Senate Confirmation Vote on Pro-Abortion Judicial Pick David Hamilton Still Waiting
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Activists on both sides of the abortion debate are still waiting for a vote in the U.S. Senate on President Barack Obama's first pro-abortion judicial pick, David Hamilton. Obama selected Hamilton for a position on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and pro-life advocates strongly oppose the selection. The Senate Judiciary Committee, on June 4, voted to approve Hamilton's nomination after a hearing that was rushed two weeks following the nomination and saw Republicans boycott for lack of time to properly scrutinize his record. Teo Molin of Human Events writes about Hamilton and his pro-abortion record and says he is squarely outside the mainstream in part because of his repeated decisions to refuse to implement a law allowing women information about abortion's risks and alternatives. He calls Hamilton an "outright left-of-moderate pro-abortion liberal" -- a conclusion "drawn not only from his court rulings, but also from his various partisan affiliations and meandering responses to questions. " Molin cites how Hamilton has served as a volunteer attorney for the ACLU and was a board member and vice president of litigation for its Indiana affiliate. However, Molin notes that Hamilton did not list the entirety of his affiliations with the pro-abortion legal group in his survey response to the Senate asking for his complete background and history. "He omitted these organizations because on multiple occasions, he tried cases on which representatives of these groups served as counsel for plaintiffs," Molin writes. In one of the cases regarding the informed consent law approved by the state legislature, Hamilton likely should have recused himself but, instead, ruled in favor of abortion advocates who were represented by an ACLU attorney. Molin says Hamilton "muddled Indiana's informed-consent abortion laws, which undermined a modest step to reduce the number of abortions and flourished an outright affront to legal precedent. Which seems to be a clear case of legislating from the bench."
Sweden Officials Want National Abortion Registry to Reduce Abortions
Stockholm, Sweden (LifeNews.com) -- The Swedish government received a report on Monday proposing a national abortion registry for the nation. The report also wants the government to distribute free contraception to students over fifteen in an effort it claims will reduce the number of abortions. Anders Milton, the report's author, says Sweden has a high abortion rate that must be addressed. "For whatever reasons, we in Sweden have more abortions than other countries in western Europe," he write in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. Milton says he wants medical journals to do more to process abortion data so research can be conducted into how to reduce abortions. "In Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as other countries, it is known that abortion figures for women born outside Western Europe are twice as high or many times as high as those for Danish or Dutch-born women," he writes. With an abortion register in Sweden he says officials can determine if "abortions are more common in certain socioeconomic or cultural groups. We simply don't know if we are reaching everybody with public information campaigns or whether we need more targeted campaigns. Along with free contraceptives he proposes that "education in sex and relationships in the broadest sense should be written into the curriculum in a clearer way, and the teaching of these subjects should recur throughout the school year." But Lena Marions, senior physician at Karolinska University Hospital, is critical of the proposal for schools to distribute free condoms and contraceptive pills to all students over the age of fifteen. "It should be each individual's, especially young people's, own responsibility to be safe when having sexual relations, and since contraceptives are readily available in youth centers further distribution of them to students will be insignificant," she told The Local newspaper. Sweden has also had a high rate of distribution of the morning after pill, which stats show has not lowered the number of abortions.
United Way Organizations in Sarasota, Florida and Buffalo, New York Support Abortion Business
Sarasota, FL (LifeNews.com) -- United Way local affiliates in two locations are coming under fire for making donations to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business. Local pro-life advocates in Sarasota, Florida say the United Way of Sarasota County has continued to give money to Planned Parenthood as it has done since 1976. That accounts for 31 of the 42 years Planned Parenthood has been located in the area. United Way has contributed $42,000 annually for each of the last three years to the Florida-based Planned Parenthood under the ironic category of "Building Strong Children and Families." The UW affiliate gave $20,380 for Planned Parenthood programs targeted at teenagers and another $21,620 for programs targeting low-income area residents. Local pro-life advocates are asking people to contact members of the UW board, including Marc Lazarus, president and CEO of R&L Healthcare Advisors; Debra Douglas, FCCI Insurance Group executive vice president; and Susan Scott, Sarasota County deputy county administrator. Meanwhile, the Buffalo-area United Way is also under fire. A local pro-life group is calling on Buffalo residents to stop funding the UW of Buffalo and Erie County after the organization rescinded a policy that prevented funding for any agencies that do abortions. Stacia Zoladz Vogel, president of Buffalo Regional Right to Life, said the United Way's decision was "outrageous" and "unacceptable." Buffalo pro-life advocates, like those in Florida, say the fact that the donations are not used directly to pay for abortions doesn't matter because the money is fungible and frees up Planned Parenthood funds that would have otherwise have gone to pay for and promote abortions.
