Canada
On May 8 NDP MP Niki Ashton (Churchill), critic for women’s affairs, tabled Motion-510 affirming abortion rights that read: “In the opinion of the House … a woman’s right to choose abortion is a fundamental question of equality and human rights, both in Canada and around the world.” But a week after announcing the motion, the NDP dropped their bid to re-open the abortion debate to advocate for greater access to the procedure as they promoted a CBC funding motion instead. Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Coalition told LifeSiteNews “it’s pretty clear the NPD have stepped back because they realize they’re helping the pro-life movement,” to talk about abortion. He also said that the motion showed the NDP was “eager” to show they “love abortion more than Trudeau’s Liberals.” And Alissa Golob, CLC’s youth director, called it “ironic” that Ashton, who recently opposed a motion condemning female gendercide on the grounds that it would re-open the abortion debate, is now championing a motion on expanding abortion access that has re-opened the debate … A University of Quebec at Montreal study of female students found that 12.5 per cent of them have had at least one abortion and that among those who have had the procedure, 16 per cent have had two abortions, 7.1 per cent had three, and 4.4 per cent had four or more. Researcher Sylvie Levesque said the numbers prove the need for greater sex education in schools and increased availability of contraception on the university campus … Bioethics professor Udo Schuklenk from Queen’s University proposed in a column for The Kingston Whig-Standard that “severely impaired newborns” be put to death: “There is no point in maintaining human life for the sake of it if that human life cannot enjoy a moment of its existence and is trapped in a never-ending cycle of immense pain and suffering.”
United States
The Michigan Department of Community Health reported that 5,693 of 18,360 (31 per cent) of all pregnancies in Detroit ended in abortion in 2012, the last year for which data is available. The statewide rate is 11 per cent. Susan Schooley, chair of the department of family medicine at Henry Ford Hospital, told the Detroit News the abortion rate paints “a picture that looks more like some Third World country than someplace in the United States” … On May 21, the Louisiana legislature voted 88-5 in favour of a bill that abortion advocates say will lead to the closing of three or four of the state’s five abortion facilities. HB388, which Governor Bobby Jindal has already promised to sign, would require that facilities have a 24-hour answering service with access to patients’ medical records, abortionists report all complications to government health authorities, and that there be a 24-hour waiting period for RU-486, among other measures … In Missouri on May 14, legislators passed a bill extending abortion waiting periods from 24 to 72 hours by a bipartisan veto-proof majority … Patricia Carroll, former accounts receivable manager at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, is suing the Texas affiliate for performing unnecessary laboratory tests on incarcerated minors at Gulf Coast Trade Center in New Waverly.
International
Rosario Robles, Mexico’s secretary for social development, warned Cora Indians from Nayarit that their families would be denied social assistance from the “Oportunidades” government social assistance program if they have more than three children. “They are trying to end the poor instead of putting an end to poverty,” said Mexican Family Council president Juan Dabdoud in a press release … Governor Angel Aguire of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, proposed liberalizing abortion in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero by legalizing abortion-on-demand through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and up to birth in cases of fetal deformity or claims of danger to the health of the mother. While thousands of local voters took to the streets to protest the proposal, the Mexico office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights applauded the move … The Armenian Ministry of Health is preparing to submit a project to the government that will suggest measures to ban sex-selective abortion in the country, which had 114 boys born for every 100 girls in 2012. One of the proposals is to stop doctors from revealing the unborn child’s sex to parents until it is 30 weeks old … Dr. Wim Distelmans, the Belgian euthanasia practitioner who was responsible for the killing of a failed sex change surgery patient and two deaf twin brothers scared of becoming blind, is organizing an instructional tour to the Auschwitz Nazi extermination camp to “clarify confusion about euthanasia” … French medical students from the organization Soigner dans la dignité are rejecting euthanasia and assisted suicide. According to an article by Redazione West, the students believe that the procedures are a “shortcut” to confronting the effective alternative of palliative care as well as the fact that many doctors are inexperienced in dealing with end-of-life situations.