NEWSVol. 11 No.1 - Autumn Edition 1994 Print Post Approved - 33L385/00042
Pro-Life Victoria: Speaking Up for Humanity in the Nineties |
Contents:
- New I.V.F. Law
- Editorial
- Women's Lifestyles Rely on
Abortion
- Embryos Cloned by Scientists
- RU 486
- Pro-Life Video Campaign
- Eugenics
- Abortion and Breast Cancer
- Elimination of the Disabled
- Congress for Life
- Risk from Test
- Quote on Abortion
- Progress
Report on " Project How You Began"
- N.Z. Right to Treatment Affirmed
- Abortion Urged
- Abortion and Australian Law
- Tests on New
Chemical Abortion Technique Reported
- World View
The long-awaited revision to the current confusing I.V.F. legislation is expected during the coming Autumn session of Parliament. News reports (e.g. Herald-Sun January 21 1994) indicate that on his retirement from the Supreme Court, Mr Justice Marks will be appointed head of the new-look committee to advise the Government on controversial issues surrounding artificial human reproduction. Professor Louis Wailer resigned from the existing committee in December 1993 and the appointments of several other members have expired.
Several changes appear likely under new legislation. The I.V.F. program is expected to be opened to fertile couples who have some history of genetic disease. I.V.F. will allow early testing for diseases followed by early elimination for the diseased.
Over the years of I.V.F. treatments, Melbourne’s scientists have created a stockpile of thousands of frozen embryos. The dilemma posed by this has been ignored. Now it is intended that a five year limit be put on their storage after which they are likely to be destroyed.
Another likely change will see the lifting of the anonymity provision relating to the donors of sperm and ova to I.V.F. programs. In future, test-tube babies will he able to discover information relating to their biological parents.
Draft legislation will soon be put forward for debate by State politicians. Many will have little idea what to do on these issues. It is up to us as members of the community to make our views known, Please ring or write to your local member as soon as possible. If you are unsure who to write to, please ring the Electoral Office (65 1620).
Young Pro-Life Victoria Volunteer, Patricia Brennan, at PLV stall at October 93 Parent Child & Baby Exhibition, Melbourne Exhibition Buildings. The Stall saw a continual flow of people for three days.
More evidence is mounting that the effects of abortion linger long after the destruction of the child.
In the past, editions of Pro-Life News have focused on the effects of abortion on women. We have covered post abortion grief syndrome, the rise of child abuse, and sterility in women. In this edition we look at emerging data regarding breast cancer. The evidence is certainly not conclusive but several sections of the American medical establishment have decided that this area is worth looking into.
Additionally, the effects of abortion are also felt throughout society. Reports have shown that abortions in families can place stress on both adults and children. In support of the family, Pro-Life Victoria has joined the Family Council of Victoria stressing that our role is to protect the youngest member of the family unit. The coalition is made up of pro-life and pro-family groups. PLV will keep you informed of events that the council organise.
Finally, and fortunately, abortion has had an effect on some abortionists to stop aborting. The special report on Abortionist Burnout that PLV ran late last year, has been well received around Victoria. Some of the report was even quoted in the Letters to the Editor in The Age. Plans are currently under way to have the report mailed to every doctor in the state.
Washington - How some women regard abortion as a lifestyle convenience has been spelt out by a copy editor of the Washington Post.
Writing in her paper’s Outlook section, Carolyn Hax said, "admitting that convenience is a common justification for abortion makes some people squeamish". But the true champions of abortion should be "the women who owe not their lives but their lifestyles to the convenience of legal abortion".
She said she came of age when "millions of women learned to take abortion for granted, as a means to a lifestyle that would allow them to view sex as a pleasure and being single as a way of life - a lifestyle that allowed room for irresponsibility......"
"Spontaneous sex, brought to you by the safetynet of abortion - shall I upgrade convenience to luxury? Other perks of abortion on demand include extended travel, higher education, unbroken career paths, choosing a different father, limiting family size
She concluded: "None of this is to say my generation is of one mind or devoid of conscience on the subject. For all you know, I find abortion reprehensible under any circumstances - but even then I’d be all for it. Because I don’t care if you are in high school or the foetus is unhealthy or it’s a boy and you want a girl. If you don’t want your baby, I don’t want your baby".
New York - Two American scientists have cloned human embryos, provoking widespread concern that science has gone too far.
