|
International Right to Life Federation,
Inc. KAZAKHSTAN: This vast country with its enormous mineral wealth has seen its number of abortions cut in half since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. A Senior health official, Nukusheva, stated: "Abortion for us remains the most pressing problem. This year, for the first time, abortion appeared as the leading cause of death among mothers." PORTUGAL – NEW LAW: Socialists, who are just short of an outright majority in the Portuguese parliament, joined with the small Communist Party and passed a pro-abortion law on 4 February by a vote of 116-107. It allows abortions on request up until the 10th week of pregnancy. A much stronger pro-abortion version was defeated one year ago. The only limitation on abortion in this law is that the expectant mother must attend a federal counseling center. Immediately after passage of the law, the parliament then agreed to submit it to a national referendum. Only 280 abortions were reported in Portugal in 1997, but, true to form, the pro-abortion people claimed an unbelievably wild number of 16,000 illegal abortions the same year. While nobody has the faintest idea of how many illegal abortions there actually were, for the simple reason that those types of abortions are not reported, only a few years ago the official Portuguese Anuario Estatistico reported only 12 maternal deaths due to all spontaneous and induced, legal and illegal abortions combined. Considering that only perhaps one or two of these deaths were due to illegal abortions, the claim of 16,000 is unbelievably preposterous. So in the next few months Portuguese pro-lifers will be working their hearts out. POLISH BABIES SAFE AGAIN: The final ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal definitely scraps the 1996 law passed by their Socialistic parliament which had once again allowed abortions in the first three months. The Tribunal had ruled in May that the 1996 law violated the Polish Constitution’s right-to-life provision. It had remained in effect for a six-month grace period. When the Solidarity-controlled parliament failed the two-thirds vote needed to overrule the court, Poland returned to its 1993 law. This allows abortions only for a number of extreme reasons. Polish babies are again protected. We salute our friends in Poland. SPAIN – ABORTION DEBATE HALTED: Two bills had been submitted to the Spanish parliament which would have allowed abortion for "psychological harm to the mother". Clearly, if this had passed, Spain would have abortion-on-demand. Parliament voted three times, each one being a tie vote. Because of the deadlock, and according to the Spanish parliamentary regulations, the request for a hearing of the bills was rejected. Providentially, strongly pro-abortion, immediate past-Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez was not present. U.N.’S WHO DIRECTOR PRO-ABORTION: Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway’s first woman Prime Minister, is now Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). She is solidly pro-abortion. At the Cairo Conference September ’94, she publicly called for abortion-on-demand in pro-life countries and had harsh words for pro-life people. CUBA – A SURPRISE: On 25 February 1998, Cuban President Fidel Castro condemned the use of abortion as a form of birth control. His statement came after Pope John Paul’s first visit to Cuba a month earlier. While in Cuba, the Pope had repeatedly condemned induced abortion. Abortion has been widely and easily available to Cuba’s women during Castro’s entire reign. Exact figures are not available, but it has been assumed that Cuba has one of the higher abortion rates in the world. Castro stated: "Abortion should not be used as an anti-birth method." – stating that it was a public health hazard and that it was his duty as a "revolutionary and public figure" to oppose abortion. This was part of a speech given after being re-elected unanimously for another five-year term as president by the 595 Deputies of the Cuban National Assembly. GERMANY – ABORTION SURVIVOR: The London Telegraph reports son a 25-week baby (32 cm.). The child, apparently with Down’s Syndrome, was an attempted abortion but born alive. Doctors are said to have left it for ten hours after birth wrapped in a blanket "under observation", giving no help. The doctors then decided to give medical assistance. It is possible that the child has received serious damage. The implication of this has "re-ignited a passionate debate, with calls for a ban on abortions after 20 weeks." CHINA – MOBILE CLINICS: At an international family planning conference, the Chinese government recently showed a mobile abortion clinic. "We plan to make 600 of these buses to travel around the countryside," said Zhou Zhengxiang, a high official. He stated that they were to be used only for "voluntary" abortions. It was stated that, in reality, "every effort" is made to convince couples to terminate their unauthorized births. Delegates also were told that infanticide of baby girls is decreasing, but selective abortion of unborn girls is increasing. The consequences, according to the academics at the 23rd General Population Conference, are that for every 100 women born between 1985 and ’89, there were 123 men. Note was taken that when these men reach marriageable age in the next century, this sex imbalance could lead to rising rates of crime, prostitution and divorce. ZAMBIA BISHOPS: A pastoral letter entitled "Choose Life" was recently read in every Catholic church in Zambia. It was signed by the ten Catholic bishops. They pledged to strive to oppose legal abortion by "working to remove the conditions and pressures that brought this inhumane and immoral act into existence."