------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Life Communications - Volume 4, No. 17 (Retransmission) October, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This newsletter is intended to provide articles and news information to those interested in Pro-Life issues. All submissions should be sent to the editor, Steve . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all Americans registered for the general election on Tues., 8 November, please remember to vote. - Steve Frezza, Editor _Life Communications_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Across the Pond: INDIA: *Sex Determination Outlawed* In late July, the BBC World Service reported that the lower house of Parliament in India has unanimously passed a bill forbidding doctors to disclose the sex of an unborn child. The legislation is intended to stem the large numbers of abortions of female children in a country where the desire for a male child has led to the widespread practice of pre-natal sex-determination tests, followed by abortion if the child is not of the desired sex. The result has been an imbalance in birth rates: for every 1000 male children born, there are only 920 females born. Mothers who violate the prohibition are at risk of a jail sentence, and doctors who disclose the sex of a child face the loss of their right to practice. How the hundreds of sex-determination clinics in India's cities will be affected is not yet clear. One legislator warned that new law, like the existing anti-dowry law, might have only limited effect: real change, she said, required a change in social attitudes and traditional ritual practices. For example, since certain funeral rites in India can only be performed by a son of the deceased, there is an enormous pressure to have at least one male child. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) American Shorts: *Wyoming* Governor Mike Sullivan (D) says he endorses the prolife side of the "Human Life Protection Initiative," which would ban most abortions in Wyoming. However, he is not expected to endorse the measure publicly because he thinks the penalties for those performing abortions are excessive. The draft legislation lists penalties of up to 14 years in prison. Specifically, the initiative defines life to begin at the moment of conception. This initiative will be on the Wyoming ballot in the November general election. *Virginia* The Salvation Army has asked Hillary Clinton to be their spokesman for the 1994 Christmas campaign and some members of the organization are extremely upset because of her stands on abortion, among other things. Letters of opposition can be sent to: Commissioner Kenneth Hood, Salvation Army National Headquarters, 615 Slaters Lane, PO Box 269, Alexandria, VA 22313. *Arkansas* became the fourth state to be ordered to pay for abortions in the cases of rape and incest, joining Colorado, Montana and Michigan. According to U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson, Jr., "The federal Hyde Amendment takes precedence over Arkansas law barring abortions except to save a pregnant women's life." Note that the Hyde Amendment only provides that abortions _may_ be paid for; not that they must. *Bethesda, MD* The Title XX abstinence office within the U.S. Health and Human Services Department is getting ready to close its doors. Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. Pat Schroeder lead the congressional effort to defund Title XX by 1995. So ends one of the few sources for lists of teen abstinence groups, chastity clubs, and other abstinence information. (You may want to encourage the Title XX office by writing a note of thanks to: Lucy Eddinger, Office of Population Affairs, East West Towers, Suite 1115, 4330 East West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20857.) *Washington, DC* The National Abortion and Reproductive rights Action League (NARAL) blamed the Republican National Committee for promoting six "pro-choice" candidates when their voting records do not support this claim. NARAL is focusing their wrath on Mitt Romney, running for the Senate seat now held by Democrat Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, George Pataki, running for the New York statehouse against Gov. Mario Cuomo, and Michael Huffington, an oil millionaire vying for the seat now held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, as well as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, Senate candidate Marshall Coleman of Virginia and Sen. Paul Coverdell of Georgia. *Baton Rouge* More Clinic Violence: On Oct. 6th, according to police reports, a man picking up his wife at the Delta 'Womens Clinic' took a shot at a demonstrator who had yelled, "You're killing your baby!" The protestor, longtime pro-life activist Richard Mahoney was not hurt. According to other reports, Mahoney attempted to talk to the couple, Ernest Robertson - the husband - became infuriated and began shoving him. Robertson then reached into his car and pulled out his gun. As Mahoney fled, Robertson fired once, and the 9mm semi-automatic jammed as he continued pulling the trigger. Robinson, 22 was charged with attempted second-degree murder, which is punishable with up to 50 years in prison. There was consideration whether Mahoney should be charged under FACE, but Federal attorneys declined to press charges. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Misoprostol: A Cheaper Chemical Savior Doctors at the Southern California School of Medicine published a study that found misoprostol (an anti-ulcer drug) to be just as effective as prostaglandin at inducing premature labor for women in their second trimester. According to a study on 55 women reportedly published in the 4 August _New England Journal of Medicine_, misoprostol is just as effective in aborting women after the first three months of pregnancy, and produces fewer side effects standard drug PGE2 (prostaglandin E2). Drs. John Jain and Daniel Mishell of the University of Southern California School of Medicine conducted the study on misoprostol, sold under the brand name Cytotec by Searle. Based on the 55 abortions they observed, the side effects produced by misoprostol included nearly six times fewer cases of fever, eight times fewer cases of vomiting and seven times less cases of diarrhea. Of particular note to those seeking to abort the child 12 or more weeks into the pregnancy, the misoprostol treatment cost $0.97 compared with $315.30 for PGE2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Prolife Profile: Women's Referral Service If you have already had an abortion... > Do you need someone to talk to about what has happened? > Are you having physical complications? > Do you feel that you were not properly informed about what would happen > during the abortion? > You are not alone. There are people who have been through what you are going through. For legal and medical help after an abortion, contact the Women's Referral Service at 1-800-468-4608 or 1-800-593-2273. The people online will help you find people in your area to contact and call for help. No matter what is happening to you after your abortion, there is someone waiting to give you a helping hand. If you or someone you know needs help, don't wait any longer... call now. Women's Referral Service is a non-profit organization ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Announcements *ProLife Prayer Chain* Interested in joining an electronic pro-life prayer chain? Please email Analisa Norris . The chain involves weekly email messages with pro-life prayer requests for that week. The requests are made by the readers, and may be personal, local, national, or global in nature. Join the fight for the sanctity of life by getting on your knees, one of the most effective things you can do! *Bibliography on Post-Abortion Trauma Available* Boston College professor of law Scott FitzGibbon has prepared an excellent "draft bibliography" on post-abortion trauma for the Canadian Human Life Research Institute. To obtain this 17-page bibliography, write to: American Life League (ALL), PO Box 1350, Stafford, VA 22554. *8th Ivy League Coalition for Life Conference - November 1994* The Harvard-Radcliffe Alliance for Life announces the eighth semi-annual conference of the Ivy League Coalition for Life, to be held at Harvard University on November 5, 1994. We hope that your school will be able to send a large delegation of students to what promises to be an exciting day of speakers and pro-life fellowship. Our speakers will focus on practical problems of pro-life activism. The conference will be held on the campus of Harvard University, in Sever Hall room 113 on Saturday, 5 November 1994. Conference fees are $10 per student, which includes breakfast and lunch. For more information, please call Mark Barker at (617) 493-7710, or send email to George Paci . *23rd Annual Heartbeat Conference - November, 1994* Scheduled for November 4-6 in Columbus Ohio. For details, write: Heartbeat, 1213 1/2 S. James rd., Columbus, OH 43227. *NE March For Life Plans Forming* The New England College Coalition will send at least two buses, overnight, to the March for Life in Washington, DC on Jan. 23rd. The buses will leave in the late evening on Sun, Jan. 22nd intending to arrive in Washington early Monday morning. We will begin in Boston and stop along the way possibly including Wellesley, Framingham, Worcester and Springfield, Mass. and in Conn. Other stops can be planned if there is interested. We will leave Monday morning returning to Boston early Tuesday in time for class or sleep. If you would like to join us contact Bruce Hall at Mass. Citizens For Life, 617-242-4199 or . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) New On-Line Resources: "QUID SIT VERITAS?: The Odyssey of One Human Embryologist as a Modern Diogenes" Describes a set of attempts to bring scientific knowledge of human development before the public by an expert embryologist. While the truths within science have been sought and revealed by those who know the subject best, sadly, this has not been the case with the truths of human development. Political imperatives have allowed other than human embryologists to speak for human embryology and gain credibility via the popular media. [ Ask for "SciForLife1.July94" ] "National Pro-Life Organizations" A listing of U.S. contact information for dozens of national and international pro-life organizations. Corrections, updates and additions welcome. [ Ask for "NatProLifeOrgs.93" ] "Why Should Atheists Be Pro-Life?" An athiest and aborted mother from Feminists for Life explains her conversion to life, and why athiests should oppose abortion. [ Ask for "AthiestSpeaks.ffl" ] To request any of the above items, please send a list of items by title to the editor, e.g.: "Please send v4n7, SciForLife.Jan94, ClintonCare.frc" To request a copy of the list of available resources, please ask for "*v4Topics*". These and other on-line resources are also available via the World Wide Web at URL "http://www.pitt.edu/ ~stfst/pln/AboutPLN.html", or via anonymous from in the directory "users/s/t/stfst/pln". