GRAND JURY TELLS ABORTIONIST TILLER TO FURNISH RECORDS. Wichita abortionist George Tiller must provide medical records related to allegedly illegal late-term abortions to a grand jury that is investigating him. A Sedgwick County judge ruled on 24Jan08 against Tiller's lawyers — who wanted to keep the potentially damaging information away from jurors.

Kansans for Life led a petition-gathering effort that got enough signatures to put an old Kansas law into play allowing a grand jury investigation. The group says more violations of the law may have occurred than the 19 misdemeanor charges former Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison charged Tiller with for not following state law. Tiller's attorneys hoped to quash the subpoenas for the records but retired Judge Paul Buchnan, who has been assigned to issue rulings pertaining to the grand jury, ordered Tiller to turn the records over to jurors. Lee Thompson and Laura Shanneyfelt argued in vain that privacy considerations should override the ability of the grand jury to investigate crimes that may have been committed by their client. KFL director Mary Kay Culp told LifeNews.com that her group is "elated that the judge stopped Tiller's attempt to deny the grand jury evidence they requested." [26Jan08, Wichita, KS LifeNews.com]

But attorneys for Tiller filed legal papers on 28Jan asking a court there to quash two subpoenas from a grand jury investigating whether or not he broke state law in some of the abortions he’s done. The subpoena requests seek medical records related to more than 2,000 abortions done at his abortion business. [29Jan, LifeNews.com] Tiller didn't turn over any of the 2,000 medical files on late-term abortions he's done on 1Feb, as a judge ordered him to do on 30Jan. Instead, his attorneys are working on an appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court and the judge will hold another hearing in the case 8Feb . Tiller faces both charges from the state attorney general that he did illegal late-term abortions and a grand jury probe contending he violated the law other times over the last five years.

FORMER ABORTIONIST DEHENRE FOUND GUILTY OF KILLING HIS WIFE.
Former Mississippi and Alabama abortionist Malachy DeHenre has been found guilty by a grand jury of killing his wife. DeHenre, who has lost his medical license in three states over botched abortions, had pleaded not guilty to charges that he killed his wife, Dr. Mysha Rose DeHenre, 10 years ago.

However, a Jones County Circuit Court jury unanimously convicted DeHenre of manslaughter after deliberating for just 45 minutes.

According to the Laurel Leader Call newspaper, Circuit Judge Billy Joe Landrum asked for a pre-sentence investigation and set a sentencing date of March 13. If given the maximum sentence, DeHenre could face 20 years in prison.

Six years ago a jury failed to convict DeHenre after a mistrial but the abortion practitioner was re-indicted on the charges when new evidence came to light, arrested December 2006 and ordered held without bond. A gunshot to the head while his wife was in the couple's home resulted in her death.

During the testimony, AP reported that Dr. Michael Baden, a forensics pathologist, said he reviewed the autopsy and evidence in the case and confirmed Mysha DeHenre's death was not accidental nor a suicide. “The discharge of that bullet was by another person, not by the deceased,” he said.

DeHenre attorney David Ratcliff said the former abortion practitioner is not a flight risk but a judge opposed bond because both charges carry life sentences and because he is not a citizen of the United States. He is from Nigeria but has applied for citizenship. DeHenre's New Woman Medical Center abortion facility in Jackson closed in 2005 and he was required, in December 2005, to pay substantial damages to a woman who was injured in a failed abortion in 2003.

In March 2005, the Mississippi state medical board suspended his medical license over botched abortions. Medical boards in Alabama and New York have also suspended his medical licenses in those states.

In one Alabama case, a woman died 18 hours after having an abortion. The women involved in three other cases had to have hysterectomies to stop massive hemorrhaging from uterine perforations. [30Jan08, 1Feb08, Laurel, MS LifeNews.com] MS ABORTIONIST CONVICTED. Nearly 10 years after a 1998 mistrial, a jury has finally found abortionist Malachy DeHenre guilty in the 1997 slaying of  his wife.Dr. Malachy DeHenre was charged with killing his wife, Dr. Myasha DeHenre, with a single pistol shot to the head in their home.

