Pro-Life News

Pro-Life Victoria: Speaking Up for Humanity in the New Millennium

RU-486 is a unique drug in that no other drug Is designed to end a human life, and so its importation demands a unique level of public accountability. That is the answer to the recurring question put to me recently by MPs and Senators: Why should this drug require special approval by the Health Minister, when all other drugs are simply assessed by the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration)?

RU-486 Is out there on its own. You may think the life of a very young human being matters, or think that it does not, but there is no dispute scientifically that after using RU-486, where there once was a tiny beating heart and an unfolding human destiny, there is now death. That is unique, and of deep public concern.

Further, all other drugs are designed to treat a specific medical condition, but not RU-486. Pregnancy is not a disease; RU-486 is used on the entirely healthy offspring of entirely healthy women. That is unique, and medically unjustifiable.

That is why in 1996, when the current arrangements were set in place, both Labor and the Coalition supported Senator Brian Harradine's amendment that required the responsible minister to confirm any importation of RU-486. In 1996, former senator Belinda Neal spoke on behalf of Labor with a moral seriousness lacking in the current debate:

"we acknowledge that this issue raises large concerns within the community. It raises issues beyond purely health issues. These issues need to be addressed by the executive of this government and addressed with absolute and direct accountability."

The Parliament in 1996 aimed to prevent recurrence of the debacle in 1994 where a junior official in the Health Department approved the importation of RU-486 without the minister's knowledge.

Fast forward a decade, and the Democrat amendment to remove the need for ministerial "signing off" is nothing more than an undoing of this accountability, so once more a departmental lackey can approve RU-486 without the minister taking responsibility or the Parliament knowing,

This Parliament is not being asked to vote on the merits of RU-486, but only on a Democrat amendment which undermines, for ideological reasons, proper ministerial accountability on a matter of public importance. It would be a triumph of under handedness over transparency in our public life.

And remember, RU-486 has never been banned and can be imported tomorrow if a genuine medical need exists. If RU-486 was being imported for treatment of brain cancer or Cushing's syndrome, or even for those rare situations where abortion is medically essential to prevent grave physical harm to the mother, that should he approved.

But we are not being asked to import this drug on medical grounds, to treat a disease or for authentic medical abortions, but on ideological grounds - a matter of "increasing choice", as the AMA's Dr Mukesh Haikerwal puts it, in the context of social abortion for reasons of financial or emotional distress.

The medical professon and the Government should draw the line at importing a medication when there is no authentic medical condition to be treated. And both the profession and the Government should instead be diverting their energies to relieving the underlying social pressures that drive women to abortion, rather than treating social problems with a chemical.

Last Friday night in Brisbane 700 women gathered to demand this sort of constructive approach. Melinda Tankard Reist, spokeswoman for Womens Forum Australia, said: "We've got all this political will to give women a drug, a poisonous drug, a chemical cocktail, to abort their pregnancies.

"What about some political will into providing them with support and bringing about structural changes so that they can have their children and don't have to have unwanted abortions?"

RU-486 is a uniquely complex social challenge and its fate should he decided by those elected to judge on matters of public concern - not by bureaucrats dealing only with sterile technical matters of safety and efficacy.

If Parliament votes to dodge responsibility, by supporting the Democrat amendment, it will by timid default give its imprimator to the misguided and unjustifiable practice of abortion on demand for non-medical reasons.

Instead of addressing the root cause of those social abortions through creative social policy initiative, they will callously permit a human pesticide to be inflicted on mothers and their babies, a drug which will be part of this terrible disease, not part of the cure.

In recently heard a Melbourne radio broadcaster suggest Bendigo was Victoria's most beautiful city. The 19/11 edition of Melbourne's Age newspaper confirmed this when it revealed Bendigo Health doesn't do abortions. Bendigo Health doesn't kill babies. But if Victoria's Health Minister has her way, this could change. In an article titled RU Serious? Karen Kissane one reported Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike intended asking the Maternity Services Advisory Council to look at the provision of abortion services in the region. An abortion clinic for Bendig? Provided by the same Health Minister who recently claimed to have devoted her life to the pursuit of human rights? Surely the first human right is the right to life? Abortion denies this.

