President Bush Denies Funding For Coercive Abortion. Reid Opposed Bush Action In 2007.

Lifenews.com reports that "President Bush has again refused to direct taxpayer funds to a United Nations agency accused of promoting abortion and backing the one-child forced-abortion policy in China. Bush revoked funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for the seventh consecutive year. The White House is withholding almost $40 million in funding from the UN agency because the State Department has determined that it has violated the Kemp-Kasten amendment of 1985." 

Lifenews.com notes that Kemp-Kasten is a "pro-life law that ensures no public funds can go to groups that promote forced abortions overseas."  Bush has has denied $235 million in taxpayer funds to the UNFPA since 2001.

How bad is the One Child Policy in China supported by UNFPA?" The libertarian Cato Institute’s Stephen Moore says, “this program will go down in history as one of the greatest abuses of human rights in the 20th century.”  That program receives funding from the UN Population Fund. 

And where is "pro-life" Harry Reid on this?  On September 6, 2007 “pro-life” Senator Harry Reid voted against an amendment attached to the 2008 State/ Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2764) “To prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion” -programs like China’s inhumane One Child Policy funded by the UN Population Fund. The amendment says, “…none of the funds made available in this Act nor any unobligated balances from prior appropriations may be made available to any organization or program which, as determined by the President, supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

You can't call yourself pro-life and vote against amendments "to prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion."  The same goes for "pro-lifers" who oppose the Mexico City policy to stop funding to groups promoting and performing abortions in other countries.

By the way, how can you call yourself pro-choice and say you believe in reproductive rights if you support funding to programs which practice coercive abortion? 

Good for President Bush.

Targeting & Discriminating Against Pro-life Doctors

There's an abortionist shortage in the United States and I suspect in the UK too.  There's been roughly a 40 percent decline in the number of doctors willing to do abortions since the early 90S.  The aging fleet of abortion providers are not being replaced.  So abortion advocates are targeting pro-life doctors to compel them into doing abortions. 

One way to do this is through medical associations which in the United States and Britain are targeting pro-life doctors.  More on the AMA later, but here's a snippet from Life News.com (Pro-Life News Report 07/01/08 #4356."

British Pro-Life Doctors Threatened by British Medical Association Motion
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- After medical associations in the United States caused headaches for pro-life doctors by potentially approving a policy requiring abortion referrals for accreditation, now pro-life physicians in England are concerned. Dr. Evan Harris, the pro-abortion MP and member of the British Medical Association Medical Ethics Committee, has tabled a motion for the BMA's forthcoming Annual General Meeting July 7-10. According to the leading British pro-life group SPUC, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn, Harris's motion would marginalize doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion, specifically by effectively barring them from seeing patients with unplanned pregnancies.

Is Having an Unplanned Birth Worse for Teens Than Abortion?

Is Having an Unplanned Birth Worse for Teens Than Abortion? That's the Question The Elliot Institute answers in their recent email newsletter (Elliot Institute News Vol. 7, No. 10 06/28/08), half of which is reproduced below in the wake of the news that girls in an East Coast High School had made a pact to get pregnant .

But first, here are some Teen Abortion Facts from their site Abortion is The Unchoice

• Teens are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide if they have had an abortion in the last six months than are teens who have not had an abortion.





• Teens who abort are up to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than adults who abort, and a history of abortion is likely to be associated with adolescent suicidal thinking.





• Teens who abort are more likely to develop psychological problems, and are nearly three times more likely to be admitted to mental health hospitals than teens in general.





• Teens who abort are twice as likely as their peers to abuse alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine.





• Teens are more likely to abort because of pressure from there parents or partner, more likely to report being misinformed in pre-abortion counseling, and more likely to have greater difficulty coping after abortion. Source: Teen Abortion Risks Fact Sheet

Now to their Article, "Is Having An Unplanned Birth Worse For Teens than Abortion?"

With the recent news of a rash of pregnancies among girls at a high school in Massachusetts, it seems everyone is agreeing that teen pregnancy is a problem. But are teens who abort better off than teens who carry an "unwanted" pregnancy to term?