The Jones County Circuit Court jury, composed of six men and six women, deliberated 45 minutes before finding him guilty of manslaughter.
10 years ago DeHenre almost escaped conviction for the charge, when the jury in his 1998 trial voted 11-1 for acquittal, resulting in a mistrial. Had it not been for the one juror convinced of the abortionist's guilt, DeHenre would have escaped trial again under the aegis of double jeopardy.

Nationally known forensics pathologist Dr. Michael Baden was called in by the pro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mississippi Abortionist's Medical License Suspended for Malpractice

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

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

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061504.html
[31Jan08, P. J. Smith, Laurel, MS, LifeSiteNews.com]

 

TRIAL OF AL NURSE IN BOTCHED ABORTION, FALSIFICATION CASE POSTPONED. The trial against a nurse who gave the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug to a woman with severely high blood pressure who needed medical attention has been postponed. Janet Onthank King is accused of unlicensed practice of medicine and fabricating the abortion center's records in an attempt to cover up what happened.

Last year, state health officials found significant concerns at the Summit Medical Center abortion center in Birmingham.

The abortion facility was permanently closed in June 2006 after state health officials found numerous violations, including the botched abortion case.

Following the incident, King falsified the medical records and authorities eventually charged her with misdemeanor charges including performing illegal abortions. The abortion center nurse could face six months on each conviction.

The trial in her case, scheduled Monday before Circuit Judge Gloria Bahakel, has been postponed after an appeal filed by Attorney General Troy King's office.

King spokesman Chris Bence told AP that the attorney general has a "technical disagreement" with some of the evidence in the case.

According to a Birmingham News report, defense attorney Richard Jaffe wants to present evidence showing that nurse King was acting under direction of the abortion practitioner — something state law allowed.

Jaffe claims abortionist Deborah Lyn Levich directed King to give the abortion drug to the woman, even though she was in the latter stages of pregnancy.

Eventually, Levich allowed her medical license to lapse after Summit was permanently closed. Attorney General King disagrees and has appealed Judge Bahakel's decision to allow Jaffe to proceed.

The defense lawyer has 21 days to respond and he told AP that the case could take some time to resolve.

"We'll have to wait to see what the Court of Criminal Appeals does before we can go to the next phase, which is trial," he said.

After the inspections 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."

The woman in the botched abortion case later gave birth to a stillborn baby because the drug is only allowed for use in the early parts of pregnancy. [30Jan08, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, Birmingham, AL]

Early on the morning that the Summit abortion center was closed by emergency suspension by the AL Department of Public Health, a sidewalk counselor was speaking with a couple as they prepared to enter the abortion business.

The nurse practitioner drove up and was preparing to enter the abortion business. She motioned to the couple and told them they didn't have to listen to the sidewalk counselor. The counselor turned to the nurse practitioner and said "it's all about the money". The counselor stated that the nurse practitioner very arrogantly walked into the abortion business.

Within about 45 minutes, ADPH officials came to close the business. 

 

PRO-LIFE ACTIVISM IN RUSSIA. With abortion used mostly as a form of birth control in this massive nation, Russian people aren't known for their pro-life outreach. However, a group of pro-Kremlin youth set up a cemetery display of crosses on 28Jan08 to remind citizens there of the human lives destroyed via abortion. The youth planted about 200 crosses as part of a year-long campaign to highlight pro-family issues in Russia. The imitation cemetery was set up in Pushkin Square under a giant poster with a child's doll and the words, "One of the 10 commandments given to humanity by God: Thou shalt not kill." Boris Yakemenko, who organized the display, told AFP that he hoped it would convince Russians that "nothing justifies abortion." [1Feb08, Moscow, Russia LifeNews.com]

TWO-CHILD POLICY BILLS PROPOSED IN PHILIPPINES INCLUDE CRIMINAL SANCTIONS: Pro-life advocates encouraged to sign petition against legislation. Three bills currently in committee in the Filipino House of Representatives seek to implement a two-child policy in the nation.

At a meeting in Washington DC last week, the Filipino Family Fund warned that the legislative proposals, which are being spearheaded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and International Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, would result in human rights abuses.  The Fund is encouraging pro-life supporters from around the world to sign onto a petition against the proposals.

