Canada
The B.C. Office of Information and Privacy rejected an attempt by pro-life activists to gain access to information on abortions at the province’s hospitals. Senior adjudicator Celia Francis rejected applications from Campaign Life Coalition B.C. president John Hof and pro-life researcher Ted Gerk for information on the abortions conducted at Vancouver General Hospital and Kelowna General Hospital. Hof and Gerk have pledged to continue making freedom of information requests, educating BC politicians on the implications of censorship in a democracy, and educating citizens through their blog and Facebook group … The media reported that during a November 2009 closed-door federal fertility conference Canadian fertility doctors and experts expressed concerns about the steep costs and health risks of multiple births caused by certain IVF methods. Twins and higher multiples have a greater risk of expensive health problems, and attendees of the conference agreed that fertility treatments which transplant more than one embryo are irresponsible and should be limited. The difficulty, said Dr. Roger Pierson, spokesman for the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, is that private fertility clinics are more likely to listen to their customer’s demands for methods that increase the likelihood of pregnancy, despite the associated risks … Ozzy Osbourne’s new album, “Scream” will feature a song about Canadian Robert Latimer’s murder of his daughter, Tracey. The British heavy metal rocker wrote Latimer’s Mercy to describe what Latimer was thinking as he poisoned his 13-year-old daughter to death in 1993. Osbourne’s lyrics imply that Latimer murdered his daughter out of love: “The sun shines on this deadly new mourning/The church bells ring an early warning/Your eyes shine as I turn on the motor/The tears fall as the mercy gets closer.”
United States
Thirty states have introduced or are planning to introduce bills to opt out coverage of health insurance plans and provide abortion services. Americans United for Life, an American pro-life organization, has initiated “The Federal Abortion-Mandate Opt-Out Act” to counter the anti-life provisions in the Obama health care reform bill. Under current American law, health insurance plans that offer abortion are allowed to be included in a state’s health insurance exchange and receive federal subsidies unless the state legislature opts out of coverage for these plans. States that have already passed the pro-life bill into law include Arizona, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida … Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry has vetoed a bill preventing private insurance companies from covering abortions, claiming it is unconstitutional because rape and incest victims would have had to buy special insurance to cover the procedure if they did not report the crime within 48 hours … Human Life International, a pro-life organization active in over 100 countries, launched an American affiliate, HLI America.
International
South Korea’s Constitutional Court has upheld an existing law that allows leftover human embryos from fertility treatments to be used for research or destroyed after a petition was filed challenging the bioethics law. “The ruling means that human embryos that are in their early stage and are not implanted into a mother’s womb cannot be seen as human life forms,” said spokesman Noh Hui-Beom … According to a study conducted by the pro-abortion Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, a clear majority of Latin Americans want to keep criminal penalties for abortion: 60.4 per cent of Mexicans, 67.3 per cent of Brazilians, 82.2 per cent of Nicaraguans, and 71.7 per cent of Chileans want to retain penalties. In Mexico, men were more likely to oppose criminal penalties than women. Claudia Dides Castillo, the director of the Gender and Equity Program of FLASCO, said that Latin Americans were “conservative” in regards to abortion and that they see “the woman as the giver of life” … In a May 25 address, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, warned Italian bishops of Italy’s “slow demographic suicide.” While informing bishops that 50 per cent of Italian families have no children, Bagnasco urged them to dedicate more effort “in family ministry and in marriage preparation, to work to root even deeper the idea that children are gifts that multiply the credit to life and its tomorrow” … The International Society for Stem Cell Research has put together a Task Force on Unproven Stem Cell Treatments in response to a rash of “rogue” medical clinics springing up around the world, seeking to capitalize on public misconceptions about the healing power of stem cells. The clinics claim to have developed stem cell-based cures for such ailments as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or autism, but the ISSCR worries that patients are being duped out of thousands of dollars through unsafe and unproven procedures. The ISSCR’s task force has developed criteria for patients to use in evaluating the legitimacy of overseas clinics, and is compiling a list of clinics on their website (www.closerlookatstemcells.org) that fail to meet the criteria.