Pro-LIFE NEWS

Vol. 11 No.2 - Spring Edition 1994                                  Print Post Approved - 33L385/00042

Contents:

- Campaign Against RU 486 Continues
- Editorial
- Support for Pro-Life Student
- Project - How You Began
- What difference Does Legislation of Abortion Make?
- A child Died in the Care of this "Hero" Abortion Doctor
- Abortion
- Call to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks
- Unborn Give Sign of Pain
- Woman Dies in Gunn Clinic
- Women's Right-to-Know Law Saving Lives
- Missing Chinese Girls
- Abortionist Loses Licence

Trials of the French Abortion drug RU 486 have recommenced in Victoria. A big thanks is due to all Prolifers who have supported and cooperated to date with our RU 486 postcard campaign to Health Minister Dr. Carmen Lawrence. Undoubtedly the articulate concerns of some feminists regarding the effects of RU 486 on the health of women, along with the appeal by the Conference of Catholic Bishops to Dr. Carmen Lawrence and later the Prime Minister himself, had a big influence on Dr. Lawrence’s decision to suspend at least temporarily, RU 486 trials in Victoria. Complementing their efforts was the nothing short of brilliant investigation and exposure of the trials by that great Australian statesman, Senator Brian Harradine. The Australian pro life movement is indebted to him for his pursuit of RU 486. But backing these efforts were the grass roots prolifers, distributing thousands of postcards. Right to Life Australia, and state Right to Life Associations in South Australia, Tasmania and the A.C.T. distributed thousands of cards amongst their members. In N.S.W Human Life International distributed cards there, the Australian Family Association and the newly formed Catholic Pro Life Association distributed them in Western Australia. South Australians ordered thousands of cards. Lutherans for Life circulated them through their contacts right up to the "Top End". Endeavour Forum, Catholic Womens League and Knights of the Southern Cross gave their usual stalwart support. We are indebted to them. A private members motion seeking an end to all trials of RU 486 in Australia, has been introduced into the House Of Representatives by Mr Paul Filing, Member for Moore (WA.) It has been seconded by Mr Kevin Andrews, Member for Menzies (Vic.) Meanwhile on the 8.8.94 the Melbourne Herald-Sun newspaper published the results of the telephone poll response to the question; "Should trials of the RU 486 morning after pill be stopped?" 454 calls were registered 72% of which agreed they should be. Pro Life Victoria has written to the 39 Victorian Federal members of Parliament asking them to support the Filing/Andrews motion, enclosing a copy of this result and a sample postcard addressed to Dr Carmen Lawrence. Please remember to write a short letter to your member and the Prime Minister Mr Keating asking them to support Paul Filings motion.

Writing in the Independent Monthly in February 1991, Amanda Buckley, Chief Political Reporter of the Daily Telegraph Mirror had this to say about RU 486 "This is their last hurrah. If they (pro-lifers) lose this one, they have lost the war." I’m sure you don’t want this to be our last hurrah.

NB.: Please return any left over RU 486 post cards to P0 Box 15, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, and we will redistribute them.

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Australians help "hold the line" at Cairo

Australian pro lifers did their part in defending unborn children against the global assault of the Cairo Population Conference in September.

Right to Life Australia’s Mrs Margaret Tighe lobbied from dawn to dusk. Her placard with the words, "Kill her now and it’s called murder, kill her three months ago and it’s called abortion", written in French, Arabic, and English, appeared in a photograph in The Australian newspaper. Mrs Rita Joseph from the ACT, an expert on population control policies, represented the Australian Family Association, Senator and Mrs Brian Harradine were there and former Victorian, Father Peter Elliot was part of the hard working Vatican delegation.

The same could not be said of Senator Nick Bolkus who as head of the official Australian delegation wildly exceeded even the customary exaggeration of figures of maternal deaths from unsafe abortion by population controllers and abortion advocates. On the A,B.C’s. AM programme 5th September 1994 he claimed "We have millions and millions of women dying every year from unsafe abortion."

