Life Links 5/21/09

Jonathan Imler, a 46-year-old man, has been arrested and charged with attempted criminal homicide and aggravated assault of an unborn child after talking about and aiding two teenage boys who attempted to kill one of their girlfriend’s unborn child by spiking her drink with a drug used on cows. The incident occurred in 2008 and the child survived.


Michael Stokes Paulsen wants to know how serious President Obama is on finding common ground.

Mr. President, you say that abortions are never undertaken lightly, and without acute anguish. I wish this were always true; and so do you, apparently. But some abortions - many, actually - are had for many reasons we would find common ground to condemn. Will you join me, and others, in supporting a ban on abortion had for reasons of sex-selection of a born child? Sadly, many seek abortion not because they do not want a child, but because they do not want a girl. This is horrible, would you not agree? Mr. President, if you are serious about seeking common ground, would you not agree that our nation should ban the abortion choice when used for such an awful, human-gender-based reason?

Vicki Saporta’s National Abortion Federation blog has a weekly segment called “Wednesday’s Words from Women” where the testimonies of women (through NAF member clinics) who had abortions are featured. While most of testimonies resemble other testimonies by pro-choice women who’ve had abortions, some of them appear to be fake. For example, this one on May 6:

Having an abortion at a NAF member clinic has granted me a second chance. It has also given me back my choice; I’ve been allowed to make my own decision. I am pro-choice, pro-family, and pro-faith, and I trust this clinic.

Yeah, because a woman who just had an abortion is going to give a specific shout out to the National Abortion Federation. What’s the likelihood that a woman would even know the abortion clinic she went to was a NAF member clinic?


The UK’s Daily Mail has the story of a little girl who was born with “Ivemark Syndrome, an extremely rare disorder, characterised by a poorly-formed cardiovascular system and organs in the wrong place.”

Bethany, dubbed the miracle Jigsaw Kid, has stunned medics with her unique back-to-front body.

The six-year-old was born with five spleens, a hole in her heart, a diseased and back to front liver, two left lungs and her stomach on the wrong side....

Before Bethany was born doctors at Birmingham's Women's Hospital discovered her jumbled-up insides and also warned her worried parents that their child could also be suffering from Down's Syndrome.

But Lisa rejected an offer of an abortion and chose to go ahead with the birth, despite the odds being stacked against her.

The Planned Parenthood in South Dakota is challenging South Dakota’s informed consent law in court because they don’t want to tell clients abortion ends a human life.


Repeat abortions are on the rise in the UK.

One third of women who had an abortion last year were on their second, third or even eighth termination, new figures show.

The statistics will fuel the debate over whether some women are using abortion as a form of contraception.

In total, there were 64,715 repeat abortions in 2008, 33 per cent of the total and up from 64,230 the year before.

A breakdown of the data showed 11,354 women had their third abortion and 2,780 their fourth. The figures showed 46 women had had eight or more terminations.