The population control measures threaten the Philippines, a Westernized country. Population replacement is essential to the future of this nation of islands, explained Eileen Macapanas Cosby, President and Founder of the Fund.

Though backers of the bills claim the program would be voluntary, the bill contains criminal penalties, including imprisonment for up to six months, that would be imposed against those who would speak out against the population control measures. 

Present at the meeting, and sharing the Fund's concerns over the legislative proposals, was US Congressman Todd Tiahrt, ranking member on the House Appropriations Subcommit

tee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.  Tiahrt is an expert in the area as his "Tiahrt Amendment" ensures that US population control funds are only used in programs certified as voluntary.

"Filipino Americans believe that the best way to build a community of resources is to address poverty alleviation directly thought sustainable development projects," said Cosby. "We are working with private organizations and government agency leaders to provide solutions for family planning and rural development, and we are promoting self-sustaining ways to help strengthen our families in the Philippines."

Cosby told LifeSiteNews.com that a clause in one of the bills also promoted "same-sex marriage".

To sign the Filipino Family Fund petition opposing the bills visit:
http://www.filipinofamilyfund.org/signthepetition/signthepetition.html
[29Jan08, Manila, John-Henry Westen, LifeSiteNews.com]

MOTHER REFUSED CANCER TREATMENT SO HER BABY COULD LIVE.  Lorraine Allard of St. Olaves, near Great Yarmouth, was told she had advanced liver cancer when she was four months pregnant with her first son.

The thirty-three year old mother of three girls was advised to abort her son, who was 23 weeks old, and begin chemotherapy right away. Rather than follow the doctor's advice, however, the courageous woman insisted on waiting long enough to give her unborn son a chance to survive, telling her husband, Martyn: "If I am going to die, my baby is going to live."

Mrs. Allard was scheduled for a caesarian delivery at 26 weeks, but went into premature labour and delivered her son, Liam, on November 18.

"He was so tiny, just 1lb 11oz, so the nurse grabbed him and allowed Lorraine to give him a little kiss before he was taken to an incubator," Mr. Allard said in a report by the Daily Mail.

"She was so emotional. She had been so determined to give him the best chance and was happy that he had been born naturally, which meant she wouldn't have to recover for a couple of weeks after a Caesarian before beginning the chemotherapy."

She began a course of chemotherapy and, although the doctors had said the cancer was no longer curable, they hoped to shrink the tumours, which they thought might give her a few more years of life. A CT scan on January 17, however, revealed the tumours were still growing. She passed away the following day.

Martyn Allard shared the last moments of his wife's earthly life with the Daily Mail reporter: "On the day Lorraine died she hadn't eaten for two weeks and couldn't drink. I laid beside her and she was gripping my hand quite tight. We were like that for about half an hour."

"I could feel against my chest that her heart was slowing down. She just slipped away after that. It was very peaceful."

"Lorraine was positive all the way through. She had strength for both of us. I can't begin to describe how brave she was. Towards the end we knew things weren't going well but she was overjoyed that she had given life to Liam."

"When Liam is old enough, I won't tell him that Lorraine gave her life for him but I will say she made sure he had a good chance of life. She told me she didn't want him to feel bad about it," Mr. Allard added.

Lorraine's funeral will take place on February 4th in the same church where she married Martyn.
[25Jan08, T. M. Baklinski, Norfolk, UK, LifeSiteNews.com]

 

 

ITALIAN DOCTORS: ABORTION SURVIVORS MUST BE GIVEN CARE, PROMISE TO SAVE BABIES WHO SURVIVE ABORTION. Doctors from four different Roman universities have issued a joint declaration affirming the duty of doctors to rescue and care for infants born alive after an abortion attempt, even against the wishes of the mother.

The declaration, made by doctors at the obstetric clinics of La Sapienza, Tor Vergata, Campus Biomedico and Sacro Cuore, represents both the secular and religious sides of the Italian university system. The first two universities are public, and the second two are Christian.

"An extremely premature newborn must be treated like any other person in danger, and assisted adequately," said Domenico Arduni, director of the Tor Vergata gynecological clinic. Arduini added that this principle would hold even if the child had survived an abortion, and "even if the mother is not in agreement."