In the lead up to the Conference it was widely claimed the W.H.O. figure on unsafe abortions deaths was 500,000 At its outset Dr Nafis Sadik claimed 250,000. Twenty four hours later the "new" W.H.O. estimate was 70,000.

It was wonderful to wake to the 6 am report of the conference on the day Pakistan’s Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto made such an unequivocal defence of human life. What a contrast this was to the plastic Hollywood actress Jane Fonda’s empty rhetoric, copied from the Abortion President Bill Clinton, "Abortion should be safe, legal and rare." Here’s how U.S. pro life champion Re-publican Senator Chris Smith summed up the U.N. Conference in the U.S. National Right to Life News. (5/10)

"The real yet untold story of the recent UN population control conference held in Cairo was how, after months of scheming, plotting, arm twisting.. and packing the conference with a legion of Planned Parenthood operatives.., the Clinton Administration and its allies suffered a stunning defeat in their ignoble attempt to impose abortion on demand on the rest of the world.

While the final document... the so-called "Programme of Action" .. .was far from perfect, when all things are considered it was a remarkable victory for global pro-life forces and the approximately 100 countries throughout the world that legally protect the lives of their unborn children. While we were aware of the fact that the chairman of the main drafting committee was Fred Sai of Ghana, president of International Planned Parenthood Federation, it has now come to light that Planned Parenthood people were quietly salted away in dozens of delegations.

Nevertheless, led and inspired by a courageous, highly skilled, and tenacious Vatican delegation, dozens of countries from Central and South America and Africa, and Muslim states resisted both the bullying and the ever present pressure of the abortion lobby. In the end, the document affirmed their "sovereignty" to protect and cherish the precious lives of unborn babies. Significantly, despite vigorous opposition from the Clinton delegation at the preparatory meetings in New York and in Cairo, the delegates from around the world emphatically insisted in the document that "in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning." This consensus language, which even the U.S. reluctantly swallowed in the end, is identical to the wording won in Mexico City in 1984 under former President Ronald Reagan. But let there be no mistake about it... this anti-abortion policy wasn’t in the Clinton script for Cairo. From over a hundred conversations I had at the conference, I heard that while many delegates from the developing world admire America’s prosperity, they want no part of our violence against helpless unborn children.

Denise Cameron

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Suryan Chandrasegaran, treasurer of Monash University Human Life Support Group received some "objective" support for a letter titled "Think Again!" he had published in the university paper Lots Wife.

"I am writing to vent my disgust at the disrespectful treatment afforded to a fellow student by one of your editors in edition 6. I am, of course, referring to editor Leanne Paton’s objectionable misuse of editorial power in attempting to humiliate Suryan Chandrasegaran for his article on abortion.

From the beginning, I wish to make clear that I am in no way buying into the abortion debate. Due to my lack of knowledge on the issue, I give no support to either pro or anti-abortion arguments. My sole reason for writing is to comment on the coverage the issue was given.

Suryan merely asked students to think about this important societal issue from his point of view. Unfortunately for Suryan, his views were different to those of editor Leanne. Before students could think on his comments, Leanne saw fit to use (abuse) her power (and talent for gutter journalism) to instantly, and remorselessly, coerce student opinion to match her own. The article "Think Again!" and the ‘advertisement’ "Coat Hangers?" (which I, and I am sure others, have found to be totally offensive and unwarranted) shows that Leanne has never heard of, or possibly rejects the notion of balanced and objective editorial policy.

This attack on an article that they disagree with is surprising, considering the Lot’s editors continually claimed that they try to present fair coverage.

This disgraceful attack on an article submitted by one concerned student, seeking merely to encourage debate, forces us to ask to what extent does our student newspaper encourage the sacred right to freedom of speech? And, what can we do to improve this?