British Couple May Spend Settlement Payout on More In-Vitro After Embryo Mixup
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A British could make spend the money they received in a settlement payout on more in-vitro fertilization after the fertility clinic they used previously wrongly gave their embryo to another woman who was a customer there. The couple, identified only as Deborah and Paul in British media, say they turned down an offer for another free cycle of treatment from the government health clinic they used because they lost faith in its staff following the error. As a result, they say they will wait two years before getting more treatment because they are not "emotionally ready" following the mistake at the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, which implanted the unborn child into the womb of the wrong mother. The hospital apologized after admitting liability and error in the case and paid the couple an undisclosed sum of money afterwards. The couple was hoping to have a second child when they decided to implant the last surviving unborn child. The woman who received the human embryo by mistake used the dangerous abortion drug RU 486 to cause the death of the unborn baby at between seven and nine weeks of pregnancy. Describing the moment when the news was broken to them about the mistake, Deborah said: "We felt absolutely devastated. Both of us got very tearful. We just wanted to get out of there. The actual mention of the termination part of it really upsets us because we tend to think of the embryo as the little boy that we have got because he was from the first batch of embryos."
India Man Arrested by Police for Forcing Wife to Undergo Five Sex-Selection Abortions
Ahmedabad, India (LifeNews.com) -- The husband and in-laws of a 32-year old woman have been arrested by police for forcing her to undergo five sex-selection abortions because she was pregnant with a female unborn child. The group of people were arrested by Vastrapur police on Sunday. News reports indicate the woman has been subjected to serial trauma while she was living with her in-laws in Anand. The arrests were made after the woman, Amisha Yagnik, filed a police complaint against her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law. The woman has said that her three tormentors not only forced her to have five abortions but also demanded dowry and subjected her to significant mental abuse. Yagnik has returned to her paternal home at Sakal in Vastrapur and did so about a month ago. According to the details of the police report in local Indian media, authorities have arrested Amisha's husband Priyavadan Bhatt, her father-in-law Gunvant Bhatt and mother-in-law Niranjana. According to the details catalogued in the police complaint, Yagnik married Priayavadan Bhatt in December 2000. She became pregnant eight months into the marriage but her in-laws forced her to have an abortion after an ultrasound done at an Anand hospital revealed the gender of the baby as a girl. The Bhatt's desire for a boy child led to the four other cases of sex-selection abortions, which are a problem in the Asian nation as a cultural preference for boys prevails. Yagnik became pregnant again prior to filing the police complaint and said that her daughter, whom she has named Kamya, would not be able to be born had she remained with her husband and in-laws.