The four physicians issued the statement together during a meeting at Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome last Saturday.

According to the Spanish publication El Pais, the doctors' declaration and the Vatican's recent campaign for a "moratorium" on abortion in Italy (which has now become a global campaign), "has fallen like a bomb among scientists and politicians".

Emma Bonino, the Italian Minister of European Policy, complained to El Pais that "the political class should not allow others to set their agenda." The Italian health minister, Livia Turco, told the publication that protecting the life of such children was "senseless cruelty." A prominent physician reportedly suggested that abortions be done by poisoning the baby with potassium chloride, thus ensuring his death before exiting the womb.

However, the ANSA news agency reports that the liberal bioethicist Cinzia Caporale has endorsed the physicians' declaration, stating that while she is in favor of allowing euthanasia for adults who want it, children who leave the womb alive should be cared for, even against the will of the parents. "I don't even consider their consent necessary if the fetus has survived an abortion," she said. [6Feb08, M.C. Hoffman, Rome, LifeSiteNews.com]  The statement, which is seen as one of the first fruits of the Day of Life recently held in Italy, says, “In response to the chance that a fetus survives an abortion, the life of the individual must be protected and given all of the medical means necessary to stay alive, with or without the consent of the mother.”

The signing of the statement comes as Italy debates the possible liberalization of abortion. [ROME, Feb 5, 2008 CNA; Life Dynamics]

 

 

BRITISH REPORT SHOWS DOZENS OF BABIES LEFT TO DIE AFTER LIVE BIRTH ABORTIONS. A report from Britain shows that 66 babies were born alive on one year alone after abortions done with public money under the nation's health care system. The babies were routinely left to die after their premature birth and some survived for as long as 10 hours afterwards.

According to the report, the babies were in the latter stages of pregnancy and were aborted not with a standard surgical abortion procedure.

Instead, the British National Health Service says women were given drugs to soften their cervix and had labor induced to birth the child so prematurely that there is no way to provide enough care for the child to live.

After birth, the babies received no medical care or attention, the report indicated.

According to the Evening Standard newspaper, the babies in these abortions mostly involved unborn children who suffered from severe physical or mental disabilities, some of which may have been life-threatening.

However, the newspaper said the report showed some of the babies
had very minor issues such as a club foot or cleft palate that could easily be repaired with surgery after birth.

"It is a distressing situation when these babies are being born alive," Professor Stuart Campbell, an OBGYN whose fetal development photos have sparked calls for limiting late-term abortions, told the newspaper.

"Medical advances make it increasingly possible for even those born after just 22 weeks in the womb to survive," Campbell said. "There is also concern that babies with problems such as cleft palate or club feet are being terminated because they are not 'perfect.'"

According to the NHS report, 16 babies older than 22 weeks of pregnancy at hospitals in England and Wales in 2005 were victims of the live birth abortions. Another 50 babies who were less than 22-weeks old were victims.

British officials said the babies were left to die because their ultimate death was "inevitable."

Half of the babies survived for an hour or more and one infant breathed without medical help for ten hours before dying.

According to British figures, there were 193,700 abortions in 2006 and 2,948 done after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

After nurse Jill Stanek discovered staff at a Chicago hospital left babies to die after such live birth abortions, Congress passed and President Bush signed a bill to ensure that any infant who survives an abortion must be given appropriate medical care. [4Feb08, Ertelt, LifeNews.com, London, England]

 

 

HE CAN'T FORGET THAT BABY WHO FOUGHT FOR LIFE AFTER ABORTION. A baby was born in our county hospital one day 20 years ago.

He lived only a few hours. But the doctor that day still can't forget him.

Other doctors at John Peter Smith Hospital that day in 1988 didn't expect to see a crying, kicking, preemie baby. He had survived an elective abortion in another JPS surgery room, back when the hospital offered abortions.

By law, doctors suddenly had to try to save his life.

At least, that's the way Dr. Ron Bryce of Red Oak remembers the story. He was working that day in the neonatal intensive care unit. "The intensely personal nature of abortion became clear to me," he said Monday by phone.

He told the story last week in a letter to the Red Oak Record.