I wonder what local MLA Jancinta Allan thinks of this proposed provision of abortion services in beautiful Bendigo? In another article about Bendigo in The Sunday Age, 13/11 she was named as a member of the pro abortion Emily's List. When right-to-lifers revealed this in a letter box campaign during the 2002 State elections Allan told her mentor and co-founder of Emily's List, Joan Kirner: "I am going to stand up (to right-to-lifers) and he counted, I'm not scared " But what about Ms Allan standing up for her unborn future constituents?

In Karen Kissane's article, Bendigo Catholic Cathedral is depicted as having an oppressive effect on the town, when the opposite is true. The transcendental effect or its sight on visitors approaching the city is surely, along with not killing babies, another of Bendigo's proudest boasts?

A mere 500 yards away from the traditional site of Jesus' birth, a Bethlehem maternity hospital is committed to seeing that no expectant mother is ever told there is "no room." Holy Family Hospital is an obstetrical/gynecological facility - the only one in the region that can handle the complicated medical conditions of women living in extreme poverty and under the shadow of political strife which stalks the birthplace of the 'Prince of Peace."

According to the familiar Christmas story, the Virgin Mary traveled with Joseph to the city of Bethlehem, arriving just as her labour began. Desperate for lodging that could both shelter them and provide a safe place to give birth, they found "no room at the inn" and were forced to make do with a stable instead. This may all make for charming nativity scenes with oxen and donkeys and hay-filled mangers, but there is not an expectant mother in the world who would not want better accommodations for her own new. horn.

Holy Family Hospital's modern state-of-the-art birthing facilities and neonatal intensive care units for preemies could not be a greater contrast to the primitive stable that served the original 'Holy Family', But in many ways the contrast remains. Says Holy Family Hospital Foundation's Executive Director Colleen Marotta, "Outside Holy Family Hospital's doors, the primitive conditions. in which Our Lord was born still exist and women often find themselves delivering their babics in the most unsanitary and unsafe of condition:. 25% of the women Holy Family Hospital serves live in refugee camps and 13% of the babies born must be admitted into the neonatal intensive care unit. Holy Family Hospital is the ONLY neonatal intensive case facility in the whole region.

In 1989, at the request of Pope John Paul II, the Order of Malta, an international charitable organization, took over the hospital facilities - a former general hospital, and determined to provide medical services to women and infants. In the year 2000, the late Holy Father named Holy Family Hospital one of his top 100 priorities for the new millennium. Countless lives have been saved since the Hospital opened its doors and over 30,000 babies have been born without a single maternal death - a stunning statistic for the region. Some 200 women a month are overcoming imposed curfews and road closures to reach the hospital for delivery. The doors of the hospital have also never closed due to the political unrest that have made many a not-so-silent night.

Marotta sees the hospital as a refuge of hope for the expectant mothers and fathers, "The women who give birth may have different traditions but they are united in that primal need of all laboring women for safety and care as they bring their children into the world. Like Mary and Joseph, those families are ona journey to find a place of refuge, a place of promise, a place where their babies can be delivered safely. In all of the Bethlehem region. only one place is their destination - Holy Family Hospital".

The Holy Family Hospital of Bethlehem Foundation is U.S. based and serves as a modern day Magi bringing this gift of life to the poor women and infants of the West Bank by raising the needed funds to meet the operational expenses of the hospital. Donation s are tax deductible according to current IRS guidelines.

For more information about The Holy Family Hospital of Bethlehem Foundation, please visit their web site www.hfhfoundation.com

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has indicated that in February, he will allow a vote on whether abortion pill RU-486 be permitted as a further abortion option. The abortion pill is intended to kill unborn children after around eight weeks of human development when all human organs are present and the heart pumping.

Please telephone or write first to your own Member of the House of Representatives and secondly to Mr Howard,

Express your concern in your own words. Telephoning is actually quite an easy and effective option.

• The increase of abortions is a serous problem and the abortion pill is likely to increase the numbers of abortions.