Not according to a study published in  the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The study found that adolescent girls who abort unintended pregnancies are five times more likely to seek subsequent help for psychological and emotional problems compared to their peers who carry "unwanted" pregnancies to term.¹

Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling Green State University, also found that adolescents who had abortions were over three times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping and nine times more likely to report subsequent marijuana use.

The results were compiled after examining 17 other control variables, like prior mental health history and family factors, that might also influence subsequent mental health.

The data was drawn from a federally-funded longitudinal study of adolescents from throughout the U.S. who participated in two series of interviews in 1995 and 1996. About 76 percent of girls who had abortions and 80 percent of girls who gave birth were between the ages of 15 and 19 during the survey, with the remainder being younger.

This study is particularly important because it examines pregnancy "wantedness," in addition to a large number of other control variables.

"Over the last several years, numerous studies have conclusively linked higher rates of mental illness and behavioral problems associated with abortion compared to childbirth. But abortion advocates have generally dismissed these findings, insisting that while women who abort may fare worse than women who give birth to planned children, they may fare better than the important subgroup of women who carry unintended pregnancies to term. Coleman's study addresses this argument and shows that the facts don’t support abortion advocates’ speculations.

Higher Risk Factors for Teens

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion statistics throughout the U.S., about a quarter of the abortions that take place each year are performed on girls younger than 20.

"Previous studies have found that younger abortion patients may be more likely to experience difficulties coping after abortion compared to older women. One reason behind this may be that teens are more likely to be pressured into unwanted abortions or to undergo abortions later in pregnancy, which carry a greater risk of physical and psychological complications.

"A 2004 Medical Science Monitor study of women who had abortions found that 64 percent of American women reported that they felt pressured into abortion.² Coleman said that for teens, the pressure probably comes from the fact that they are more likely to be perceived as unready to be parents and that abortion is often seen by those around them as the best solution.

"When women feel forced into abortion by others or by life circumstances, negative post-abortion outcomes become more common," she wrote.

"Adolescents are generally much less prepared to assume the responsibility of parenthood and are [therefore] the recipients of pressure to abort."

Coleman pointed out that, while having a child as a teen may be problematic, "the risks of terminating seem to be even more pronounced."

Other studies comparing outcomes for abortion versus delivery of unintended pregnancies have found higher rates of clinical depression, anxiety, and substance abuse among women who abort, while studies that did not look only at unplanned pregnancies also found that women who aborted are at increased risk for suicidal behavior, psychiatric problems, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and sleep disorders, which are often linked to trauma.

While previous studies have often been criticized for methodological shortcomings, studies that have come out in the last several years have been designed to address those problems and have gone through vigorous scrutiny from peer-review panels before publication.

"The scientific evidence is now strong and compelling," Coleman stated. "Abortion poses more risks to women than giving birth."

While there has been a long-standing assumption that such problems are related to mental health problems that existed before abortion, a large-scale study conducted in New Zealand last year found that this wasn’t the case.³

The standard theory has been that women who have problems coping after abortion were probably already mentally unstable and therefore more likely to be even worse off if they continued the pregnancy.

The researchers in New Zealand thought that their study would confirm this theory, so they specifically controlled for pre-existing mental health problems. What they found, however, was that women who were mentally stable before abortion were still more likely to experience mental health problems after abortion.

New Test To Target More Down Syndrome Baby Humans. Targeting Others Targets Us.

A new non invasive test has been developed in Britain to test for Down Syndrome in unborn children that is easier than the invasive amnio centisis testing.  The test is reported to have 90 percent accuracy.  The test is meant to ID Down Syndrome children and target them for destruction.  It's suggested that 80 percent of Down Syndrome Children are destroyed by abortion already.  We are wiping out Down Syndrome by wiping out people with Down Syndrome.

This will only add to the targeting of down syndrome children for destruction and add to the mentality that we deserve certain kind of children and only a certain kind of child will do.  It also fuels the mindset that certain humans have life not worthy of life and that it would be better to do them and society a favor by killing them ahead of time.  The companion thought/justification is that the lives of the handicapped or in this instance, the person with Down Syndrome is that life is a burden to themselves.  That is, their existence is so pathetic that their existence is harmful to the person with Down Syndrome and other disabilities.