Ireland Mother Ignored Doctors' Advice to Have Abortion of Nation's first Sextuplet Babies
Dublin, Ireland (LifeNews.com) -- The mother of the first set of sextuplets in Ireland has recently revealed how she refused the advice of her doctor to have an abortion to kill more than one of her babies. Nuala Conway, of Dunamore, gave her first interview since the birth of the babies and she notes that doctors warned her of the high risks associate with the pregnancy. She indicated that, at 14 weeks into the pregnancy, her doctors gave her the option of killing one or more of her unborn children. "They more or less advised us to," she told the Sunday Express. "They told us about the risks we faced if we went ahead with the pregnancy." However, Conway said her Christian faith made it so abortion was never really an option. "Whatever God laid out for our lives we were taking it," said 26-year-old Nuala. The proud parent says she wants 'time to go faster' so that the children can come home: "I'm in love with every single one of them. I fell in love when they were in the womb. When one moved they would all move and I could definitely feel 24 limbs kicking." Conway added: "Every day seems like a year. Every minute seems like an hour. I just want time to go faster so they can get home. I just want to have a cuddle with them. I prayed as much as I could for a child. I would have been happy with one, but God blessed us with six, which is amazing. I can't wait to have them home. I just feel lost without them. We have a house here but it feels so empty. It's not a home until all our babies are here safe and well." The six babies, Ursula, Austin, Shannon, Karla, Eoghan and Kerrie, were born in a successful Caesarean section birth involving 30 medical staff at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital. The sextuplets who were born within just five minutes of each other last month, weighed between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz. All six, who were conceived naturally and not with IVF, remain stable in intensive care.
What's Wrong With Euthanasia: When the Right to Die Becomes the Duty to Die
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The following comments come from Colleen Carroll Campbell in an editorial appearing in the St. Louis Post Dispatch: "Linda Fleming, a 66-year-old, legally bankrupt cancer patient living alone in Sequim, Wash., recently became the first person to kill herself under her state's new assisted-suicide law. As in neighboring Oregon, where a similar law has facilitated more than 400 suicides since 1997, the measure that paved the way for Fleming's death allows suicidal adults to obtain lethal prescriptions as long as they are competent and have been diagnosed with a terminal condition by two physicians. Assisted-suicide advocates hail such laws as progressive and liberating. Yet even in Washington, where 58 percent of voters approved the assisted-suicide measure last fall, many critics remain unconvinced. They worry that such laws will change a doctor's role from healer to executioner. They fret that the assisted-suicide push will siphon resources from palliative care and confirm severely ill patients' suspicions that their lives are burdensome and worthless. And they fear that, as our society struggles to care for an aging population in a worsening economy, the right to die could morph into a duty to die. Their fears are well-founded. Consider the case of Barbara Wagner, an Oregon woman who was diagnosed with a recurrence of lung cancer last year at age 64. Her survival prospects were grim, but her oncologist offered her one final hope: a $4,000-a-month drug that could slow the cancer's growth and give her another four to six months to live. Wagner, a great-grandmother and retired bus driver living in a low-income apartment, could not afford the drug herself. So she asked her state-run health insurance plan for help. The response she received shocked her. Oregon state officials sent a letter saying that they would not pay for medication to extend her life, but they would foot the drug bill for an assisted suicide -- an expenditure of roughly $50. The ghastly rationale behind that push -- that suicide is the answer to human suffering -- demands a forceful response from the millions of Americans who still believe that every life counts.
Judge Raises Bond for Alleged George Tiller Shooter Scott Roeder to $20 Million
Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) -- A Kansas judge has increased the bond for Scott Roeder, the man with no affiliations with the pro-life movement who has been accused of killing late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller. Roeder, who his family describes as having battled with mental illness over the years and who has ties with militia organizations, was arrested hours after Tiller was shot and killed at his church. Judge Warren Wilbert has already set a high bail for Roeder, who has been charged with murder in the case, but has raised the bail amount to $20 million. Judge Wilbert cited comments Roeder made to the media pledging that more violence would continue and cited that as a reason to raise Roeder's bail. "I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," Roeder claimed. In raising the bond, Wilbert said the comments cast a "different light" on the suspect and he expressed concern about whether Roeder would "perpetuate, participate or enact any more violence on his own or in concert with others." Judge Wilbert also says he is concerned that Roeder is a flight risk. "He continues to make statements that cause heightened concern by the court, and I do have a responsibility for public safety," he said. Roeder has been charged with first-degree murder, which would result in a life-term in prison if he is convicted, and aggravated assault because he allegedly waived a gun at members of Tiller's church after he allegedly shot him.
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