• Abortion undermines relationships between men and women and encourages more men to act irresponsibly and to deny women support they need.

• Australia faces problems due to an aging population because about 3 million unborn babies have died by abortion since 1973.

• It is already a serious problem that independent counseling is not offered to women.

• Post abortion trauma is a serious hidden outcome silently suffered by many women and this will be worsened if women are involved in the abortion by their own action and possibly witnessing the expulsion of the foetus in their own homes.

• Overseas, there have been at least nine deaths of women already attributed to the use of RU-486. The RU-486 abortion has several side effects and will require three visits to a doctor.

Currently in Victoria abortion is interpreted by the Courts (Menhenitt Ruling) as being permissible where there is sufficient danger for the mother's physical and mental health. The Crimes Act still provides for abortion to be treated as homicide.

Early in December, Mr Bracks refused to introduce pro-abortion legislation in line with an ALP policy confirmed at the Party's State Conference. The Liberal Party Leader Mr Robert Doyle then spoke out to say he would introduce such legislation if he won Government at neat year's election!

Please write to him to express your dismay. Please also write to each of your local representatives, if they are Liberal Members. They need to know that Mr Doyle's statement is of grave concern to you. You may make any comments you wish in your own words. You may suggest that the Victorian Government should be taking initiatives to provide support to pregnant women in need. The number of abortions is far too high and women deserve more than the expectation that they will seek abortion. Mr Doyle would appear to want no restrictions on abortion right up until birth as is now the case in the Australian Capital Territory. You could ask a question regarding Mr Doyle's announcement.

Note that Mr Doyle' s leadership of the Party has recently been reported to be in doubt.

If you do not know your Federal and Stale MP's, please phone the Electoral Commission on 13 23 26.

"All their tomorrows depend on your love"

You may wish to consider a bequest to ProLife Victoria in your will
as a means of "giving later" and ensuring that your support lives on.

Enquiries: Pro-Life Victoria, 9818 6186

Since It has become generally used in the western world, the French abortion pill, RU-486, has now resulted in the death of eight women. This fact speaks for itself in regard to the so-called safety of the drug. Let me briefly describe each victim.

1. The first published case occurred in France, April 1991, but was widely dismissed because it was reported she had all three contraindications to the use of the drug. She had been a heavy smoker, had heart problems and high blood pressure. Over the next several years, there were no deaths reported, possibly because the drug was only beginning to be introduced in many countries.

2. In September 2001, a Canadian woman died from septic shock eight days after taking the pills. This was a result of a Clostridium infection in the uterus, possibly due to retained parts of the baby. A second woman, 21 years old, sustained a serious heart attack but survived. As a result, the Canadian trials of RU-496 were temporarily halted.

3. On September 12, 2001. a 38- year-old woman in Tennessee died five days after taking RU-486. She had a tubal pregnancy which. according to a warning from the Food and Drug Administration, RU-486 will not abort. This abortion facility apparently failed to make the proper diagnosis, even though they did an ultrasound. According to her boyfriend, they said, "We don't see any fetus in the uterus, but that is not unusual. This is an early pregnancy." She returned home and developed severe pain and bleeding, which worsened over several days. She placed multiple calls to the abortion facility, as her condition worsened, but was advised that her Symtoms were normal and routine. She was finally hospitalized and received legitimate medical care, but died from massive peritonitis from the ruptured tube. A major malpractice lawsuit was subsequently filed.

4. Holly Patterson, an 18-year-old girl in California, died September 17,2003, after taking RU-486. The Planned Parenthood death centre did not educate her on how to administer the medication, did not have her signature on a consent form and failed to her death as an unusual occurrence. After taking the medication, she returned to a local hospital twice, The first time she was given painkillers and sent home. The second time, she went to the hospital where she died. The Alameda County, California Coroners official autopsy report stated that she died because the drugs did not produce a complete abortion. The retained parts developed a massive systemic infection, septic shock and resulted in death.

