Monday, March 24, 2014

Dramatic Reduction in Abortion Rates, Numbers, Ratios Shows Ongoing Massive Pro-life Cultural Shift On Abortion

A report earlier this year from the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute indicates an ongoing, massive cultural shift in America in regards to abortion as dramatically decreasing abortion numbers reflect polling data showing that pro-life is the “new normal” on abortion.  Guttmacher reports a 13 percent decrease in the abortion rate from 2008-2013.  The abortion rate, the number of women per 1000 aborting between the ages of 16-44, has dropped 42 percent to 16.9 per 1000 after peaking at 29.3 in 1981.  The abortion rate is now the lowest since 1973, the year Roe v. Wade struck down abortion laws in all 50 states and made abortion legal throughout pregnancy. 

That’s not all.  The number of abortions keeps falling.  Guttmacher reports 1.05 million abortions for 2011 or 550,000 abortions a year fewer than 1990 when abortions peaked at 1.6 million per year.  This represents a more than one-third drop in the yearly number of abortions since 1990 while the American population has increased by 25 percent.  Minorities account for more than 60 percent of all abortions.
 
Then there’s the abortion ratio, the ratio of pregnancies ending in abortion compared to live births.  The CDC reported in 2008 that “The ratio peaked at 364 per 1,000 (36.4 percent) in 1984 and since then has demonstrated a generally steady decline.”  It’s now 21.2 percent. This number is important because it tells us that fewer and fewer pregnant women are choosing abortion instead of birth.
 
This Monday March 24rd at 1 PM Nevada Right to Life will speak with Dr. Randall O’Bannon on 1550 AM KXTO in Reno on the Nevada Right to Life show about these numbers. Click here to listen.  Dr. O’Bannon is National Right to Life’s Director of Education & Research and a leading pro-life analyst.

The dramatic reduction of the number of abortions, the abortion rate and the abortion ratio fits with changing attitudes.  The most recent Gallup poll in May 2013 found that a plurality–48%–identified themselves as “pro-life.” 45% identified as “pro-choice.” But this question doesn’t tell the whole story as to what Americans think about abortion.
 
The same Gallup poll asked respondents: “Do you think abortion should be 1) illegal in all circumstances; 2) legal in only a few circumstances; 3) legal under most circumstances; or 4) legal under any circumstances.”  39% agree that abortion should be legal under any or most circumstances.  58% believe abortion should not be legal in any or just a few circumstances.
 
The dramatic abortion numbers and polling data indicate an ongoing massive cultural change on abortion that foreshadows the end of abortion on demand in the United States.  Join us this Monday on the Nevada Right to Life show for our conversation with Dr. Randall O’Bannon on these important numbers this Monday, March 24th at 1 PM on KXTO 1550 AM in Reno and Saturday at 2 PM.
 
Resources:
 
National Right to Life: The State of Abortion in the United States (January 2014)
 
Listen to the Nevada Right to Life Show 1550 AM KXTO Mondays at 1 PM and Saturdays at 2PM.  Click here to listen on line.
 

Monday, March 17, 2014

Ending The Life Of Sufferers Not The Answer To Suffering

There's a sign and a phone box on the Foresthill Bridge which towers 730 feet over the North Fork of the American River just above Auburn.  The sign says “Crisis counseling.  There is hope.  Make the call. 1. Open the box. 2 Lift the handset. 3. Push the button.”  Why is that box there?  Because many people have jumped from the Foresthill bridge to their deaths.  It’s there because we believe that something immeasurably valuable would be lost to them and to us if they were to succeed in killing themselves.

Nevada Right to Life and the pro-life movement believe that every human life is worth living and that something precious and valuable is lost when people commit suicide.  That’s one reason Nevada Right to Life will be opposing a physician assisted suicide bill that NV Senator David Parks has announced he plans to introduce in the Nevada Legislature next year.  Parks says the bill “allows patients with a projected life expectancy of six months to request a prescription for self-ingested medication to end life.” Parks also says it is expected to be modeled after Oregon’s physician assisted suicide bill.

While there are massive efforts to prevent suicide and give suicidal people hope across America, there are many who believe the compassionate thing to do for people with certain conditions is to allow them to have the assistance of a physician to kill themselves.  Instead of trying to talk them out of killing themselves, when they hear people living with or suffering under certain conditions say they are considering suicide, they instead want to make sure that they are serious and know what they are doing.  But ending the life of the sufferer is not the answer to suffering.