The experiment by scientists at George Washington University was reported at a meeting of the American Fertility Society in Montreal.
Dr Jerry Hall and Dr Robert Stillman, of the university’s in vitro fertilisation program, said they selected single-cell embryos that were abnormal because they came from eggs that had been fertilised by more than one sperm, and would have died whether or not they were implanted. When the cells divided into two, they separated the cells, creating two different embryos with the same genetic makeup (like identical twins). The experimenters produced 48 clones, none of which grew for more than six days. But they said the technique could produce cloned children within two years.
Worldwide, reaction to the experiment was generally unfavourable.
"This is not research," said French scientist Dr Jean-Francois Mattei. "It’s aberrant, showing a lack of sense of reality and respect for people". Back in the United States, Christian ethicist and author Professor Germaine Grisez commented: "The people doing this ought to contemplate splitting themselves in half and see how they like it".
RU 486, which is now legal in France, Britain, Sweden, and China, is currently being promoted as a "postcoital contraceptive" or "morning-after pill", in addition to its current use as an abortion pill. Studies at the University of Edinburgh, which were released just before the US election last spring, show that ingesting RU 486 right after intercourse can block progesterone in the women’s body, which is required for the newly conceived child to implant itself in the uterus, where he or she will receive both nourishment and shelter required for growth. RU 486 is not a contraceptive it is, and always will be, an abortion pill because it only exercises its deadly functions after conception has taken place.
With military-like precision, an army of volunteers has distributed a pro-life video to each of 100,000 households in the American city of Milwaukee.
The Tell the Truth Project operation began very early in the morning of Saturday June 5, at a church car park when volunteers from a number of Christian denominations began to unload a semi-trailer packed with video tapes and set up 10 distribution stations.
By 7.30 am, all materials for the effort were in place at the stations.
Videos in eye-catching black jackets titled "Seeing is Believing"; plastic bags designed to hang on door knobs; information on local crisis pregnancy centres and an evangelical Christian "salvation invitation letter" to "receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour" were all prepared for house-by-house delivery.
"This historic, massive project was done with stealth bomber-like efficiency, as the entire area was saturated before pro-abortion forces were even aware it was happening" said Matt Trewhella, one of the founders of the Tell the Truth Project.
Eugenics research hospitals in Canada, Britain, and the U.S. all revealed to the world last spring that they have reached a point in "pre-natal screening" where they can, through the analysis of a single cell plucked from human embryo, determine whether or not the child who sacrificed that cell will be born with any number of birth defects. If so, then that unfortunate individual would be "screened" (that is, destroyed). With the era of so called Genetic Engineering and In-Vitro Fertilisation upon us, we have moved into a situation where untold numbers of children will be aborted in laboratory dishes rather than the womb.
Condensed from National Right to Life News
- USAWith 46,000 women in the United States dying each year from breast cancer and 182,000 new cases diagnosed annually, the search for the cause, cures, and prevention of this deadly disease has taken on a new urgency.
Any number of risk factors have been identified as associated with a higher incidence of breast cancer. There is little doubt that family history, the age at which a woman first menstruates, diet, and when/whether she has had a full-term pregnancy are contributing factors.
But the work of Dr Joel Brind, a professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College in New York, has led him to a far more controversial conclusion:
that there is a link between abortion (spontaneous or induced) and breast cancer, particularly when the abortion is of a first pregnancy. Needless to say, the medical establishment’s reception has been chilly. Dr Brind’s thesis is easier to grasp if we first understand why there is virtually universal agreement that a woman’s risk of breast cancer increases if she delays having her first baby (or has no children at all). As Canadian reporter Ellen Saenger put it, there is a general consensus within the medical community the "pregnancy provides a certain natural protection against breast cancer". (As we shall see momentarily, Brind’s argument goes one step beyond: abortion not only eliminates the "natural protection" pregnancy affords women against breast cancer, it also is itself an independent factor which increases the risk of breast cancer by 50%).
Pregnancy’s Two Protections
Some basic biology will help us understand the debate. During puberty, the female sex hormone estrogen promotes a woman’s first major round of breast cell growth. However, as Brind explains these cells are relatively undifferentiated that is unable to produce milk. Because these cells are immature, they are susceptible to carcinogens (cancer causing agents) of all types.
During early pregnancy a second major round of breast tissue growth occurs as a result of estogen and other hormones. During early pregnancy most women’s breasts feel tender one indicator of the change within.