As you might imagine, it's an emotional letter.

Now, Bryce's story is being sent by e-mail around the world.

The headline reads: "My Little Patient."

The letter in part: "Forty-five million have been aborted since the Supreme Court legalized it 35 years ago. But there is one among these millions I personally will never forget, because I saw him do the seemingly impossible – he survived his abortion.

"When I met him in the operating room, he was moving his arms and legs and looked as if he wanted to cry. The abortionist seemed uncomfortable.

"He was a tiny human being who just minutes before had been legally a 'non-person' and had no rights. Now, after surviving the procedure, he had become a legal 'person' and had a right to have us try to save him. … We did everything we could, but over time our efforts proved futile. His breathing grew labored.

"Abortion is now an intensely personal issue for me. I believe it is an offense against the most vulnerable among us. My little patient put a face on it for me."

Bryce's letter didn't name JPS. But from his office in Red Oak, Bryce mentioned other local doctors who would remember the same patient.

He said the pregnancy must have been further along than other JPS doctors realized, maybe 21 or 22 weeks.

"I was pro-life before that, but only nominally," Bryce said. "When I saw this, it angered me."

Bill Pasteur of Euless leads Northeast Tarrant Right to Life, which protested abortions until JPS discontinued them in 1989. The group spokesman from those days, Bedford attorney Neal Adams, was eventually appointed a hospital trustee and is now the JPS attorney.

Pasteur said he doesn't remember the case, "but I do think things like that happened back then…"

According to recent figures, the number of abortions in America declined from 1.6 million in 1990, to 1.21 million in 2005.

We don't know whether sensational letters such as Bryce's have any effect; but we do know that they spread very quickly around the world. [Bud Kennedy, Star-Telegram, [email protected] 20Jan08; Life Dynamics]

 

 

 

MISOPROSTOL AND THE HIDDEN PRO-LIFE CRISIS. The pro-abortion movement is moving stealthily to open another front in the abortion wars. Its name is misoprostol.

Misoprostol is most well-known as the active ingredient in Cytotec, a prescription drug whose FDA-approved usage is to relieve gastric ulcers. Misoprostol has proven very effective in this regard, and it has also been used to treat women who are hemorrhaging from a spontaneous miscarriage, or following childbirth. This is the good news.

The bad news is that it is just as "effective" at causing an abortion.

Pro-abortion groups have been swift to take advantage of this new anti-life weapon. Misoprostol, when used in conjunction with the steroid mifepristone, will cause a pregnant woman to miscarry 90 percent of the time. This is, of course, RU-486.

But Misoprostol alone is only slightly less deadly. What it amounts to is a one-pill, one-day, "homemade" abortion. A woman who takes the drug generally begins hemorrhaging, after which she need merely go to a local medical clinic and claim that she is miscarrying.

From the point of view of the doctor who examines her, the woman is spontaneously miscarrying. There is no evidence that she has aborted herself. Nor is the doctor aware that, by removing the now-dead baby, he is completing an elective abortion.
 
Misoprostol can be an even more effective abortifacient than the MVA device.
 
 The FDA strictly warns against the usage of misoprostol for any obstetric use, even to slow hemorrhaging, but this has not stopped doctors domestically or abroad from doing so. "Misoprostol is sometimes used to decrease blood loss after delivery of a baby," the FDA clearly states on its web site. "These uses are not approved by the FDA. No company has sent the FDA scientific proof that misoprostol is safe and effective for these uses."

The drug has been seized upon by abortion-pushing NGO's, who see misoprostol as their ultimate "final solution." Indeed, this small pill requires no medical training to use, it is easily stored at ambient temperatures and it is available over-the-counter in many developing countries.
 
Women on Waves, the infamous Dutch abortion group, calls the misoprostol/mifepristone cocktail "the best and safest way a woman can do an abortion herself until the 9th week of pregnancy," going on to offer detailed instructions on how to do so. Gynuity Health Projects, a notoriously pro-abortion NGO, has an entire project dedicated to introducing abortion in Latin American countries, in which misoprostol plays an integral part.