This Monday March 17th at 1 PM Nevada Right to Life speaks with assisted suicide expert Brian Johnston on 1550 AM KXTO in Reno on the Nevada Right to Life show. Johnston is the Executive Director of the California Pro-Life Council and the author of “Death as a Salesman-What’s wrong with assisted suicide.”  Brian and the CA Pro-life Council have been coalition leaders to prevent assisted suicide from becoming law in CA three times.  We’ll talk with Johnston about what is wrong with assisted suicide and the dangers of the Oregon law Parks would model his legislation after.

At a recent public meeting, Nevada Right to Life President Melissa Clement and I noted that the disability community opposes assisted suicide.  That’s because it makes targets out of them.  When society agrees that certain conditions should allow certain people to kill themselves, it is not a long step to thinking that people with those conditions would be better off dead or extending their lives is not worthwhile.  Join us for our conversation with Brian Johnston Monday March 17th 2 1PM on KXTO 1150 AM in Reno and on Saturday at 2 PM.

Resources:
National Right to Life: Why So-Called Safeguards Don’t Work: Physician Assisted Suicide
National Right to Life: What We Have Learned from Oregon

Listen to the Nevada Right to Life Show 1550 AM KXTO Mondays at 1 PM and Saturdays at 2PM.  Click here to listen on line.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

80 Percent of Studies Dating to 1957 Show Abortion Breast Cancer Link. Dr. Joel Brind On NVRTL Show March 10

If someone had found a risk factor for breast cancer and also found that 80 percent of studies studying this risk factor dating back to 1957 showed an increased risk of developing breast cancer, we would expect that there would be huge headlines demanding more money for research and that there would be an effort to make that factor known to as many women as possible, especially if that were the most easily avoidable risk factor. 

That hasn’t happened because that risk factor is abortion.  Studies are coming in from all over the world that show a link between an induced abortion and an increase in a woman’s lifetime risk for developing breast cancer.  But abortion advocates and their megaphones in the media are not going to admit anytime soon that abortion can do any harm to women.  That would be catastrophic to the abortion movement.

This Monday we speak with Dr. Joel Brind about the abortion breast cancer link on the Nevada Right to Life show at 1 PM on 1550 AM in Reno.  Dr. Brind is Professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College of the City University of NY.  Dr. Brind has written and lectured extensively on the connection between induced abortion and breast cancer. In 1996 he published a widely read meta-analysis of studies examining the link between abortion and breast cancer in the British Medical Association’s Journal of Epidemiology and community Health.  He is also the co-founder of The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute with breast cancer surgeon Dr. Angela Lanfranchi.

In her article “The Reasons Hormonal Contraceptives and Induced Abortion Increase Breast-Cancer Risk”, Dr. Lanfranchi notes that “By choosing abortion, a woman increases her risk in four ways: she creates in her breasts more places for cancers to start, which is the “independent effect”; she loses the protective effect that a full-term pregnancy would have afforded her; she increases the risk of premature delivery of future pregnancies; and she lengthens her susceptibility window.”  

Abortion poses higher risks for some.  All twelve women in Janet Daling’s 1995 landmark study who aborted their first pregnancy as teens and who had a history of breast cancer, developed breast cancer.

We will talk with Dr. Brind about this and the biological basis for the abortion-breast cancer link and why abortion elevates a woman’s lifetime risk of abortion.  We’ll also speak with Dr. Brind about the criticisms of the abortion breast cancer link, when breast cancer is discovered during pregnancy and we will talk about any link between spontaneous abortions, miscarriages and breast cancer. 

Note, when researchers say there is a link between breast cancer and abortion they do not mean that every woman who has an abortion will develop breast cancer.  It also does not mean that every woman who has had breast cancer has had an abortion.  It means that abortion has been associated with an increase to a woman’s life time risk of developing breast cancer. 

Please tune into our conversation with Dr. Joel Brind, Monday March 10th at 1 PM on the Nevada right to Life show on 1550 AM KXTO in Reno.  Click here to listen.

Additional Resources:

·        Coalition on Abortion Breast Cancer: The ABC (Abortion Breast Cancer) Summary
·        The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute
·        Attorney John Kindley: The Fit Between the Elements for an Informed Consent Cause of Action and the Scientific Evidence Linking Induced Abortion with Increased Breast Cancer Risk,” Wisconsin Law Review, (1999)

Listen to the Nevada Right to Life Show 1550 AM KXTO Mondays at 1 PM and Saturdays at 2PM.