Fetal pain study
LONDON, England – A British study suggests that an unborn child might feel pain as early as 20 weeks. The head of the government-appointed Medical Research Council at Edinburgh University in the United Kingdom said an unborn child was absolutely aware of pain by 24 weeks and perhaps as early as 20 weeks – earlier than the previously accepted 26 weeks. Kristi Hamrick of the Centre for Reclaiming America said, “This study underscores the gruesome nature of abortion.” Pro-abortion groups denied the study has any affect on the abortion debate.
Philosopher argues for sex selection
LONDON, England – David McCarthy, a British philosopher at the University of Bristol, recently argued in the pages of the Journal of Medical Ethics, that people should have the legal right to select the sex of their child using in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology. He said, “Defenders of the legality of sex selection are not seeking to restrict anyone’s liberty, whereas opponents are.” He said IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis could be used to allow people to have balanced families. The BBC reported that PGD has “made it possible to choose the sex of a fetus without the use of abortion,” but sex selection by way of PGD means that those embryos who are found to be of the undesired sex are discarded so there are still the same lethal results.
Kopp loses appeal
PARIS, France – James C. Kopp, accused of killing a Buffalo-area abortionist in 1998, is closer to being extradited from France after France’s highest court denied his appeal based on the argument that he will not receive a fair trial following the publicity the case has received. Kopp’s Buffalo-based attorney Paul Cambria says they may appeal it to the Conseil d’Etat, the superior administrative court of France. If he loses, Kopp is expected to be extradited to the U.S. in early 2002.
UN, Kofi Annan win Nobel Peace Prize
OSLO, Norway – The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the United Nations and its secretary-general Kofi Annan. In awarding the prize, the Nobel Committee praised the organization and Annan for working for peace in the world, stating that secretary-general has injected “new life” into the United Nations and has struggled for human rights and against AIDS. But pro-lifers point to the irony that the words “new life” would be used to praise the organization and the man that has done so much to extinguish life in the womb through the promotion of abortion. Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition reacted to the announcement saying, “I’m appalled.” He recalled the atrocious record of the United Nations in promoting abortion through its various agencies, the United Nations Population Fund, UNICEF, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and the personal efforts of Kofi Annan to promote population control. In July, speaking on World Population Day, Annan made a thinly veiled call for abortion rights while promoting “an integrated approach to … slowing population growth.” Annan appealed to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development to justify his endorsement of population control, which he tied to reducing poverty and protecting the environment. He said that in order to achieve these goals, women must be able to “control their own fertility.
Switzerland okays research
GENEVA, Switzerland – The Swiss National Science Foundation has authorized research on stem cells extracted from “surplus” IVF embryos. The NSF has approved a research program in Geneva which involves importing human embryonic stem cells from the U.S. The NSF insisted that any research on embryonic stem cells in Switzerland had to be of a non-commercial nature and pursue clearly defined therapeutic goals, but the end result is, of course, the same: embryos destroyed for experimental purposes.
Polish elections
WARSAW, Poland – National elections resulted in a near majority for the pro-abortion Democratic Left Alliance (DLA). Were it not for the outspoken Catholic bishops and the work of pro-life groups, it is likely the DLA would have won a majority. Lech Kowasleski of Human Life International (Europa) told The Interim that the bishops, HLI (Europa), the Forum of Catholic Polish Women and the Polish Federation of Pro-life Movements acted urgently after the DLA indicated its intention to repeal the 1997 law which restricts legal abortion in Poland to cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality and danger to the life of the mother. Currently, about 200 abortions are committed annually; during the communist rule, there were about 200,000 annual abortions in this country of 36 million. Kowasleski indicated that DLA coalition partners don’t seem eager to consider legislation that would liberalize abortion the law.
Baby survives abortion
HARBIN, China – The Independent (U.K.) reported the unusually barbaric attempts to enforce China’s one-child policy in the case of Ji Huansheng, a four-month-old girl who has survived the efforts of Chinese population controllers to kill her. She survived an attempted abortion at 35 weeks gestation after nurses and journalists saved her, when she was left in a “dying room” exposed and uncared for. This is the latest episode in the aggressive and coercive depopulation policy of China, what The Independent describes as “a sorry catalogue of forced abortions and infanticides.”