Even more flagrant is the web site www.misoprostolabortion.com. This group states baldly that its goal is "to provide information [about misoprostol] to pregnant women who want to end their pregnancies, women who live in countries with restrictive abortion laws, countries where abortion is illegal, or for women who for some reason o

r the other do not have access to legal abortion services." So much for the rule of law.

The misoprostol situation provides a unique dilemma for pro-lifers everywhere, especially those who have been working so tirelessly over the years to overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision. Here is a drug that can be used to circumvent the laws restricting abortion. Not only that, but this same drug has legitimate medical uses that make it impossible to demand that it simply be taken off the market altogether.

According to PRI president Steven Mosher, "The first thing pro-lifers need to do is to make people aware of this new threat to life. Then we have to seek legal solutions to this misuse of a deadly drug, the medical malpractice that is involved, and be prepared to fight this same battle in dozens of countries around the world."

This can be done, first and foremost, by educating people about this unapproved, off-label use of misoprostol, and how organizations like Gynuity and www.misoprostolabortion.com are encouraging women to violate U.S. and international laws and regulations.

Finally, the FDA has a watchdog role to play here. Groups that are encouraging the off-label use of misoprosptol should be subject to regulatory action.

This is not without precedent. In the late 1990's, population control enthusiast Steven Mumford was promoting quinacrine hydrochloride, a drug authorized for anti-malarial use only, as a chemical agent to sterilize Third World women. After PRI blew the whistle on him, the FDA acted. Mumford was ordered to cease and desist, and to destroy his stockpile of quinacrine.

It is time for the FDA to act.

Click here to contact the FDA, or send a letter to their mailing address at:

Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857
Telephone: 1-888-INFO-FDA
[3Feb08, Colin Mason is the Director for Media Production at PRI.
2007 Population Research Institute. Permission to reprint granted.]

 

 

STUDY FINDS HIGH RATES OF POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AMONG WOMEN WHO HAD ABORTIONS: Researchers Note PTSD Rates Increased by 61 Percent After Abortion
 
According to a study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry, women who have experienced abortion have high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which follow findings from earlier studies linking abortion and PTSD.
 
The study of 155 women in South Africa who had abortions looked at symptoms before abortion and at one month and three months after abortion. Almost one-fifth of the women had symptoms that met the criteria for PTSD, leading the authors to note that "high rates of PTSD characterize women who have undergone voluntary pregnancy termination." Further, at three months after the abortions, the number of women with PTSD had increased by 61 percent compared to before the abortion.
 
The researchers compared levels of pain and psychological outcomes among women who had received a local anesthetic versus those who had received IV sedation. Women who had received a local anesthetic had higher levels of pain before and during abortion and were more likely to experience PTSD symptoms, but researchers found no difference in symptoms over a longer period of time.
 
In other words, what the study found was that using one form of pain management over the other did not effect rates of psychological trauma experienced by women after abortion. These findings lend credence to the theory that abortion itself is the cause of trauma for women, not the amount of physical pain they experience.

This study is not the first to link abortion with increased levels of PTSD. In a 2004 study published in the Medical Science Monitor, 65 percent of American women who had undergone abortions reported symptoms of PTSD, which they attributed to their abortions, and slightly over 14 percent reported all the symptoms necessary for a clinical diagnosis of PTSD.
 
Other studies have linked abortion to higher rates of sleep disorders, which are often associated with PTSD, as well as higher rates of anxiety disorders, clinical depression, substance abuse, suicide, and other problems.

One study found increased rates of death from cardiovascular rates among women who had abortions up to eight years earlier compared to women who gave birth, which the researchers speculated could be related to trauma symptoms.
 
The authors of the BMC study called for more screening to be done on women prior to abortion in order to "help identify women at risk of PTSD and provide follow-up care." However, there is no evidence that abortion alleviates any psychological symptoms in women and abortion has been in fact linked to increased mental health problems – including PTSD – after abortion.
 
The Elliot Institute's model legislation, the Protection from High Risk and Coerced Abortion Act, would require abortion businesses to screen women for evidence that they are being coerced or forced into unwanted abortions and for other risk factors that are likely to put them at risk for post-traumatic stress and other problems after abortion.
 