Simon Price Arts II

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In April, Pro-Life Victoria received another consignment of 50 sets of foetal models. Already we have placed them in the following schools.

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The Claim is made that at least 100,000 of about 500,000 annual maternal deaths are caused by Illegal abortion. Analysis of available data indicates that legislation of abortion will not save 100,000 women or any comparable number.

Abortion is illegal in Tanzania, so that experience there should be similar to what would happen in many developing countries. Analysis by Ursula Birgitta Schnell, MD, Surgeon doctor, Lc., Ndana, via Lindi, Tanzania, of abortion caused deaths in area served by 21 hospitals during a five year period, 1988-1992, Indicates that there were only nine abortion related deaths in this large area of Tanzania, 3.1% of total maternal deaths. Applying this ration indicates that total abortion related deaths in all countries where abortioncould be made legal under more conditions total about 15,000-20,000 rather than the widely claimed (without no substantial evidence) 100,000.

In the USA in the late 1980’s abortion proponents claimed that there were about 10,000 annual deaths caused by abortion. Documentation submitted to the US Supreme Court in cases US vs. Milan Vuitch (1971) and Roe vs. Wade (1973), indicated there were less than 200 abortion related deaths annually, not 100,000. Official US Government Vital Statistics data now available has confirmed that abortion related deaths in the years in question varied between 130 and 160.

Reproduced from Life Coalition international, Written by Robert Sassone, Amicus Curiae to US Supreme Court.

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by Ray Kerrison reprinted from Human Life Review

In the scary aftermath of the murder of an abortionist and his bodyguard outside a clinic in Pensacols, Fla., Dr Mien Kline came riding to the rescue like a knight on a white charger

Protected by a bulletproof vest and a police escort, He marched through the front door of Pensacola’s Women s Medical Services, determined to continue providing "reproductive services," even in the face of extreme violence. The hero of hour.

What the poor Women availing themselves of Kline’s services did not know was that they should have had the bulletproof vests and police protection. In the matter of violence, Kline has a track record, right here in New York City.

He presided over the abortion death of a 13 year old girl in the Eastern Women’s Centre on East 30th Street, in a procedure of such callous negligence and indifference to human life that a jury labelled it an "abomination." The child’s family was awarded $12 million in damages. This, then, is the hero of Pensacola. Read his history and weep. Kline made the Post’s front page three years ago, when he was hauled before the courts to explain the death of the little schoolgirl, whom I shall call Julie. Her family has suffered enough without having to go through this horrendous experience again.

Julie was 21-weeks pregnant when a Queens school guidance counsellor sent her to the abortion clinic without informing her parents. Julie was so terrified that the clinic receptionist wrote in the records that she should be treated with " tender loving care."

In fact, she was treated worse than a dog.

Kline began the abortion procedure on Julie at 1:10pm and finished at 1:25pm. By 1:40pm, she was brain dead, never to recover.

Court testimony showed that Kline did not even speak to Julie before she was put under anaesthesia. He did not weigh her or check her age. As Thomas Principe, attorney for Julie’s estate, noted, "The child was just another piece on the assembly line."

At 21 weeks, a baby in the womb is fully formed and cannot be aborted without crushing it and pulling it out, body part by body part. Julie was not given enough anaesthesia to last the 20 minutes. She began vomiting, and since she could not throw up, it went to her lungs.

Kline stuck a 75-cent plastic airway into Julie’s throat to help her breathe.

After rushing the rest of the procedure - he bungled that, too, by leaving some foetal material inside her-he sent her to the recovery room with the plastic airway still in her throat.

"She started to come out of the anaesthesia and began chocking and gagging on the airway," Principe said. "She also began vomiting again. She literally choked on the vomit, drowned in it-and that led to a massive heart attack,"

Too late. Julie was taken to a hospital, where she languished for three weeks in a coma. Then she died.

Court testimony showed that the abortionists fabricated their medical records in an attempt to conceal their mistakes.