However, later in the pregnancy (and key to Brind’s argument), estrogen levels recede and different hormones assume prominence. Prolactin and other lactogenic hormones stimulate cells in the lining of milk ducts to differentiate into mature milk-producing tissue. Such differentiated tissue is far less likely to turn cancerous.
The earlier in a woman’s life this maturation of breast tissue takes place, the sooner she reaps the benefits of this line of defence against breast cancer.
Pregnancy’s first protection against breast cancer is, thus, that it causes the development of milk producing tissue which is far less vulnerable to carcinogens.
Boston Globe medical writer Judy Foreman writes there is a second "compatible" theory that explains why having a child decreases a woman’s risk of cancer. This maintains that cancer is "promoted, though not initiated, by the monthly bombardment of breast tissue by a woman’s cycling hormones (that is estrogen)". The idea is that mature breast tissue cells are more resistant to the onslaught of estrogen.
Therefore, there are thought to be two protections that pregnancy gives women against breast cancer: "It drives breast cells to mature and gives breasts a break against monthly hormone blast," a summary explanation Foreman attributes to Mary Costanza, an onocologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in Worcester.
But here Brind goes beyond the conventional wisdom. He argues that abortion "does not simply delay childbirth (and therefore eliminate the natural protections); rather, it allows the estrogen surge of early pregnancy to promote the proliferation of breast tissue cells and abnormal cells, but cuts off the influence of late pregnancy hormones that induce differentiation
In other words, the surge in estrogen from early pregnancy creates many more undifferentiated cells in the women’s breasts. If the baby is aborted, there will be more cancer susceptible tissues in mother than before she became pregnant. Why? Because the lactogenic hormones of later pregnancy never have a chance to act, it means the undifferentiated breast tissue (produced by the estrogen surge) will not be induced to mature. They remain in transitional state.
Brind says that the average American 15 year old has a 10% risk of contracting breast cancer in her lifetime, provided she has a child when she is in her 20s. However, should she become pregnant in her teens and abort in the first trimester, her risk of breast cancer increases to 15% an increase of 50% (10% to 15%).
(If a woman aborts after having previously carried a baby to term, there is less of a risk because her breast cells are more mature, Brind argues. However, if women go on to have multiple abortions, this tends to increase the risk of breast cancer, he says).
Brind maintains that there are major scientific studies that back up his position.
Response to Brind’s thesis runs the gamut from indignant denunciations to cautious admissions that more study needs to be done.
The development of tests for disabilities in p re-born children is central to the experiments being conducted on embryos created by In-Vitro Fertilisation.
As a result of the blind eye, our society turns towards the abortion issue, it is increasingly being accepted that a pre-born child with disabilities can and should be eliminated. Eliminating disease has always been a laudable objective of medicine. However, eliminating those afflicted with disease and disabilities is something that would always have been viewed with scorn. It appears that this is no longer the case.
Women are increasingly being encouraged by the medical profession to undertake tests for disabilities in their pre-born children. When disabilities are identified, abortion is put forward as a sensible solution. The sinister influence of a medical practitioner in encouraging the elimination of those with disabilities should not be under estimated.
If a society is to be judged by the way in which it treats its weakest members, we are guilty of discrimination regarding the most fundamental of rights, the right to life. Harmful and destructive experimentation on human life was always condemned until the abuse of LV.F. programs made it easier for scientists to gain control over human beings regarded as "surplus".
In Victoria, thousands of human embryos have been frozen over the years. Initially the surplus was treated as an unforseen problem. Subsequently, the problem has been ignored.
The elimination of the disabled may soon be easier. I.V.F. has brought far more than it initially promised. Up until now, legislation has restricted I.V.F. to infertile couples seeking to bear a child. Legislation under discussion for the coming Autumn Session of Parliament may allow fertile couples to use I.V.F. programs so that tests for disabilities in the embryo can be undertaken prior to an embryo being transferred to a woman’s body. If disabilities are detected, embryos can be discarded and the couple will have avoided the heartbreak of finding out about disabilities during the pregnancy! The embryo with any defect or suspected of having some defect will be eliminated.