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Reader Comments: Long Distance for Life? [v4n15] First, I want to second Ed Gehringer's remarks that switching to a "pro-life" phone service will not punish AT&T. As I understand the situation, many of these small long distance services operate by either leasing cables from AT&T (or one of the other big players) or by buying long distance service in "bulk" (again from AT&T or one of the big players), and then reselling it to the consumer. In either case, AT&T still has a share in the profits. How to Vote Pro-Life [v4n16] Second, I wanted to comment on Philip McLane's advice on voting pro-life. I found several of his points to be overly simplistic. Lets consider the second: > 2) If an election is between a pro-life candidate and a pro-abortion > candidate, vote for the pro-lifer in every case. The problem with this approach is that it confuses begin pro-life with being anti-abortion. Should I vote for a candidate who denounces social spending to help women and children as pork, and is "tough on crime" and wants to extend the death penalty _ad infinitum_, simply because this candidate is against abortion? Rather, I think that all the factors which go into a consistent ethic of life need to be weighed in the balance; and this could very well lead me to vote (perhaps with more than a few regrets) for a candidate who is pro-abortion but whose other stands hew closer to a pro-life ethic. In my *opinion*, the Right in the United States has hijacked the "pro-life" issue, and is using it to convince people to vote for otherwise awful candidates because they are "pro-life" and "pro-family". (Oliver North comes to mind; I'm sure that there are other examples.) - Respectfully, David Cruz-Uribe, SFO -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Murder Laws in California: Irony Just wanted you to know a couple of things I've learned in law school. (Jeff is a first-year law student) In California, the law on murder is: > (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with > malice aforethought > (b) This section does not apply to a legal abortion pretty contradictory, huh? - Jeff Paladina One Reply: As my dear old mother says, consider the source. You don't actually expect anything from California to make sense, do you? - Chris Kocher ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) Reader Questions: Fetal Considerations in GM Crash Tests? Sometime this summer, on a TV news show (I can't remember which one) there was a story about General Motors doing crash tests on their cars with various types of crash dummies. Apparently, they have recently decided to add pregnant dummies to their tests. They said it had been discovered through analysis of data from actual car accidents that pregnant women are injured more that nonpregnant women due to how the lap belts and shoulder harnesses fit over their bellies. Sometimes there have been injuries to the unborn, I think they even cited stillborn births and miscarriages. Evidently, they developed dummies in different stages of development with a womblike middle that had a floating babytype thing in it, as close to th real thing anatomically as they could to see the results of the impacts and ef- fect of the seatbelt, etc.. If GM considers that the pregnant woman & what's inside a mother's womb worth protecting, therefore it must be alive, right? My questions: > A) Have any of you heard of this project? > B) Does GM have a history of being a pro-life supporter? > C) Have any pro-life groups gotten on the bandwagon and thanked them, > maybe even encouraging people to buy GM and any other make of cars > from manufacturers who are doing this same kind of testing and > redesigning for greater protection to expectant mother/unborn child? Guess the best thing would be for someone to contact GM about it. - Thanks, Julia Henry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote of the Month: "First, it was assumed that the fetus had no separate existence from its mother. This hypothesis was later found to be inaccurate as a matter of medical science." - William Prosser, John Wade, and Victor Schwartz in _TORTS: Cases and Materials_ 8th ed. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Credits: | | 1 - Many thanks to reader Richard Chonak. | | 2 - Courtesty of _The Prolife-Infonet Mailing List_ For information contact | | the moderator at . Title XX information came| | from _Focus on the Family Citizen_, V.8 N.3, pg 5, Focus on the Family, | | Colorado Springs, CO 80995 (719)531-3400, thanks to _The Focus On The | | Family List_ for info write: . | | 3 - Information principly from a 3 August 1994 Reuter's article. | |QOM- Many thanks to reader Jeff Paladina. The quote is from _TORTS: Cases | | and Materials_ 8th ed. by Prosser, Wade, and Schwartz, page 432, note | | #2, Westbury, NY. The Foundation Press, Inc. 1988. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Anyone desiring information on specific prolife groups, literature, or help with problems is encouraged to contact the editor. For those on the web, there is a preliminary WWW page at ---------- file: /pub/resources/text/ProLife.News: pln-0417.txt