"The jury was appalled that a child of 13-or any patient-could be treated with such sub-standard care," Principe said.

There was a moment in the malpractice hearing that Principe will never forget.

This is the hero of Pensacola, the warrior who ran the barricades and had his name flashed around the nation.

It is tragically ironic that when an abortionist like Dr John Britton and his bodyguard were murdered in Pensacola, the shots were heard around the globe. But when a small, terrified child of 13 died as a result of unspeakable negligence and violence inside an abortion clinic, no one would have heard a word but for the New York Post.

It proves the point long made here-namely, that violence outside abortion clinics, indefensible though it is, does not begin to compare with massive violence perpetrated inside the clinics, where women and children like Julie are killed, maimed and scarred for life without a word of protest from much of the media, radical feminists and others.

Paul Hill, who committed Penscalo atrocities, will be brought to trial. Kline, who put Julie in her grave, isn’t even investigated by the medical profession. He goes free to continue his handiwork and is received in Pensacola as a conquering hero.

This is a crazy world.

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Sir - If Australian Medical Association president Dr Brendan Nelson believes laws should be considered to punish pregnant women who abuse their unborn child with too much drinking drug taking or smoking* (Herald Sun 8.9.94) what punishment does he believe doctors who deliberately kill unborn children by abortion should receive?

Speaking during National Child Protection Week recently Dr Nelson told the National Pres Club" unborn babies should have the same rights as anybody else not to he physically abused"  and criticised "a lack of state government effort in the area of protecting children's rights"

Surely this contradicts his reported call for a worldwide repeal of abortion laws protecting these children when NSW Supreme Court Judge Newman has reminded us all that there are such laws in place, in spite of widespread abuse against them.

Adelaide gynaecologist Dr Robert Jones, speaking of his involvement in abortions in an essay titled Ethics in Embryo, 1991 said Abortion is murder...you're extinguishing a life and if you don't face up to that, you’re net being honest with yourself."

Faced with such damning evidence from a medical colleague Dr Nelson surely is ethically obliged to call on doctors to stop the annual killing of 80,000 to 100,000 unborn Australian children.

He has been forthright in the condemnation of female circumcision,. Does he believe it Is wrong to mutilate baby girls but all right to kill baby girls-and boys?

If Dr Nelson showed the effects of abortion₁ Inflicted by his doctor colleagues on a baby, to the abortion lobby as he once showed the effects of smoking to the tobacco lobby, Dr Nelson could do for Australia's babies what he has done for Australia’s lungs.

Denise M Cameron, secretary, Pro-Life Victoria

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On Tuesday 30th August, three Pro-Life Victoria members attended a day long seminar on Late, Selective and Eugenic abortions, conducted by the Monash Bioethics Centre at the Royal Australian College of Surgeons. Amongst the topics discussed were "The role of termination after 20 weeks in clinical practice," "Are there limits to termination of pregnancy and "Late termination and selective non-treatment of disabled infants"

Dr David Grundmann of Planned Parenthood of Australia delivered the talk on "The role of termination after 20 weeks in clinical practice" Members would have been shocked to hear him speak of performing abortions on women up to 24 weeks pregnant on televisions Real Life, 7.30 Report and Today shows recently. The Australian newspaper (Friday October 28th) reported "A Queensland doctor’s boast that he is Australia’s most liberal terminator of mid term pregnantcies sparked new calls yesterday for abortion law reform. The Queensland Opposition accused the abortionist Dr David Grundman of using monstrous techniques. The Australian Medical Association branch president Dr Robert Hodge, said Dr Grundman stood alone in Australia in justifying his practices and called on the Government to pursue the due processes of the law if he was breaching the Criminal Code. Dr Grundman defended his practice yesterday and said he only took a more liberal stance than other doctors in cases where the lives of mothers were at risk.

