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International Right to Life Federation,
Inc.
Vol. 17 No. 1
(January/February 2006)
Australia Battle Rages Over RU-486
Well, pro-lifers in Australia lost a big one. Even though public opinion polls
showed overwhelming opposition to legalization of the RU-486 abortion drug,
both the Australian House and Senate have approved a bill that would pave the way for it's legalization.
Prior to this the pro-life Health Minister, Tony Abbott, had the authority to allow or disallow the abortion drug.
His position was to prevent it's distribution in Australia. The new legislation, approved by both houses,
strips him of that oversight and gives his authority to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which is pro-abortion.
It is expected that it will approve the use of RU-486 in Australia.
We note, the fact of 10 deaths from the drug had been well publicized in Australia.
We also note the chief pro-abortion proponent of the bill finally admitted the damage to women.
Besides the deaths, the US Drug Agency has documented injury to over 850 women, many of them life threatening.
RU-486 Leaves a Tragic Trail
Specific details of complications from this abortion drug have been released by the US Food and Drug Administration.
They include:
- death from septic infections
- life threatening hemorrhage (42 cases)
- extremely serious hemorrhage (168 cases)
- blood transfusions needed (71 cases)
- surgery to repair abortion damage (513 cases,
half of them emergencies)
- fetal malformation after failed abortion attempts
Final comment. This drug is still on the market.
Australia Drug Company Says
Abortion Drug Should Not Be Used
In the middle of the debate in Australia about legalizing RU-486, out came a letter from the Pfizer drug company.
It manufactures the second drug used in such a chemical abortion, Cytotec or Misoprostol.
The first drug, RU-486, kills the baby. The second drug causes contractions of the uterus and expels the baby parts.
The maker of Cytotec has said publicly, and repeatedly, that it is not indicated for abortions.
"We would not recommend use outside of the use for stomach ulcers."
It says it cannot vouch for the drug's safety when it is misused by abortion practitioners.
It states that such abortions can be dangerous and indeed women have died from using the abortion drug in the US,
Canada, Sweden and elsewhere.
China's One Child Policy to Remain
Zhang Weiqing, of the Population and Family Planning Commission, announced that China's one child policy
is a long-term government program to curb China's growing population.
He said that it will appear in the nation's eleventh five year plan, this one covering 2006-2010 and beyond.
Pro-lifers worldwide have opposed this policy.
In China, those who violate it have been forced to pay fines totaling months or years worth of salary,
have been imprisoned, lost their jobs,
and have seen family members assaulted or abducted who had been hiding couples who had more than 1 child.
US Supreme Court is Center of Attention
Because of the overwhelming importance of the US Supreme Court, on the issue of abortion in the US,
worldwide observers have been watching closely. Following the death of the Chief Justice William Rehnquist,
President Bush nominated John Roberts to fill that position. As events transpired,
it became clear to everyone that Roberts was exceptionally well qualified for this position.
Even though most of his positions tended to be on the conservative side,
liberal opponents found little to justify any major opposition by them.
His position was to read the US Constitution and to judge laws on the basis of whether or not they were true to
the Constitution. The main problem in the US had been with liberal justices who basically ignore the Constitution
and made their own laws. He will not be one of those people. He was confirmed.
Next, we had the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor. To fill that vacancy, Bush first nominated Harriet Miers.
After considerable controversy, it became evident that she was probably not qualified for the position,
and she withdrew her nomination. Bush next nominated a veteran Appeals Court Judge, Samuel Alito.
He appears to be in the mold of Justice John Roberts in that he will not read new liberties into the
Constitution but rather will abide by the actual wording of it and the tradition of the country.
Unlike very mixed emotions in judgment from prolife groups in the Miers nomination,
Judge Alito was met with enthusiastic support by prolife people.
He was confirmed by the Senate on January 24th, and has now replaced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
who usually voted pro-abortion. Assuming both new Justices will vote pro-life,
the score on overturning Roe vs Wade is four to overturn, five to maintain it. We still need one more.
USAID Finally Pro-Life
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has had a long and notorious history of
advancing pro-abortion issues worldwide.
