China Officials Trying to Force Woman Six-Months Pregnant to Have Abortion
Beijing, China (LifeNews.com) -- Chinese officials are coming under heavy criticism from a leading pro-life member of Congress who is upset they are considering forcing a woman who is six months pregnant to have an abortion. China strictly enforces its one-child family planning policy and uses forced abortions and sterilizations to do so. What separates the case of Arzigul Tursun from others is that the woman is 26 weeks into her pregnancy and the abortion would very likely cause her health problems. Tursun is also a Muslim Uighur woman and Chinese family planning officials don't normally enforce the one-child law as rigorously with minorities as they do on people of Chinese decent. Tursun is currently at the Municipal Watergate Hospital in the extreme northwestern part of China and the baby would be her third child if she is allowed to complete the pregnancy. Her husband says officials in their village of Yining learned of the pregnancy and they warned the couple that their property would be confiscated if Tursun did not have an abortion. The case has attracted the attention of Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican congressman who is a leading pro-life advocate. Smith has written to Zhou Wenzhong, the China ambassador to the United States, and demanded that the "nightmare of a forced abortion" not be used in Tursun's case. Full story at LifeNews.com
Undercover Reporters: Drug Used in Worldwide Euthanasia Faces Crackdown
Tijuana, Mexico (LifeNews.com) -- An undercover news team from a television station in San Diego has found that officials in Mexico are cracking down on a drug promoted for suicides. Euthanasia advocates worldwide have been promoting Mexico as a destination to obtain drugs that elderly people or terminally ill patients can use to kill themselves. As LifeNews.com has reported, at least 200 people from English-speaking countries have traveled to since 2001 to end their lives by obtaining a drug normally used to euthanize animals -- Nembutal. Exit International, a pro-euthanasia group from Australia, is one of the groups promoting the purchase of the drug because it was easy to obtain for a small amount of money. But undercover reporters from News 10 in San Diego find that's not the case anymore. The drug, a strong barbiturate, was formerly used as a sleeping pill and it has been blamed for the deaths of luminaries such as Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Jimi Hendrix. To see if the drug is still as readily available, undercover reporters from News 10 went to Tijuana and followed the instructions found in a book Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has written with specific instructions on obtaining Nembutal. Full story at LifeNews.com
British Secretary of State: Govt Won't Expand Abortion to Northern Ireland
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Responding to questions from members of the British Parliament, Secretary of State Shaun Woodward said Thursday that the government will not expand abortion to Northern Ireland. The question of extending the 1967 Abortion Act to the region has been hotly contested in recent months. MPs attempted to attach an amendment to the HFE bill that would have forced abortion on Northern Ireland even though Stormont has been strongly opposed to it. Woodward said Northern Ireland's assembly was the best place for that battle to occur, and not in Westminster, according to a Belfast Telegraph report. "Successive governments have consistently said that extending the Abortion Act 1967 to Northern Ireland would need the most careful consultation there and that no change to the current arrangements should be made against the wishes of the people in Northern Ireland," he said. "The Government believes that the best forum for taking decisions on this matter is the Northern Ireland Assembly once it has taken responsibility for criminal law," he added. Full story at LifeNews.com
El Salvador Praised for Rejecting Pro-Abortion Ibero-American Convention
San Salvador, El Salvador (LifeNews.com) -- The tiny Central America nation El Salvador is earning praise from pro-life advocates for rejecting an international treaty that would promote abortion. The Hispanic nation's president, Elias Antonio Saca, says he will not sign the Ibero-American Convention on the Rights of Youth (ICRY). Saca affirmed his intentions at an Ibero-American leaders summit late last month and, according to a leading pro-life group, said it would violate El Salvador's Constitution. Piero Tozzi and Neydy Casillas Padrón, of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, tell LifeNews.com that Saca's veto "cheered Latin American social conservatives who have been wary of articles in the Convention that they say promote" abortion. Writing in the group's Friday Fax publication, the pair say the ICRY is "backed by Spain's socialist president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and has the support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Department of Economic and Social Affairs." "Proponents tout the treaty as enhancing the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of young people between the ages of 15 and 24," they write. But critics say it labels 'sexual and reproductive health' a 'right' and calls for 'confidentiality' with respect to this right. Full story at LifeNews.com