They included women who did not know they were pregnant, faced economic hardship or had foetuses with minor abnormalities.’ These were justifiable cases for mid-term abortions’ he said.

The Queensland Opposition called on the Government to investigate The Attorney General, Mr Wells would not respond to the call for Government action." Queensland is a State to which many southerners like to migrate. Mr Wells might respond if enough prolifers all over Australia wrote to him protesting Dr Grundman’s activities.

Please write to...

Mr Don Wells,
Attorney General,
Parliament House,
Cnr George and Alice Streets,
Brisbane 4000
Queensland.

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An interesting and thought provoking report comes to us from London. Scientific evidence indicating that unborn children feel pain has been reported by British researchers.

Writing in the Lancet (July 9, 1994), they said unborn babies release stress hormones as well as reacting with "vigorous body and breathing movements" when doctors push a needle into, them during prenatal blood transfusions.

The team from London’s Centre for Fetal Care recommended giving painkillers before such procedures and "possibly also ... termination of pregnancy, especially by surgical techniques involving dismemberment".

Stress hormones were measured in unborn children of 20-34 weeks’ gestation when doctors took blood samples from their umbilicords and abdomens.

When the needle was left in the abdomen for 10 minutes or more, as in a transfusion, the babies released stress hormones associated in children and adults with the sensation of pain. The longer the needle stayed in, the greater the concentration of hormones.

Even the youngest child given a transfusion, at 23 weeks’ gestation, showed a big rise in stress hormone levels.

But when blood was taken from a nerve-free site on the umbilical cord, no stress response was recorded.

"These data suggest that the fetus mounts a hormonal stress response to invasive procedures," wrote Professor Nicholas Fisk and his team. "They raise the possibility that the human fetus feels pain in utero, and may benefit from anaesthesia or analgesia for invasive procedures."

Reproduced from the newsletter Humanity, New Zealand.

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In the same clinic, where abortionist Gunn was shot last year, a lady was recently killed by an abortion. Sadly, no publicity was given to her death. Pam Colson, 31, died two and one half hours after having an abortion. She haemorrhaged to death from a perforated uterus, leaving two children, one a toddler. You heard about the two abortionists who were shot. Did you hear about this lady who was killed?

Reproduced from the Newsletter Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati Inc.

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A short article in a Cincinnati paper was welcoming news to pro-lifers. The Ohio law requiring abortionists to give clients a pamphlet explaining fetal development, and also requiring a twenty-four-hour waiting period, has been in effect for six months. Cincinnati’s Planned parenthood director is quoted as saying, "There is no doubt this has been a problem for us". She stated that the number of abortions done at their abortion mill in Cincinnati has decreased.

Quote: "We don’t have hard numbers yet, but it is obvious to us that we are doing fewer procedures."

Reproduced from the Newsletter Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati Inc.

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Because of draconian laws allowing only one child families, a substantial number of Chinese parents are opting for only a boy They will either abort a girl baby or, mysteriously, those infant girls die. The Farmer’s Daily newspaper in China has bemoaned, "Our proportion of males and females is out of balance. Fifty-one and a half per cent of China’s people are now men. That ratio will continue to increase because there are now 114 male births for every 100 female births. In a few years this will result in an army of seventy million bachelors roaming the countryside looking for wives

Reproduced from the Newsletter Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati Inc.

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Over the years, there have been multiple complaints lodged against Alabama abortionist Thomas Tucker, the operator of a Birmingham abortion mill. Recently, 21 year old Micelle Jordan, died in his clinic during removal of a Norplant insert. The Alabama Board of Medical Examiners cited that "probable cause exists that Tucker has practised medicine in a manner that endangers the health of patients and has committed gross malpractice or gross negligence". In response, the Alabama Medical Licensure Commission in April, suspended his license to practice stating that Tucker "may constitute an immediate danger to his patients and to the public" and that he had shown "reckless difference" in the recent death of a patient.

Reproduced from the Newsletter Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati Inc.

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