Therefore it comes as a breath of fresh air to learn that it has imposed sanctions on a pair of
groups in Peru that used some of its American tax money to promote the legalization of the morning after pill.
Each group, now, must return a portion of its grant money for violating USAID policy.
The two groups were Defensoria Del Pueblo and Manuela.
Dutch Conference a Success
An International Cry For Life Conference, "Human Right, Human Life," was held at the Hague, Holland,
Conference Center December 7-9, 2005. An international leadership group of lawyers, physicians,
social activists and women attended the conference.
A press conference was held on December 9 at the conference center, discussing international developments,
but also specifically evaluating the Dutch abortion law.
US States Pass Abortion Ban
The US States of South Dakota and Mississippi have voted to pass a direct ban on all abortions except
those to save the mother's life.
They intend this to be a direct challenge to the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court Decision of 1973.
We expect these laws to be struck down by federal courts and then be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
Pro-lifers assume, with the two new appointments to the US Supreme Court, that there are now four votes to reverse Roe.
There are almost three years remaining in Bush's second term.
These states are betting that there will be one more vacancy before Bush retires and
that he'll be able to fill it with a pro-life Justice.
If this does occur, their gamble will pay off.
If not, and the current Supreme Court refuses to hear the cases or strikes them down,
then this attempt will have been in vain.
We note that at least four or five other states are planning to also pass similar laws.
Clearly, "there are tides in the affairs of men," said the poet. Let's hope this is one of those times.
New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Lines
According to the Wisconsin State Journal 11/06,
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have isolated two new stem cell lines using human embryonic stem cells.
This "advance" however, was completely cancelled out by the fact that, and we quote,
"the problem is that while the new stem cells grew well for seven months before researchers froze them,
both lines developed chromosomal abnormalities and therefore would be contraindicated for use in humans.
All Hwang's Stem Cell Research Faked
The Seoul National University panel, which has investigated Dr. Hwang's "research," has given its final report.
It found that all of the embryonic stem cell research that he had conducted was fabricated.
His team has claimed, and it had been published in the prestigious journal, Nature,
that he had successfully cloned human embryos. This is not true.
His claim to have successfully cloned patient specific embryonic stem cells that would hopefully overcome rejection
is not true. His team has agreed to withdraw a seminal research paper that had been published in Science.
Their report concluded by saying that his team "never cloned human embryos and
never cloned patient specific embryonic stem cells." It did not demonstrated proof for the stem cell lines in the 2004.
He fabricated it, so we're back to square one on the human cloning issue.
South Korean Cloning Fraud Worsens
Officials from the government, investigating the fraudulent embryonic stem cell research and cloning work of Dr. Hwang,
have found that he also embezzled government funds and mismanaged public donations over the last few years.
The Price of Cloning One Dog
Even though Dr. Hwang's experiments were largely fraudulent, it has been proven that he did clone the first dog.
However, the effort was lengthy and exhausting. Nearly 1100 dog embryos were created in the first place.
These were transferred and implanted into the wombs of 123 surrogate female dogs. Only 3 pregnancies resulted.
One died in a miscarriage. Another died 22 days after birth. The third was the cloned Afghan hound.
This expensive, time consuming, and error ridden effort to achieve one result continues to alarm anyone who may be
interested in carrying a human clone to term to delivery.
Such an effort will probably result in deaths of tens of thousands of unborn children.
France Approves Embryonic Stem Cell Research
In February the French Government approved guidelines that allow the killing of human embryos to obtain
embryonic stem cells for research. The French Government has banned all forms of human cloning.
Until now, French scientists could use only embryonic stem cell lines imported from other nations.
The embryo to be killed must be donated by consenting couples who have had fertility treatments and who have spare embryos.
Dutch to Euthanize Children?
A collection of 35 bioethic centers and institutions recently released a statement regarding the Dutch government's
announcement that it would extend its euthanasia law to include children.
While euthanasia has been openly practiced for two decades, it was only formalized in statute law in 2002.
This law allows the killing of patients down to the age of 16. The new proposed law would drop that to 12.
This coalition has appealed to the European Union to protect basic human rights.