5. Rebecca Tell Berg, a sixteen year-old Swedish girl, died June 3, 2003 from an RU-486 abortion. In this case, she apparently received good medical care. She was seven weeks pregnant. One week after being examined by a gynecologist, she returned to the hospital and was given three RU-486 abortion pills, a full dose. Two days later she returned and was given two Cytotec pills. After a few hours, she was in severe pain, bleeding heavily and was given pain medication. After being kept in the hospital for eight hours, she passed a "big blob" and was sent home. Days later, still bleeding and in pain, her boyfriend encouraged her to go to the hospital. However, hospital officials told her she could bleed for as long as two weeks, so she stayed home. During this time, a medical professional, inquiring about her condition, made at least one phone call. Eight days after the abortion she was found dead in the shower. A coroner's report confirmed that Rebecca bled to death. It noted, however, that the doctors had given an appropriate dosage, followed proper procedure and "followed all the rules."

6,7. The British government, in January 2004, announced that two women had died after taking RU-486 for abortions. No details of the deaths or the victims have been given except that they died after taking RU-486. The deaths were described as "suspected fatal reactions associated with the use of RU-486." When questioned the health minister noted there might have been other causes for the deaths but provided no evidence other than the use of RU-486.

8. In November 2004 the US Food and Drug Administration announce that another woman had died from taking RU-486. The FDA said that they had reports of 17 potentially fatal cases of tubal pregnancy that had taken the drug. They noted that heavy bleeding was a problem in 8%, lasting as long as thirty days. They have records of 72 cases needing blood transfusions. They also reported seven near fatal cases of severe sepsis (bacteria infections), which were treated successfully. Rather than take this dangerous drug off the market, which is what they would have done if this had been any other drug except an abortion drug, they have compromised by issuing a revised warning label detailing these potential serious problems.
Short of death, the most serious concern is bleeding. Women who take RU-486 usually bleed for one or two week with 10% bleeding more than on month. This leaves women exposed to infection for an extended period time. The average woman loses four times the average blood from a standard surgical abortion. In European trials, at least one in every hundred women had to be hospitalized due t blood loss and needed a transfusion. One case illustrating this occurred during the official trials of RU-486 in the United States. A woman in Iowa almost died from hemorrhage from a incomplete RU-486 abortion. Multiple emergency blood transfusions save her life. (This according to Dr. M Loviere, Waterloo Courier, 24-9-95.)
Much more detail could be given, the problems resulting from the use this chemical abortion, including fetal deformity in babies delivered after failed use of these drugs. As a close observer of this issue from its begining, I felt it was time to document these deaths and tell the world this not a safe drug.

In the Autumn 2004 edition of Pro Life News readers were told of Pro Life Victoria's commitment to distributing a poster publicizing a positve alternative to abortion to Specialist Obstetric and General medical Practices throughout Australia. The posters had already been sent to 1,500 Australian Churches. The poster publicizes the national 24 hours hotline for help for pregnant mothers, uncertain , unprepared, upset, frightened and reluctant to discover they are carrying a child.

The hotline is that of Pregnancy Counselling Australia, staffed by trained counsellors 24 hours a day. The catching poster had been designed especially for doctors clinics, churches, health-centres and any other suitable venue, with the aim of proclaiming in the most practical and tangible way, that help for the mother and child is only as far away as the nearest telephone. Since that edition of ProLife News, we have persevered with this project so that we have reached the stage where all the Specialist Obstetric and General Medical Practices of all Australian States, with the exception only of New South Wales and Queensland, have been provided with the poster and a covering letter addressed to the Practice Manager.

It costs a dollar to post each poster. What has been most prohibitive however has been the cost of purchasing the addressed labels for all these medical practices. The quote for purchasing the address labels for New South Wales and Queensland is $5,000.