"The abortion industry should not be subjecting women to a procedure that is likely to increase or cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress or other mental health problems," said Elliot Institute director Dr. David Reardon, who has worked on more than a dozen studies documenting the psychological impact of abortion on women.

"Furthermore, the evidence shows that many of these abortions are unwanted and the result of pressure or coercion from others. The industry should be held liable for putting women at risk and performing unwanted and dangerous abortions."

A new study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry finds that women who have abortions typically experience high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The findings mirror other research reports showing women are more likely to suffer mental health issues following abortions compared with keeping the baby.

The study appeared in the July 2007 issue of the professional psychological publication but is only coming to light now.

The research involved 155 women from South Africa who had abortions and were evaluated one month and three months afterwards. Approximately 20 percent of the women had post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms just one month later. The results led the authors to note that "high rates of PTSD characterize women who have undergone voluntary pregnancy termination. Looking at the women three months after the abortion, the number of women experiencing the PTSD symptoms increased 61 percent. Dr. David Reardon, the head of the Elliot Institute and a post-abortion research who has been involved in more than a dozen studies documenting the psychological impact of abortion on women, notified LifeNews.com of the new study.

"The abortion industry should not be subjecting women to a procedure that is likely to increase or cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress or other mental health problems," he said. [LifeNews.com, 14Feb08]
~~~
Source:
Sharain Suliman et. al., "Comparison of pain, cortisol levels, and psychologica

l distress in women undergoing surgical termination of pregnancy under local anaesthesia versus intravenous sedation," BMC Psychiatry 2007, 7:24.
[The Elliot Institute News Vol. 7, No. 2 — Feb. 13, 2008; www.AfterAbortion.Info, Pretoria; LifeSiteNews.com]

 

 

CLINICAL INSANITY. After years of allegations and malpractice suits, an abortion mill in Southern California is finally facing a day of reckoning in the Los Angeles Times.

The nightmare began in the 1990s when Santa Ana's Clinica Medica Para Mujer de Hoy, under the management of Bertha Bugarin, was charged with 12 personal injury suits and one wrongful death.

Bugarin was arrested by authorities last year and charged with practicing medicine without a license on five patients. Adding to the outrage, police discovered that Bugarin may have operated up to nine clinics, targeting low-income Hispanic women, and at least four of them have employed doctors with histories of "malpractice complaints, addiction, or medical board actions."

Among the sickening details, the doctors have been charged with sexually exploiting patients, leaving portions of unborn babies inside women's bodies, operating under the influence of alcohol, and delivering a dead baby using a vacuum procedure after refusing to perform a cesarean section.

FRC's initial research shows that a handful of the clinics in question have received millions in U.S. taxpayer funds – likely under the federal Title X family planning program.

The lack of regulation for these abortion clinics is appalling.

Women are literally dying in the hands of these abortionists, and the government's response is to throw more money in their direction.

Without stiffer penalties and a genuine commitment to the health and safety of women, this barbarism will continue to go unreported and unpunished.

"No abortion facility should ever be free to ply its trade on American women with the forced complicity of American taxpayers." [Abortion clinics [sic] operator is charged [LA Times]; 11Feb08 FRC; http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-abortion8feb08,1,2888587.story?ctrack=1&cset=true] 

 

 

 

JUDGE UPHOLDS RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE: Pharmacists Don't Have to Sell 'Plan B'. Pharmacists and drug store owners in Washington can still refuse to sell the "morning-after pill" if they have religious objections to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Friday [15Feb08].

U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton's decision, a defeat for Gov. Chris Gregoire, is the latest twist in long-running legal and political battles over the morning-after pill, which is sold as Plan B.

The pill is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills, and [is claimed to] lower the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

It may prevent ovulation of an egg; however, according to pharmaceutical enclosures, if fertilization occurs it also may prevent the human embryo from implanting into the uterus.

Rules adopted by the state last year said a patient's right to purchase Plan B trumped any pharmacist's or drug store owner's moral objections to the pill's interference with potential pregnancy.

