ALL Pro-Life Today Report 4/18/2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 Eugenics as a Human Right?  By Kurt Kondrich                       Currently there is a case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that all of us across the world should be watching very carefully. A Latvian woman gave birth to a daughter with Down syndrome and she filed a lawsuit against her physician in the courts of her country suing for damages. The woman claimed she was not informed of the possibility of prenatal testing to screen for Down syndrome which would have given her the option to terminate her pregnancy. She asserts that she did not benefit from the "prenatal care" necessary to treat her pregnancy, and one can conclude that the prenatal care is the screening for Down syndrome, and the treatment of her pregnancy after this "prenatal care" would have been termination. She has sued for compensation due to the emotional stress and financial injury that she sustained by having a child with Down syndrome.  [Click here to read more.]

HEADLINES Planned Parenthood violating abortion drug laws in New Hampshire LifeNews Planned Parenthood of Northern New England is distributing abortion and other drugs at its six New Hampshire clinics in violation of state law, according to a complaint filed with the New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy Tuesday. Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Michael Tierney filed the complaint on behalf of New Hampshire Right to Life [an American Life League Associate group]. "No matter where a person stands on abortion, everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else," said Tierney, an attorney with the Manchester firm of Wadleigh, Starr & Peters, PLLC. "In this case, that means it must obey state laws that say only licensed pharmacists may distribute prescription drugs when a clinic is not under contract with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services."   Planned Parenthood funding in jeopardy The Columbus Dispatch Federal family planning funds for Planned Parenthood would be sharply cut or eliminated under a plan unveiled yesterday by Ohio House Republicans. By implementing a new priority system for the federal dollars, similar to what was enacted in Texas, abortion-rights opponents say the proposal would at least largely defund ---- if not completely end ---- this funding stream for Planned Parenthood in Ohio. Under the proposal, local public health departments get the top funding priority, followed by federally qualified community health centers, private primary-care centers and, last, Planned Parenthood and other stand-alone family planning centers.    Massachusetts groups rally against assisted suicide proposal Catholic News Agency Efforts are underway to fight a Massachusetts ballot initiative that would allow doctors to assist patients in ending their lives. "There's nothing dignified about suicide," said the Massachusetts Alliance Against Doctor-Prescribed Suicide, "and there's nothing compassionate about encouraging it or presenting it as a rational alternative." The alliance argued that "encouraging self-destruction" is completely unnecessary when "hospice and palliative care are common and highly developed." Supporters of assisted suicide have succeeded in placing a measure to legalize doctor-prescribed suicide on the 2012 ballot in Massachusetts. The initiative would allow physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to patients with terminal conditions seeking to end their lives. Critics of the measure argue that it fails to respect the dignity of human life and promotes the message that suffering renders life unworthy of living.