We now believe that with a lot of hard and tedious work by a small group of dedicated volunteers we can produce the address labels ourselves thereby saving the pro life movement $5000. There are 11,181 Specialist Obstetric and General Medical Practices in New South Wales and Queensland which means we would need $11,181 to mail the posters to them. In the Autumn 2004 edition of ProLife News we stated we would not give up until every medical practice in Australia had received this poster. We believe this would be a major achievement for the Australian ProLife movement. It is also a project that to date has not been undertaken in the 30 years of the movement's history. Pro Life Victoria has the 'template". It would be foolish to waste the time and effort of a movement with such scarce resources as ours "reinventing the wheel" , so we are going outside, as well as within Pro Life Victoria, to appeal for the $11,181 needed to post these posters offering an alternative-to abortion to mothers in New South Wales and Queensland. This is an offer too good to miss. The costs of reprinting the posters and covering letters, the costs of envelopes are not included in the $11,181. Pro Life Victoria is willing to spend its money on this in the interests of seeing the job efficiently completed. So that we can then move onto other similar projects promoting a culture of life! We appeal to all readers to think seriously about how this $11,181 can be raised in the corning new Year.

High profile Melbourne barrister, Robert Richter, last heard debating in favour of euthanasia, took the opportunity of a gathering of the legal fraternity to mark and make known their opposition to the execution of the unfortunate young Melbourne man Tuong Van Nguyen in Singapore, to take a most inappropriate swipe at prolifers. Instead of protesting outside "medical facilities" (le: abortuaries) they should be protesting at the "gallows" he said. He also offended other Australians with an equally inappropriate comparison to the suffering of Australian soldiers in Chang' prison during the Second World War. For this offence, he quickly apologised. But there was no apology to prolifers. There are no gallows in Australia at which proffers need protest Mr Richter.

Capital punishment was abolished in the 1960's before the proffe movement was formed in 1973. But if you are truly against capital punishment, as the late Father Brosnan, who was present at Victoria's last execution used to say, "from womb to tomb" there are plenty of abortuaries outside of which you could protest. "No man is an is/and unto himself' wrote John Donne. "Every man's death diminishes me. When the bell tolls, ask not for whom. It tolls for thee'. Twenty five bells tolled solemnly at St Ignatius Richmond to m ark the 25 years of the life of young Thong Van Nguyen. But these bells never toll for the lives snuffed out daily in the abortuaries of Richmond and East Melbourne, a stone's throw from St Ignatius. We are nonetheless no less diminished by these deaths, than we are by Tuong Van Nguyen's death.

The practice of beatification and canonization by the Catholic Church is not so much for the personal glorification of the beatified or canonized but rather for the inspiration and edification of those of us still on this earth. The beatification in Rome on Sunday October 9 of Cardinal Clemens August von Galen is one such example. With the beatification of this generous pastor, the Church invites us to imitate, amid the vicissitudes of our times, his brave and faithful witness. Cardinal von Galen was a model of fearless opposition to euthanasia and the pro life movement is grateful to the Holy Father for honouring such heroic pro life witness.

Recalling his life, LifesiteNews records that Cardinal von Galen, called the "Lion of Munster"' was best known for his stand against Hitler which was ignited mainly through his defeat of Hitler's program of euthanasia for the mentally and physically disabled. Historians relate that Hitler's eugenics policy called for euthanasia of those with incurable diseases. By 1940 bus loads of unsuspecting victims were taken to medical centres for extermination. Then Bishop, von Galen's famous August 3, 1941 sermon against the euthanasia program is regarded as a turning point in the war. Using language today's pro lifers will find very familiar, Bishop von Galen condemned the attempt to give legal sanction to the forceable killing of invalids, cripples, the incurable and the incapacitated. He said, "Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons, then none of us can be sure of his life. A curse on men and on the German people if we break the holy commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' ... woe to us German people if we not only licence this heinous offence but allow it to he committed with impunity" By the end of August the euthanasia program was cancelled.

While Nazi leaders contemplated killing the good bishop, they were too concerned about a public uprising given his vast popularity among the people. This should he of enormous encouragement to today's Catholic Bishops. We live in parallel times. Do we have a Lion of Munster in our Australian Church today? Cardinal von Galen died in his bed- He was not shot at dawn. Nor will, I suspect, any Bishop who today takes on the Australian Government and calls for an end to today's silent holocaust of abortion.