With that mindset deeply ingrained in our culture, we should not be surprised when people evaluate us by our characteristics either.  If we can demean and target the Down Syndrome child for death because he or she does not meet our expectations, others can do the same to us.  Once anyone becomes expendable, we all become negotiable.  We can't target others without becoming targets ourselves.

Here's the story from today's briefing from Life News.

New Prenatal Test for Down’s Syndrome Concerns Pro-Life Advocates
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new, non-invasive prenatal test for Down's syndrome is reportedly being developed in England and Hong Kong on a blood-test that claims 90 percent accuracy. The media is praising the new procedure as risk free and saying it will detect in the mother’s bloodstream a Down syndrome pregnancy. This simple blood test would replace the current “risky” method of inserting a needle into the mother’s womb to extract amniotic fluid near the fetus, a procedure that takes place sometime after the 14th week of pregnancy and sometimes results in miscarriage. But Alison Davis of the No Less Human group that is a part of the British Society for the Protection of Unborn Children responded to the news. “"The new non-invasive test for Down's syndrome will inevitably mean more pre-natal testing, leading to more abortions of babies with the condition. Describing this as a 'breakthrough' is offensive to people who live with Down's syndrome, and to all who recognize the equal right to life of disabled people,” she said. Of the new tests, Davis said “no comment is made on the equal tragedy of the deliberate seeking out and destruction of babies with the syndrome, because this is the whole aim of pre-natal testing. It is certainly no 'breakthrough' for people living with disabilities."

Public Funding Increases Abortion

I've heard abortion supporters say over and over again that taxpayer funding of abortion doesn't increase abortion.  Baloney.  Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean made the same claim recently to the press.

Here's John McCormack's account of it in a short excerpt from his Weekly Standard Article, "Howard Dean's Abortion Contortions, The DNC chairman gets his facts wrong." 06/12/2008

YESTERDAY MORNING AT the Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was asked whether the Democratic platform on abortion should be amended. That will be up to Barack Obama and his delegates, Dean said, adding that the Democratic party believes "individuals have a right to make up their own minds in personal matters ... but this party also believes that we ought to significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country."

Given the latter, I asked how he could square Barack Obama's and the Democratic party's support for public funding for abortion--which studies show significantly increases the abortion rate.

Dean responded: "Total nonsense. It's total nonsense that public funding" increases the abortion rate.

Well, according to the Guttmacher Institute, that's not total nonsense.

A 1994-1995 AGI survey of abortion patients found that in states where Medicaid pays for abortions, women covered by Medicaid have an abortion rate 3.9 times that of women who are not covered, while in states that do not permit Medicaid funding for abortions, Medicaid recipients are only 1.6 times as likely as nonrecipients to have abortions.

A more recent study by Dr. Michael New of the University of Alabama found: "State laws restricting the use of Medicaid funds in paying for abortions reduced the abortion rate by 29.66" abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

After I pointed out the Guttmacher research on taxpayer funding and the abortion rate, Dean said: "If the Guttmacher Institute has said it would, I'm not going to argue with the Guttmacher Institute, but I can tell you as the governor of one of the four states which provides public funding, I find that hard to believe because our rate is not higher than the rate of corresponding states nearby."

Wrong again. Howard Dean became Vermont's governor in 1991. In 1992, Vermont's abortion rate was 67 percent higher than New Hampshire's, in 1994 it was 55 percent higher, and in 1996 it was 100 percent higher.

Click here to read the rest of McCormack's article.

Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics in Denton, TX has noted for years that abortion is what he calls  a marginal decision. That is, if you make access to abortion a little more difficult, like raising prices, the number of abortions go down.  It doesn't take much to keep many of them from having an abortion.  Women are not willing to crawl over broken glass to have one.  This is explains why taxpayer funding would increase abortion.  Like any subsidized activity or commodity, subsidizing brings more of it.

British Teenager Becomes 14th Woman to Die From Dangerous Abortion Drug

From LifeNews.com

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report indicates a teenager died just one week after having a legal abortion -- providing more evidence that legal abortions are not safe for women. Manon Jones, an 18-year-old student from Caernarfon, Gwynedd experienced heavy bleeding after the abortion and eventually died.

