Dear Colleague:
Here are some items in the news concerning life, with facts that the news
generally omitted--and one item largely omitted altogether.
Steven W. Mosher
President
PRI Weekly Briefing
25 August 2006
Vol. 8, No. 33
Life in the News
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
There have been a good number of items in the news about life
recently--and one that should have been, but hasn't. Just this week and
as we foreshadowed two weeks ago, the FDA caved in to political pressure
and created an unprecedented new procedure for handing out the
morning-after pill (MAP) without a prescription. After the Constitutional
Court of Colombia in May abrogated that nation's democracy on the issue of
abortion and legalized it in certain cases, the first legal Colombian
abortion was performed. Scientists confused the public further on the
issue of embryonic stem cells with more lies.
Perhaps the major media consider August the month for life news, because
most ignored the news last month that premature births in America, rising
steadily, are due partly to first-trimester abortions. No less a
heavyweight, pro-abortion authority than the federal Institute of Medicine
said so in a report released July 13. "In 2005, 12.5% of births in the
United States were preterm, a 30% increase over 1981 rates," reported the
institute.
The evidence of adverse health consequences for both post-abortive women
and their born children continues to accumulate. "Women have the right to
know that premature birth is associated with cerebral palsy for children
and breast cancer for mothers, regardless of the prevailing ideology of
the U.S. elite," said Karen Malec, President of the Coalition on
Abortion/Breast Cancer. Malec noted that perhaps it's not too surprising
that journalists ignored the early abortion-premature birth connection,
since it was on page 519 of the report.
Yes, it is listed in Table 5 of Appendix B on page 519, not a very
prominent place to acknowledge abortion's risks--especially since abortion
is so common, with about 1.3 million performed every year. Anyway, in
Table 5 of Appendix B, page 519, "prior first-trimester induced abortion"
is listed as one of the "immutable medical risk factors associated with
preterm birth."
Abortion's connection to premature birth should not surprise anyone, both
because of the commonsensical notion that a violent interruption of a
natural reproductive process is likely to harm the reproductive system,
and because "cervical and uterine anomalies" are another risk factor for
premature birth. The gouging of the uterine wall and subsequent growth of
scar tissue that often take place during and after surgical abortion makes
the womb that much the less hospitable for a woman's next child.
It is also beyond reasonable doubt that the abortion of a woman's first
child makes her more susceptible to breast cancer. "Breast tissue is only
matured from cancer-susceptible tissue into cancer resistant tissue during
the last eight weeks of a full-term pregnancy," says the coalition.
"During this time, women receive protection from estrogen overexposure
experienced during the first two trimesters of pregnancy."
The latest report from a major medical institution linking premature birth
to abortion is probably something you haven't read about before now. Here
are some items you may have, but without the distortions presented by the
major media:
· "FDA makes safe 'emergency contraception' conveniently available to
adult women." First of all, MAP is not contraception. All medical
experts acknowledge that it often works after conception, to prevent the
already-conceived child from implanting in his mother's womb. Therefore,
MAP is murder. Also, it is not safe for the woman using it. Though an
FDA panel of experts concluded that rare use of MAP by a woman is safe,
the same panel warned that repeated use could have severe health
consequences. Now that college co-eds can get MAP at the corner
drugstore, without having to talk to a doctor or pharmacist, who can doubt
that the irresponsible ones won't use it again and again after nights of
drinking and debauchery? And if you think young women today don't engage
in a lot of drinking and debauchery, you haven't been paying attention.
Why add huge doses of steroids--which is what MAP is--to their problems?
Also, it's an open question if the FDA has the authority to make MAP
available over-the-counter but only to adults, which has never been done
before.
· "First legal abortion takes place in Colombia." "Legal" only in the
sense that the Constitutional Court of Colombia, in a lawsuit funded by
American pro-abortion lobbies, discarded the will of the Colombian people
and their elected representatives to legalize abortion in the cases of
danger to the mother's life, a deformed child, and rape. An 11-year-old
girl raped by her stepfather was reportedly the first case. It's a hard
case, of course, but not even it justified the killing of that girl's
baby.
· "Stem cells can now be obtained from embryos without killing them,
solving any ethical concerns about embryonic stem cell research." Not
letting the grass grow under its feet, the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops pounced on this one immediately. "Researchers did not safely
remove single cells from early embryos, but destroyed 16 embryos in a
desperate effort to obtain an average of six cells from each one," said
Richard Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life
Activities of the USCCB. "This experiment left no embryos alive, and
solves no ethical problem. From the resulting 91 cells, they still only
managed to make two cell lines. Their study shows nothing about the
safety of removing only one cell, which in fact is something they never
did--partly because their own earlier experiment in mice indicated that
'co-culturing' several cells together might be needed to develop a cell
line. Even if the authors had shown that single cells obtained by 'embryo
biopsy' could produce a cell line, serious ethical problems would remain.
When this procedure is used to do genetic testing of embryos in fertility
clinics, some embryos apparently do not survive the procedure, and the
long-term risks for children later born alive are unknown."
As normal life returns to the nation after Labor Day, and an Election Day
that could put Congress firmly into the control of pro-death forces looms
nearer, expect more distorted stories.
Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.
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Media Contact: Joseph A. D'Agostino
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Website: www.pop.org
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