Since he placed a spotlight on a brutal campaign by population control officials in one region of China, blind activist Chen Cuangcheng has been under house arrest and twice assaulted for trying to leave. Now, some of the details of the thousands of forced abortions and sterilizations he helped expose are coming to light. In a comprehensive report by the Sun Francisco Chronicle, women who were subjected to violence, harassment and forced abortions tell their story. Zhu Hongying, 40, and her husband, Xia Jiandong, 40 were farmers in a local village outside the huge city of Linyi. They already had one son and when population control officials found out Zhu was five months pregnant, she hid with family members in Linyi. "We panicked and ran into (Linyi) to hide," Zhu said during an interview with the Chronicle by telephone because police have sealed off her area following Chen's detention. Zhu said the officials arrested three of her sisters in order to force her to come out of hiding. When she returned home, "The people from the family planning department were waiting for us. They demanded 700 RMB (about $90, two months wages for Zhu) to release my sisters-in-law, and pushed me into a van and took me to a local family planning clinic." Once there, eight officials surrounded her and coerced her into agreeing to haven abortion, she told the San Francisco newspaper. "I just kept sobbing and begging, but no one listened," she said. ''Finally, I was so weak, I just said "yes". Then a doctor came in and gave me an injection in the stomach. After I took the shot, the whole day I didn't feel anything. The second day in the early morning blood and water all flowed out of me. Then the baby came out, but it was dead, It was a boy. After she had the abortion her husband said, a nurse came back into the room, placed the baby in a black plastic bag. "She told me to go throw it into a truck, which had a large container kind of thing at the back," Xia explained to the Chronicle. "When I opened the door and looked in, it was , full of black bags and blood."

Compared to women who have not been pregnant in the prior year, deaths from suicide, accidents and homicide are 248% higher in the year following an abortion, according to a new 13-year study or the entire population of women in Finland.

The study also found that majority of the extra deaths among women who had abortions were due to suicide, The suicide rate among women who had abortions was six times higher than that of women who had given birth in the prior year and double that of women who had miscarriages.

The epidemiological study, published in the European Journal of Public Health, was conducted by Finland's National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES). The researchers looked at data between 1987 and 2000 on all deaths among women of reproductive age (15 to 49).

While the risk of death from suicide, accidents, and homicide was highest among women who had abortions within the prior year, the risk of death was lowest among women who gave birth within the prior year, who had less than half the death rate of women who had not been pregnant. The risk of death following a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, however, did not significantly differ from the risk or death among non-pregnant women.

The new study confirms findings from previous record-based studies carried out in Finland and the United States that have found elevated risks of death among women who have abortions. A 1997 government-funded study in Finland found that aborting women were 3.5 times more likely to die within the next year compared to women who gave birth.

In addition, researchers examining death records linked to medical payments for birth and abortion for 173,000 California women found that aborting women were 62 percent more likely to die than delivering women over the eight year period examined.

That study also found that the increase risk of death was most promnent from suicides and accidents, with a 154 percent higher risk of death from suicide and an 82 percent higher risk of death from accidental injuries.

The lead author of the California study, David Reardon, Ph.D., said that record-linkage studies are vital to getting an accurate picture of pregnancy- associated mortality rates. "In most cases, coroners simply have no way of knowing that the deceased recently had an abortion, which is why these new record linkage studies are so important," he said Indeed, another recent study by government health officials in Finland found that 94 percent of maternal deaths associated with abortion could not be identified by looking at death certificates alone. This finding applies to the data published by the Centres for Disease Control in the United States.

Previous studies have also linked abortion to higher rates of substance abuse, anxiety, sleep disorders, suicidal thoughts, psychiatric illness. relationship problems, and risk-taking behaviour, any of which may increase a women's risk of death by suicide or accident - The authors of the new Finland study also speculated that there might be common risk factors between having an induced abortion and dying from an accidental injury, and called on medical professional to be aware of these risks.

