Man attempted to cause miscarriage
Focus demands assessment
Abortion leader to step down
State’s abortion numbers halved
Finkel begins defense
Women pressured to abort
Euthanasia in Korea
Man attempted to cause miscarriage
MONTREAL – Gary Bourgeois, 46, pleaded guilty to assault and administering a toxic substance after drugging his pregnant girlfriend to get her to miscarry. The woman had refused to get an abortion. He said he was not ready to be a father and that his efforts to persuade the woman to get an abortion failed. He gave her a medication usually used to treat stomach ulcers. The woman, who has three children, left her husband last year to be with Bourgeois.
Focus demands assessment
VANCOUVER – In an open letter to Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, Focus on the Family Canada demanded the release of the impact assessment the government purports to have done on the proposed legislation to redefine marriage in Canada. Focus on the Family wrote the letter in response to the statement made at a meeting of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, wherein the Canadian representative claimed that the government always gave “careful consideration of the impact (of legislation) on vulnerable groups such as children” before proposing it. Despite spending over $250,000 on a cross-country series of hearings regarding the redefinition of marriage, the Justice Committee has yet to publish a report.
Abortion leader to step down
WASHINGTON – NARAL Pro-Choice America president Kate Michelman is resigning as leader of the abortion-advocacy group. After leading the organization for 18 years, Michelman announced that she will leave her position on April 30, 2004. The New York Times, in what National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez called a NARAL press release and not a news report, called Michelman “one of the grandes dames of the reproductive rights debate” for her ceaseless campaigning on behalf of pro-abortion politicians and playing a central role in the abortion debate over the past two decades. Michelman bemoaned that her pro-life opponents now seem to have the upper hand, noting that since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, states have enacted more than 350 laws regulating or restricting abortion.
State’s abortion numbers halved
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The number of abortions in South Carolina has declined 14,333 in 1988 to 6,574 in 2002. South Carolina Citizens for Life executive director Holly Gatling said the 53 per cent decline in abortions over 14 years is attributable “to the faithful work of the pro-life grassroots network, to pro-life legislators, to the wonderful crisis pregnancy centres and to the untiring message of our state’s moral educators.” Since 1988, South Carolina has passed a parental consent, right-to-know, partial-birth abortion and born-alive protection laws.
Finkel begins defense
PHOENIX, Az. – After nine weeks of testimony from the prosecution’s side, abortionist Brian Finkel, accused of sexually abusing or molesting 35 of his patients since 1986, has begun his defence. Finkel’s lawyer, Richard Gierloff, suggested, through a so-called “expert,” that the women who came forward with their accusations were drug users who were retaliating against the abortionist after he refused to write prescriptions. But Dr. Bernice Roberts of Tucson, who treats drug-addicted patients, admitted that she did not read the police reports in the case. Another “expert” suggested that some of the women’s memories of sexual abuse were implanted by prosecutors and investigators.
Women pressured to abort
LONDON – The BBC has reported that British women whose unborn babies are diagnosed in-utero with disabilities are being pressured into having abortions. Eugenics advocate Professor John Harris has been quoted as criticizing those who give birth to disabled babies, but Bill Albert, of the Council of Disabled People, said society should “face up to what’s going on and not say this is about choice. This is about elimination.”
Euthanasia in Korea
SEOUL – The dispute over legalizing euthanasia in South Korea has flared up again after a former French firefighter, Vincent Humbert, died from a lethal injection that was administered to him by his mother, at his request. Korean law prohibits voluntary euthanasia, but many doctors admit that “passive” mercy killing – wherein families insist on taking the terminally ill patient home and then ask for the removal of the remaining life support devices, thereby killing the patient – does occur, even though doctors and medical personnel are also bound by the law to prevent families from taking their patients with terminal illnesses home.
