Life Links 1/19/09

NARAL has published this year’s addition of Who Decides?, a report which summarizes prolife and pro-choice laws in all 50 states and ranks the states accordingly. Congratulations to Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia for receiving F’s. I always enjoy NARAL’s avoidance of the using the phrase "partial-birth abortion" so here’s what they’re calling partial-birth abortion bans now:

“Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano each vetoed a measure banning a safe second-trimester abortion method that is similar to the federal ban the Supreme Court upheld in 2007.”

Local prolife events around the country have received some media attention including rallies at state capitols of Maine and Vermont, bus trips going to the March for Life from Ann Arbor and local right to life groups’ event in Illinois, Tennessee, Cleveland , Florida Iowa. The participants carried signs saying "Let My People Grow,"


Abortionist and author Susan Wicklund is planning on opening an abortion clinic in Livingston, Montana.


A woman in China has been sentenced to death after hiring someone to strangle her 9-year-old son. She wanted her son strangled so she could have another child with her husband without violating China’s one-child policy.

The report said Li first paid about $10,000 to have a man named Wang Ruijie kill her second husband's daughter, but the girl resisted and escaped. Li then took her son to a meeting with Wang, who strangled the boy and left him by a rural road.

Li initially received a death sentence suspended for two years because she had suffered from depression after having two abortions due to the rules against her bearing another child, the reports said.

HT: Mark Steyn


Here’s the abstract of a recent study by Priscilla Coleman in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction which worked to “identify predictors of the choice to abort or deliver a child within 18 months of a previous birth and to compare mothers who chose to abort or deliver relative to substance use and adverse partner behavior.” The study found that “several variables pertaining to the father's commitment to raising a previously born child and to his relationship with the mother predicted the choice to abort.”


In the UK, researchers are hoping to start clinical trials in June using stem cells from aborted children to treat stroke victims while another group of researchers will use stem cells from deceased adult to try to treat corneal blindness.