Two druggists and an Olympia pharmacy owner sued over the rules last summer, saying their constitutional religious rights were being violated.

They asked for an exemption to the rule while the lawsuit was in motion. But Leighton went further, suspending the rules statewide because of the potential for "irreparable injury" to constitutional rights.

On Friday, Leighton refused the state's request to reinstate the Plan B sales rules for everyone but the plaintiffs.

In back-and-forth questioning with lawyers during Friday's hearing, Leighton said he sensed that wrangling over the issue is driven by bitterness between the two sides, and not by desire for good health care policy.

"I do get the impression that this is a solvable problem, and it's not an issue that anyone wants to have solved," Leighton said.

Leighton also denied a state request to hold up the underlying lawsuit while the injunction is appealed, although the judge predicted the case eventually could wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court..

Plaintiff Kevin Stormans, a co-owner of the Stormans Inc. family grocery business in Olympia, was relieved after the hearing.

"The Constitution tells me that I should have the ability to practice what I believe is right," Stormans said…

Although state lawyers suggested otherwise on Friday, Plan B was squarely at the center of the state's decision to implement the pharmacy rules.

State officials agree the government cannot regulate religious practice or beliefs, but they can can regulate business practice.

"If somebody deserves medicine because they have a medical need, a religious objection is potentially contrary," said Assistant Attorney General Alan Copsey.

But pharmacist Margo Thelen claims the effects of Plan B goes against her professional beliefs.

"Our pharmacy profession is to restore and promote and heal, by providing medications that do that, Plan B can take a life," she said. "That is the only drug that I refuse to dispense."

Thelen did say, however, that while she refuses to dispense Plan B, she refers the patient to a neighboring pharmacy.

Gregoire, a Democrat, applied public pressure to the Pharmacy Board, warning that she would replace board members who didn't follow her wishes on the issue. She later worked out the compromise rule that was approved by the Pharmacy Board.

Individual pharmacists were given a limited way around selling Plan B: passing the prescription to another druggist in the same store, provided the patient's order was filled without delay. But that left no option for a lone pharmacist, or for the owner of a pharmacy who also has religious objections to a particular drug. [15Feb 2008, by KOMO Staff & News Services, Tacoma WA; AP; PFLI, PharmFacts E-News Update — 16 Feb 2008]

 

 

FETAL PAIN, a Sensitive Subject for the New York Times In an extensive article 10 Feb 08, the New York Times went into great depth on the topic of fetal pain and what it means to the abortion debate.

"The First Ache" by Annie Murphy Paul highlighted what has become a meaningful argument for persuading women to reconsider their abortions.

The mere fact that the Times acknowledged that fetal pain occurs is a significant step forward. We applaud Paul for treating the subject with the impartiality and dignity it

warrants.

Americans deserve to know the truth about the humanity of the unborn child, and this article goes a long way toward starting a meaningful dialogue about how the nation can ensure that more women have the facts they need to make informed decisions. [The First Ache, NY Times; 11 Feb 08. FRC;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10Fetal-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin]

 

 

DATES

ExtendingLife: Setting the Agenda for the Ethics of Aging, Death, and Immortality Conference – March 6-8, 2008; Pre-Conference Institutes March 3-6, 2008; Grace Inn Conference Center, Phoenix, Arizona; 1.888.bioethics,

http://www.cbhd.org/conferences/2008/phoenix/index.html

 

Religion and Genomics: Navigating Pathways and Perspectives of Patient Care

Vanderbilt University, April 2-4, 2008
Vanderbilt's Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society and Center for the Study of Religion and Culture are hosting a conference that addresses the religious and spiritual concerns of patients, clinicians, and clergy when they encounter genetic information. Individuals' religious beliefs and practices can be implicated and challenged as they deal with the consequences of advances in genomics. While many people can reconcile these two bodies of knowledge, others are made uneasy or distressed by this new science in ways that affect their personal and political choices.

Vanderbilt School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of 11.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM.  For more information or to register, please visit the VU website or contact Joe Fanning at [email protected] or (615) 322-4292.

 

Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation announces a new, annual remembrance of Terri's horrific death by dehydration on March 31, 2005, coupled with a plea for passionate support of all human life made vulnerable by today's mounting threat of euthanasia.

"Terri's Day"        http://www.terrisfight.org/pages.php?page_id=55