…"While every effort must be made to improve the situation of women’s reproductive health in Zambia, the promotion of abortion is not an acceptable means and must be rejected," they stated. KEVORKIAN STRIKES AGAIN: Mr. Jack Kevorkian killed his 80th victim – a 21-year-old man who was neither terminal nor suffering from physical pain. A spinal infection had left him a quadriplegic and on a respirator, a status similar to that of the actor Christopher Reeve. Instead of treating his depression and enabling the young man to lead a happy and hopefully productive life, Mr. Kevorkian, with the help of his radical attorney friend, killed him by removing his respirator, causing him to die of suffocation. Of the 80 people killed by Kevorkian to date, less than half were terminally ill. He continues to expand the perimeters he uses to determine who will live and who will die. OREGON – THE SLIPPERY SLOPE BEGINS: In November 1997, the voters of Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide. On its face, this "death with dignity act" allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs at the request of terminally ill patients who have less than six months to live. One argument that aided in its passage was that it would be highly restrictive. It does not look that way now. On 27 February, that state’s Health Services Commission decided that delivering lethal doses would be covered as a paid "medical service" for that state’s 270,000 low income residents covered under the state’s health plan. The Commission stated it would be "morally wrong" to exclude poor people from physician-assisted suicide. In a press release, Dr. Willke stated: "What stands between Oregon’s poor and those in power who wish to cut medical costs in the state health budget? What or who can now prevent a quiet, legal extermination of Oregon’s poor people who suffer from illnesses?" WESTERN AUSTRALIA CONFLICT: The official law in the state of West Australia allows abortion essentially only for the life of the mother. It has been completely ignored, and for years now there has been de facto abortion-on-demand in that state. Quite unexpectedly, two abortionists from the city of Perth were formally charged with attempting to procure an abortion – the first such charges there in almost 30 years. The Director of Public Prosecutions, John McKechnie, pointed out that abortions were legal only under "life threatening" situations. The Premier objected, while the Catholic Archbishop approved. It was soon revealed that the arrests marked the culmination of almost 15 months of intensive preparation and investigation by West Australian police. The evidence was a dead baby aborted by one of these men that a Maori woman had taken home, put in her frig and had planned for a private burial. That tiny body is now state’s evidence. In quick succession, the Australian Medical Association advised doctors to cease performing abortions. And then a few days later the State Attorney General published written guarantees that abortionists would be able to continue to ply their ugly trade and that they would not be prosecuted under the state’s "ambiguous" abortion law. Not surprisingly, when the two abortionists appeared at Perth Magistrate’s Court, protests erupted between pro-abortion and pro-life demonstrators. True to form, most of the Australian media supported abortion, printing some pretty outrageous stuff such as "The anti-abortion enemy keeps coming back to life like the monsters in those horror films. The heroine seemingly vanquishes the foe and walks away, but behind her a rejuvenated anti-choice monster rears up to again strike." Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, for a change, the media hid their own obvious pro-abortion bias and reported objectively? INFANTICIDE IN NETHERLANDS: On 13 September ’97, the Lancet published comments on the topic of infanticide in the Netherlands (Pages 816-817). "While all neonatologists and general pediatricians felt that approval of parents was important in the decision to administer a drug with the explicit intention of ending an infant’s life, 23% of general pediatricians felt that it ‘was conceivable to administer such a drug without the approval of parents.’" PERU – STERILIZATION ABUSE: In recent weeks the Miami Florida Herald and the Washington Post both ran extensive stories on serious human rights abuses in Peru. Sterilizations there are running about 10,000 a month, paid for by the State. The sterilizations have not all been voluntary. According to the Herald, many women were enticed to accept the procedure with promises of free food, were sterilized without their consent during other medical procedures, and some, at least, had been abducted in public places and forcibly sterilized. The Washington Post, repeating the above, cited evidence of a quota system and credits given to doctors for meeting certain sterilization targets. The