Life Links 6/15/09

After recently claiming he would perform third trimester abortions in Kansas and seemingly misleading Associated Press writer Margery Gibbs into thinking Nebraska had stricter abortion laws than Kansas, abortionist Leroy Carhart is now claiming he will perform third trimester abortions at his Nebraska abortion clinic.

For the time being, Carhart said he will offer late-term abortions in his Bellevue clinic. He said Nebraska’s abortion laws are flexible.

“As long as I get referrals from other doctors that say the fetus is not viable, then it's my intent to take care of those patients,” Carhart said.

This is in contrast to what the Associated Press wrote after interviewing Carhart less than a week ago. That article claims,

Carhart has run his own clinic in Bellevue, Neb., since 1985, but had performed late-term abortions at Tiller's clinic because of Nebraska's more restrictive abortion laws.

NOW on PBS has a short online debate between Troy Newman and Cristina Page. Page’s only evidence for the supposed need for third trimester abortions comes from details about a late term abortion (no specific gestation is given) in an pro-Tiller opinion editorial in the Cleveland Plains Dealer, which was originally published in the Kansas City Star. The editorial provides no medical reasoning for why killing the twins of Phillip Wood and his wife would be preferable to delivering them.

Another article which also has the Woods’ story claims, “Doctors told the couple that the twins wouldn't survive, and, without an abortion, the couple would not be able to conceive again.” I’m not seeing any information on how injecting digoxin into the hearts of the twins before delivering would somehow save the fertility of Phillip Wood’s wife.


A government official in Sweden is calling for an abortion registry.

The author of the government report, Anders Milton, writes in an article in Dagens Nyheter, that “for whatever reasons, we in Sweden have more abortions than other countries in western Europe”.

Milton believes many of the abortions may be performed on individuals not born in Sweden and proposes free contraceptives for anyone under the age of 25 and more sex education as a means to solving the problem. The article notes that contraceptives and emergency contraception are already available for free at youth centers.


A couple from the UK is deciding what do after receiving an undisclosed sum when physicians at the NHS implanted their last embryonic child into the womb of another woman. The article claims the woman “chose to take an abortion pill before the embryo was allowed to implant into her womb” but it seems more likely the woman aborted the pregnancy after implantation had occurred.

"We just wanted to get out of there. The actual mention of the termination part of it really upsets us because we tend to think of the embryo as the little boy that we have got because he was from the first batch of embryos."

The mother of Ireland’s first sextuplets notes how doctors persuaded her to abort some of her children.

At 14 weeks, she said she was given the option of terminating some of the unborn babies. "They more or less advised us to," she told the Sunday Express. "They told us about the risks we faced if we went ahead with the pregnancy."

But the former fashion store sales supervisor insisted on putting her faith in God and pressing ahead despite the risks. "Whatever God laid out for our lives we were taking it," said 26-year-old Nuala.

Three people in India have been arrested after forcing a woman to undergo five sex-selection abortions.

Yagnik became pregnant eight months into the marriage. But her in-laws forced her to terminate the pregnancy after sonography carried out at a Anand hospital revealed a female foetus. The Bhatts' desire for a boy child led to four other cases of female foeticide. Yagnik said her daughter, Kamya, could not have been born had the in-laws been given a chance to run a sex-determination test.