Has our society decided that it wishes to see the disabled eliminated? Have we decided that this is the way we want to go about it? Is it acceptable for human life to be treated as a commodity or manufactured product subject to quality control? Is all human life to be subject to the same tests? What does this say about disabilities at other stages of life? Does our society still have any interest in developing wrong attitudes towards persons with disabilities? What disabilities are to be eliminated? Who decides? Are there any restrictions? Does anyone care?
Sydney is to host the 4th World Congress for Life on the 7th, 8th & 9th of April this year. Thirteen International pro-life representatives are to speak at the conference, including representatives from India, Russia & Uganda.
The conference, to be held at the University of N.S.W., will focus on abortion, euthanasia, women and the population explosion. The theme of the conference is "Pro-Lifers Protecting The Family"
Various Australian speakers will report to the congress on the programs and events around the states. Denise Cameron will represent PLV and give the Victorian Report.
Paris - Pro-life geneticist Professor Jerome Le Jeune has revealed how a test designed to diagnose birth defects actually causes them.
The test, chorionic villus sampling (CVS), is performed early in pregnancy - between nine and eleven weeks. Four studies have reported increased incidences of missing or shortened fingers and arms, malformed mouths and brain abnormalities in babies who were subjected to CVS.
Dr Le Jeune cited research by two Belgian doctors whose findings showed that the unborn child does not receive oxygen from its mother in the first trimester of pregnancy, but makes its own.
Puncturing the child’s sac to perform a CVS test allows direct contact with the mother’s blood, so can cause damaging blood clots in the baby’s tiny vessels and inhibit development of extremities and brain cells.
"I Fear the power of choice over life or death at human hands. I see no human being whom l could ever trust with such power - not myself, not another. Human Wisdom, human integrity are not enough. since the foetus is a creature already alive and in the process of development, to kill it is to choice death over life. At what point shall we allow this choice? For me the answer is - at no point, once life has begun. At no point , I repeat, either as life ends, for we who are human beings cannot for our own safety, be allowed to choice death, life being all we know. Beyond life lie only faith and surmise, but not knowledge. Where there is no knowledge except for life, decision for death is not safe for the human race."
Pearl S Buck
1938 Nobel Prize Winner
1994 has started on a very encouraging note for Pro-Life Victoria. A donation of a further $ 5000 has been received enabling us to purchase another 50 portable sets of foetal models for placement in Victoria’s 650 Secondary Schools. Listed below for your interest are those schools which have already received a set of foetal models and some of the student and teachers comments on receiving the life size models of a baby at various stages of development within the womb. The students responses to the fifty sets already placed have been very heartening for an organisation committed to creating a new pro-life generation.
List of Schools
- Avila College
- Brauer Secondary College
- Cathedral College
- Christian Brothers College
- Clonard College Geelong
- Corowa High School
- De La Salle College
- Emmanuel College
- Heatherhill Secondary College
- Kings College
- Luther College Croydon
- Macalister Secondary College
- Mazenod College
- Melton Secondary College
- Mitchell Secondary College
- Mt Lilydale College
- Mt St Joseph College
- Nazareth College
- Our Lady of Mercy College
- Parade College Bundoora
- Presentation College
- Redden Catholic College
- Rutherglen High School
- Sacred Heart Girls College
- Sale Catholic College
- Sale High School
- Salesian College
- St Anne’s Grammar School
- St Bernard’s CBC North Essendon
- St John’s College
- St Joseph’s CBC
- St Joseph’s College
- St Joseph’s Regional College
- St Leo’s College Box Hill
- St Monica’s College Epping
- St Paul’s College Ballarat
- St Paul’s College Altona North
- Strathcona Girls Grammar School
- Therry College Broadmeadows
- Warrnambool North Secondary Coil.
- Warrnambool Secondary College
- Wellington Secondary College
- Wodonga Catholic College
- Wodonga High School
- Wodonga West Secondary College
- Xavier College Kew
Teachers Comments
"They need wide distribution" "Very important to help parents’ and students’ understand foetal development"
"The kit is a great idea and much appreciated by the students" "They are a valuable resource. Keep up the good work!"
"Good for hands on experience not normally accessible to students" "Excellent teaching aid for biology students studying development of the foetus. Being able to place the baby in their hands was a real experience. Boys were particularly interested in the kit".
"Far easier to explain with the use of models rather than broadsheet"
Students Comments.
"Better than a video to make what we are talking about real" "Makes you wonder Sir" "Clarifies that embryo is not just a ‘blob’ of cells"
"Great!! Can actually see size of baby and its features"
"Are they really that size"
All children regardless of the severity of any disabilities, have a fundamental right to life, a Paediatric Society of New Zealand working party has declared.