It states that the extension of legalization to children and newborns, where consent is not possible,
is an inconceivable injustice. It expresses a negative and absolute judgment condemning this move.
Belgium to Follow
Belgium lawmakers have proposed a measure to follow the example of the Dutch law above.
Belgium has had legal euthanasia for a shorter period of time.
This new law would allow killing of children without parental permission.
Peru Ignores UN Human Rights Commission
The UN Human Rights Committee recently stated that the government of Peru had violated an international covenant
by preventing an abortion on a woman carrying a handicapped baby. C-FAM legal analyst Bradford Short, however,
pointed out that this UN committee is only empowered to issue non-binding recommendations,
and that this does not equal a court precedent.
The Peru officials did not even appear at the hearings to answer the charges against it.
So here was another example of a publicity stunt,
a committee report without any teeth or legal empowerment.
Abortion Still Causes Breast Cancer
A significant majority of valid scientific studies, leading up to Dr. Brind's meta-analysis in 1996,
showed induced abortion to be an significant risk factor in the development of breast cancer.
Between 1997 and 2005, there have been 10 studies published, all reporting no significant correlation with breast cancer.
Now we have a comprehensive review of these studies by Joel Brind, PhD.,
in the January peer-reviewed Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
In it, he details his analysis of these 10 studies and finds each of them to embody serious methodological flaws,
which are sufficient to invalidate their findings.
His study's conclusion is that "it is only reasonable to conclude from all evidence that
induced abortion is indeed a risk factor for breast cancer."
Breast Stem Cells Isolated
The Terri Fox laboratory, in Canada's British Columbia,
announced that it has isolated adult stem cells from the breast tissue of mice.
These then were used to regenerate an entire milk-producing breast mammary gland.
Nothing like this has been achieved with embryonic stem cells.
Female Hormones Cause Breast Cancer
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, of the World Health Organization,
has announced that oral contraceptive and post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy can cause breast cancer in
women (Ciarcmonograph vol. 91, January 06).
Prior to this, these hormones had been listed as "possibly carcinogenic."
Now they have been moved into "definitely carcinogenic."
The cancers involved are primarily breast but also liver and cervical cancer.
With this, they also announced that these hormones do lower the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer.
It is noted that ovarian and endometrial cancer are a very small fraction numerically compared to breast,
liver and cervical cancer.
Diagnose Down Syndrome
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development announced it's recent data in the
New England Journal of Medicine on diagnosing Down Syndrome prenatally.
For many years we have had a blood test for Alpha-fetoprotine, which did pinpoint some of these babies,
but was not very reliable.
More recently, ultrasound examination of the folds in the back of the neck has been investigated more thoroughly.
The study indicated more than 38 thousand US women.
In these, they combined the blood test with the ultrasound exam, which is know as Nuchal Translucency.
The testing was done at eleven weeks after conception,
which is a full month and a half prior to when previous tests were usually done.
Combining the two, the accuracy rose from 81 to 87 percent.
The tragic results of being able to identify these little kids prior to birth is that in many areas,
80-90 percent of them are then killed by abortion.
Abortion Causes Premature Deliveries
According to an April report in the British Journal of OB-GYN,
women with a history of induced abortion have a higher risk of delivering very prematurely in
subsequence pregnancies as compared to women who have never had an abortion.
After examining almost 2,000 very pre-term infants in France, (i.e. delivered before 33 weeks)
women with one prior abortion had a 50% higher risk of delivering very pre-term.
Those with previous abortions had increased risk because of premature rupture of the membranes,
and unexplained spontaneous pre-term labor and bleeding unassociated with maternal hypertension.
This association has long been known but this new research report adds further confirmation.
J.C. Willke, President,
International Right to Life Fed.
1821 West Galbraith Road
Cincinnati,
Ohio 45239 USA
Phone +1 (513) 729-3600
Fax +1 (513) 729-3636
e-mail:
IRTLF@lifeissues.org
International
Right to Life Fed., International Office
Ruitersweg 35-37 1211 KT Hilversum
The Netherlands
Phone +31 35 624-4352
Fax +31 35 624-9141
e-mail:
info@schreeuwomleven.nl
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