"Women seeking abortions should be informed that abortion is associated with significant physical and mental health risks, and it also deprives them of numerous physical and mental health benefits associated with childbirth." Reardon said, "It is especially important for health care providers to be aware of these risks and the risk factors which identify those women who are at highest risk. Providing women with the resources to help them resolve emotional issues relating to past abortions will not only increase their well-being but may possibly save their lives."

M. Gissler et. al., "Injury deaths, suicides and homicides associated with pregnancy, Finland 1987-2000," European J. Public Health 15(5):459-63 (2005).

M. Gissler et. al., "Pregnancy Afificiated Death in Finland 1987-1991 -- definition problems and benefits of record linkage," Acta Obsetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica 46:651- 657 (1997)

DC Reardon et. al., "Deaths Associated With Pregnancy Outcome: A Record Linkage Study of Low Income Women," Southern Medical Journal 95(8):834-41 (2002).

M. Gissler, et. al., "Methods for identifying pregnancy-associated deaths: population-based data from Finland 1987-2000," Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol 18(6): 448-55 (2004).

UNITED STATES - Washington, DC -Former President Jimmy Carter yesterday condemned all abortions and took his party to task for its strong pro-abortion position. He said his Christian faith compels him to oppose abortion because it takes a human life.

"I never have felt that any abortion should be committed - I think each abortion is the result of a series of errors," he told reporters over breakfast at a Washington hotel. The comments came while senators across town were meeting with Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and debating whether his position on abortion should compel them to oppose his nomination

"These things impact other issues on which [Mr. Bush) and I basically agree," the former president said of his abortion stance. "I've never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion."

Carter said leaders in the Democratic Party have hurt it because of their insistence on a rigid pro-abortion stance within the party and for party leadership positions. "I have always thought it was not in the mainstream of the American public to be extremely liberal on many issues''

Carter said, according to a Witchington Times report. 'I think our party's leaders-some of them - are overemphasizing the abortion issue,"

SOUTH KOREA - South Korea Stem Cell Researcher in Seclusion Since Admitting Lies Seoul, South Korea - Human cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk has been in seclusion in a Buddhist temple since announcing to the world two weeks ago that he had lied and tried to cover up for donations of eggs that his junior female scientists gave for research. Scientists around the world criticized Hwang for his actions and many withdrew their participation from his work and an international embryonic stem cell research hub he started. Hwang enjoys enormous public and governmental support, which has only grown stronger since his apology, but he remains in hiding. Criticism of Hwang, who rose from a humble background to become a celebrated scientist, is seen by some South Koreans. as an attack On national dignity.

ITALY - Rome, - As elections heat up in Italy, lawmakers in the Italian Parliament are considering a proposal to pay pregnant women with unplanned pregnancies to avoid abortions. Italian voters are expected to vote again in April and the Catholic Church is lobbying MPs to do more to reduce abortions. Abortion has been legal in Italy for 30 years and while no one is suggesting changing that, both right-wing government lawmakers and left-wing opposition lawmakers may agree on the plan to pay women considering abortions to choose otherwise. In a recent budget bill the Italian government proposed paying pregnant women after they have given birth. In 1978, Italy legalized abortion up to the third month of pregnancy and the centre-left opposition Margherita party has a proposal where the state would give poor single women more than $400 a month from that point until birth. A parliamentary committee is reviewing the measure.

USA - Aliquippa, -A pro-life nurse representing a leading organization of medical professionals that opposes abortion says pro-life advocates should be on guard for problems involved with living wills. Since the euthanasia death of Terri Schiavo in March, more attention has been focused on the documents. Deborah Sturm, a registered nurse and member of National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, discussed living wills and advanced directives at the recent meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists at Franciscan University of Steubenville. "The standard living-will documents that are advocated by those who support euthanasia have a general presumption for death," Sturm told Zenit news service. "The language is often ambiguous and can be interpreted by a health-care provider in a variety of ways that a patient did not intend." "Some living wills allow for the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration - which, of course, includes food and water - if a patient is, comatose or vegetative," she told Zenit. "It is against Catholic teaching to refuse a patient nutrition and hydration just because they have those diagnoses" "In other words, a living will can kill a person,' she explained.