In new guidelines for the care of infants and children with disabilities or life threatening illness, it says children with disabilities have the same right to treatment as other children - though this does not prevent withholding treatment from the dying, such as anencephalic infants at delivery.
Dying should not be unnecessarily prolonged as children have a right to die in loving, caring environment with minimal discomfort, the guidelines say, but to actively hasten a child’s death is totally unacceptable.
The best interests of the child are a paediatrician’s first responsibility and though family circumstances should be considered, they should not alone justify withholding treatment.
Sydney - The benefits of abortion in "building up a family life" were argued by Professor Anita Allan of Georgetown University Washington, at the First World Conference on Family Law and Children’s Rights in Sydney.
"If you really care about family values then you will let women abort on demand" the Sydney Morning Herald quoted her as saying.
She argued the abortion allows women to make choices affecting present and subsequent members of the family - for their wellbeing and benefit.
Dr John Fleming, director of the Southern Cross Bioethics institute in Adelaide saw this approach as a shift in strategy in the "pro-choice" argument to separate the pro-life and pro-family alliance, and bring pro-family adherents into the pro-abortion camp.
Laws relating to abortion are enacted at a State rather than Federal level. However, abortions deemed legal under the different State laws are funded by the Federal government through Medicare. These came to be paid for as a result of an administrative change in April 1974, although there was no public announcement or Parliamentary vote relating to the use of taxpayer’s money to fund abortions.
The New South Wales Crimes Act makes the "unlawful" use of any drug or instrument to bring about an abortion a felony punishable by ten years gaol. The Victorian Crimes Act is similar.
The Crimes Codes of Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania provide for penalties of up to 14 years gaol for those performing abortions and 7 years for those obtaining them. They contain a proviso that abortion is not illegal if performed to save the mother’s life.
The Statute Law in South Australia and the Northern Territory allows for abortions to be performed in public hospitals in specified circumstances, such as danger to the woman’s mental health and substantial risk that the child would be seriously handicapped.
The loophole was found in the meaning of the word "unlawful" in existing legislation. In a landmark case in 1972, R. v Wald and Others, Mr Justice Levine of the District Court of New South Wales followed a 1969 Victorian Supreme Court ruling of Justice Menhennit and added, "The accused must have had an honest belief on reasonable grounds that what they did was necessary to preserve the women involved from serious danger to their life, or physical or mental health, which the continuance of the pregnancy would entail ..."
On the question of what amounted to danger to metal health, he added: "It is proper for you, the jury, to consider whether the danger to the mental health arose from not only mental disease, or disease of the mind, but from the effects of economic or social stresses that may be pertaining at the time."
Since the 1969 and 1972 cases, governments in most States have effectively condoned abortion on demand at all stages of pregnancy by allowing abortion clinics to operate as private profit-making businesses, and the Courts have consistently upheld the , "right" of the mother to terminate her pregnancy.
Still another entry in the mad rush to find a "successful" chemical abortion technique was announced October last year. San Francisco physicians Mitchell Creinin and Philip Darney reported the results of tests in which they used two widely available and inexpensive drugs to abort women who were eight weeks pregnant or less.
In some respects, the abortion procedure used in San Francisco is very similar to the RU 486 technique. In France, abortionists use two drugs, RU 486 and a prostaglandin called Cytotec (genetic name, misoprostol). In California tests, Cytotec was used with the cancer-fighting drug methotrexate.
The researchers claimed a "success rate" of 80% in the initial trials involving more than 50 women since January. At the University of California San Francisco physicians said that they intend to move soon to a large multi-centre experiment involving thousands of women.
The appeal of this new combination for pro-abortionists is that the "key to this (new abortion technique) is that these drugs are already available" on the market in the United States. Both methotrexate and Cytotec are already marketed in the US for non-abortion purposes.
While reports glossed over pressing concerns about serious side effects from the two powerful drugs, some abortion supporters were genuinely worried about using such a highly toxic anti-cancer drug as methotrexate for abortion.
With the delay in the US licensing of RU 486, abortion advocates are evidently becoming desperate for a chemical abortion technique. Faced with a steadily declining number of abortionists, they are urgently looking for a non-surgical abortion method that can be administered by non-physicians outside of the current system of free standing abortion facilities.