U.S. State Department, in a 1997 Human Rights Report on Peru, stated: "In October, allegations appeared that a number of physicians, hospitals and family planning clinics had enticed female patients to opt for sterilization, either by promising them quantities of food or by not providing them with complete information about the alternatives available." More information was released in the February report by Mr. Grover J. Reese, Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on International Operations & Human Rights. A data base research going back several decades has uncovered an aggressive campaign by the USAID aimed specifically at Peru, including the spending of tens of millions of dollars to "build consensus on national population and family planning issues…to secure resource commitment for the population control effort and to orchestrate changes in laws and regulations." A ten-year-old project had spent many millions more to support the creation of a government family planning delivery system in Peru. One early project paper (1966-68) was abundantly clear that a government population policy to markedly decrease fertility in Peru had long been an objective of extremely high priority by the USAID which has expended enormous amounts of money to achieve this goal. This, in spite of early resistance from the government and continuing resistance from religious leaders and the people themselves. It seems evident that today’s coerced sterilizations would not exist had it not been for nearly four decades of extravagantly financed, behind-the-scenes pressure tactics by the United States. As we go to press, Peru has announced it will be placing severe restrictions on the above sterilization policies. AMNIOTIC BAND SYNDROME: Two successful fetal surgeries to prevent birth defects from this condition have been published in the Journal of Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology. Reuben Quintero, MD, did the surgery at St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida. This condition occurs after a rupture of the amnion (sac around the baby) resulting in bands wrapping themselves around fetal limbs. Left untreated, this results in limb deformities sometimes requiring post-birth amputations. The two patients were fetal baby boys aged 21 and 23 weeks. "Minimally invasive" surgery was performed through an endoscope inserted into their mothers’ wombs and guided by ultrasound. The surgery was successful. EUROPE FORBIDS CLONING: In mid-January, representatives from 19 members of the Council of Europe signed a protocol committing their countries to prohibiting by law "any intervention seeking to create human beings genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead." French President Jacques Chirac condemned Chicago scientist, Richard Seed, who planned to begin human cloning, saying it was "untested, unsafe and morally unacceptable … It is on the international level that one must ban cloning and the genetic manipulation susceptible to altering the character of the human species." Countries signing included Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Moldova, Norway, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Macedonia and Turkey. Germany withheld, claiming that the proposed measure is weaker than Germany’s current law which forbids all research on human embryos. Britain refused to sign. Experiments in human cloning could begin in Britain as early as next year. The Independent Sunday newspaper reported a document is expected soon, to be issued by the British Human Genetics Advisory Commission. The paper said: "If research on human cloning won sufficient support, ministers could give the go-ahead for the first experiments to start in 1999." METHOTREXATE INEFFECTIVE: In the Lancet, 22 November ’97, a medical letter questioned the effectiveness and safety of the use of Methotrexate for ectopic pregnancy. It noted: "Laparoscopic salpingotomy is the treatment of choice … and otherwise healthy young women who were given a systemic cytotoxic drug [Methotrexate] and folinic acid over seven days… experienced no benefit." INFERTILITY PROBLEMS: According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, in 1995, 1.2 million women consulted an infertility specialist. Adding consultation with other physicians, a total of 1.8 million women used ovulation-inducing drugs, the same type of drugs that produced the Iowa septuplets. Included in these women were 600,000 who used not just drugs but also micro-surgical techniques, in vitro fertilization, intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection, etc. It is interesting to note that almost the same number of women, approximately 1.5 million, killed their own pre-born babies. RUSSIA LOSING POPULATION: According to Ekaterina Lakhova, Chairman of the Russian Commission on Women, Family and Demography, the Russian birthrate is now at 8.9 per 1,000 and continues to fall. Its death rate is 14.3. This has produced a population loss of 800,000 people a year, which is a world peacetime record. The two causes are massive abortion-on-demand and rising alcohol consumption. Russian men die 14 years earlier than women. Each man drinks an average of 13 liters of pure alcohol per year. Male life expectancy in Russia today has dropped to 57 years. CONTACT US Phone: (513) 729-3600
|
||
 |
||