After the abortion, Jones felt light-headed over subsequent days and began experiencing abnormal bleeding. She then became what is believed to be the fourteenth woman to have died after using the dangerous abortion drug (RU 486).

She admitted herself to Southmead Hospital in Bristol in June 2005 following the abortion but doctors were unable to save her. Four days later, Jones was dead.

Click here to read the rest of the story at LifeNews.com.

This is another RU 486 abortion drug tragedy.  It's well known that pressure was put on the FDA in America to approve it faster than normal.  It never received the testing it should have received.  Even Reno abortionist Damon Stutes thinks it's not safe.  Maybe that's because he makes more doing surgical abortions, but others think the same.  Don't expect any call to reexamine or recall the drug from abortion advocates.  I once did an interview for Channel 8 in Reno when the drug was approved.  The Planned Parenthood spokeswoman said it was a joyous occasion.  This gal and the others are casualties of abortion.  Certain women are deemed expendable for the cause.

What Happened To Hot Air About Embryonic Stem Cells?

Last summer, embryonic stem cell advocates railed against President Bush for vetoing a bill that would have allowed more destruction of human embryos for embryonic stem cell research at taxpayer expense. It was a winning issue and local activists were quick to jump in. There was plenty of hot air.

Bob Fulkerson of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada said that President Bush, "with the stroke of a pen, struck away the hopes and dreams" of cures for chronic illnesses. Fulkerson also said "It's a shame (Bush) is kow-towing to a very small group instead of doing what's best for the American people suffering from chronic ailments." Mylan Hawkins, executive director of the Nevada Diabetes Association said, "We are deeply saddened that once again the hope for so many Americans who suffer with incurable conditions has been shattered." Planned Parenthood's Allison Gauldin said that thinking that adult stem cells are superior is naive.

Shattering hope? Naïve? Tell that to diabetics in Brazil, Kaitlyn McNamara who received a new bladder constructed from her own stem cells and others.

Harry Reid couldn't help himself either. Nevadans, you know what I mean. Reid accused the president of "putting politics ahead of safe, responsible science." He said the veto was a "most un- American thing by turning his back on science." Bush was "putting the politics of his narrow ideology ahead of saving lives," had decided that curing diseases "was not as important as catering to his right-wing base," vetoed the bill "with the health and hope of millions of Americans hanging in the balance," and said "our best scientists continue to work with one hand tied behind their back."

But all of the sudden, the rage of embryonic stem cell research has gone silent

Why? In November scientis ts discovered a way to create the same kind of stem cells as embryonic ones without the need to clone or kill human embryos. They are the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells. President Bush believed in this science and funded it by executive order when Congress refused. It's the ho ttest thing in stem cell research.

It's cheaper, easier, more efficient and destroys the rationale for cloning or embryo killing. Dolly the Sheep cloner Ian Wilmut says the inventor deserves a Nobel Prize and that the discovery is equivalent to discovering the double-helix structure of DNA. That explains why stem cell researchers are moving away from embryonic stem cell research and politicians are suddenly quiet about it.

While there are still issues to be worked out to make them safe, last week scientists announced that not only have they been able to grow the three types of cell layers from these new stem cells, they have been able to turn them into heart cells.

Non embryonic stem cell research is motoring along quite well too. There are over 70 benefits and over 1000 human trials using non-embryonic stem cells. That number is getting higher and even JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, is noticing. In February a study in JAMA noted improvement for patients with autoimmune and cardiac diseases using non-embryonic stem cell research. Last year some diabeti cs went off insulin for long periods after treatment with their stem cells and last month wounded soldiers' shattered bones were repaired using their own (adult) stem cells.

And after almost $2 billion in funding, there are still no human benefits or human trials using embryonic stem cells. The NIH budget appears to be flattening or even receding. That will make it more difficult for embryonic stem cell researchers to get more funding for their research when it has produced meager results and other scientific enterprises are competing for the same pie.

There is still danger ahead as researchers in Britain are creating human-animal hybrid clones. A bill has been put into the Congress to prevent that in America. More on that soon.

Embryonic stem cell research and human cloning are not going away immediately, but right now, the wind has gone out of its sails as other types of stem cell research are sailing past it. That's good news for all of us. This could be the beginning of a big win for humanity.