The real motivation behind this announcement may be that "the San Francisco study could put pressure on Roussel-Uclaf, the French manufacturer of RU 486, which appears to be dragging its feet on a licensing arrangement that would make the drug available in the US". as the Chicago Tribune concluded in an October 22 story.
Widely used since the 1950’s, methotrexate is at present licensed to be used in large doses to treat certain cancers.
Cytotec is licensed in over a hundred countries worldwide to prevent gastric ulcers in patients who use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen.
The dangers of this new "drug cocktail" were, as usual, glossed over by abortion advocates in their enthusiasm to put the new abortion method on the market. Neither drug is approved for abortion in the US. In fact, both Cytotec and methotrexate are specifically contraindicated for pregnant women and can cause severe injuries and death.
One physician said, "I don’t believe many physicians in this country would use it. It’s a highly toxic drug".
However, the most imminent threat to unborn babies continues to be RU 486, which the FDA has placed on a fast-track for approval.
CANADA: "The Psychological Effects of Abortion on the Family" was the title of an address by Canada-based Professor of Clinical Psychology, Dr Philip Ney, at an international conference on children.
Dr Ney reported that: "From three research projects we have evidence that The natural bond between parents and children, as well as the parents and children themselves, are wounded by abortion. This leads to an increased incidence of child abuse and neglect and difficulties in the siblings which we now call the Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome".
The profound consequences for the family and society were clear from the numbers of people involved in abortion: "Every year approximately 60 million children are aborted, 60 million mothers and 60 million fathers are deeply wounded, and 110 million siblings become survivors. In 10 years another 2.3 billion people with untreated pain and parenting problems will add their distress to the growing family and social disorder in the world".
CANADA: The law against assisted suicide does not infringe the constitutional rights of Canadians, said the Supreme Court of Canada in a 5-4 ruling against a British Columbia woman’s request for a legal sanctioned assisted suicide.
JAPAN: Japanese Ministry of Health recommended that the government approve rules for depriving sick persons of medical care. It proposed that medical care may be stopped when patients are in coma and that repirators may be switched off when patients are said to be in a terminal state.
NETHERLANDS: The Upper House of the Dutch Parliament approved a euthanasia law. Under its terms the Penal Code remains unchanged but doctors will not be prosecuted for killing their patients in certain unspecified circumstances.
Should the law be enacted, it would appear that the only restrictions on the practice of euthanasia in Holland will be those determined by the courts and by medical organisations.
RUSSIA: The fledging Russian prolife movement has made great strides in its first year of activities. Since the IRLF-sponsored conference in Moscow in October 1992, a national organisation has been established and a full program of pro-life activities has been put into operation.
Association LIFE has opened a national office in Moscow from which it spreads the pro-life message throughout the former Soviet Union. The Association enjoys good relations with religious and civil authorities.
Its activities include printing and distributing a range of pro-life literature, giving lectures in schools, colleges and other state institutions, appearing on national radio and TV programs, and helping women who have problem pregnancies.
UNITED KINGDOM: An attempt to convict a British pro-life leader of illegally trying to influence the results of a Parliamentary election, was rejected by an English court. Mrs Phyllis Bowman, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, had been accused of breaking the law by distributing information on political candidates’ voting patterns on abortion. The court acquitted her on a technicality, without saying whether the distribution of such information would be illegal. Mrs Bowman described the case as "a vindictive political prosecution".
UNITED KINGDOM: The British Medical Association’s annual meeting has rejected the legalisation of euthanasia by a majority of about four to one. In a forceful address, the chairman of BMA’s ethics committee, Dr Stuart Homer, said doctors had a licence to heal the sick. If they were given a licence to kill, patients would never be sure which licence they were operating under.
But the meeting endorsed guidelines saying that "medical treatments, including artificial nutrition and hydration, may be withdrawn if it is clear that they no longer offer hope of recovery but merely suspend the dying process".
USA: Cincinnati - An appeal court has upheld state legislation giving women access to accurate information before making an abortion decision.
The law requires a 24 hour reflection period after a woman has been told a number of facts essential to making an informed decision.
She is also to be given the opportunity to see scientifically reliable information about the anatomical characteristics of her baby at two-week intervals during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy and at four-week intervals from there on.
© The Official Newsletter of Pro-Life Victoria, Edited by Grant Clarke |