Life Links 5/31/10

Australian authorities are continuing to investigate the infection of a growing number of women (22 right now) who were infected with hepatitis-C after getting abortions at an abortion clinic in Melbourne.

Health officials said 44 women who attended Melbourne's Croydon Day Surgery have so far tested positive for the virus, with 22 of those cases linked to the clinic.

Fourteen women are awaiting further testing to find out if their strain is linked to the centre, while eight others have already recovered, meaning officials cannot tell whether their illness was related to the cluster.

Previous tests of all staff members at the centre found a anaesthetist working there had hepatitis C. Those women being urged to have tests all underwent a procedure at the clinic involving this doctor, who was suspended in February.

The case came to light early this year when 12 women who attended the clinic were found to have contracted the disease -- with nine later linked to the doctor through exhaustive genetic testing of the infection's strain.

Marie Stopes International is partnering with China to kill more Chinese unborn children.

Marie Stopes International (MSI) has opened five outlets in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu. Here the selective abortion of girls has led to a gender imbalance of up to 131 boys for every 100 girls.

At Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams (a pro-choicer who accepts the reality that human life begins at conception) writes about her feelings on ultrasound legislation.

Forcing a woman to look at her fetus in order to manipulate her sympathies is, make no mistake, an insulting interception of a private procedure, one that anyone who cares about reproductive freedom should be outraged over....

But the tactic, despicable as it is, does raise an uncomfortable issue. Abortion is a deeply personal enterprise riddled with conflicting emotions, one few women take lightly. Among those of us who are pro-choice, I've long considered my own simple belief that life starts at conception a verboten topic. And I've been disappointed when I've heard friends taking the convenient semantic dodge of referring to an abortion as a decision regarding "a clump of cells" and then calling a planned pregnancy at the same stage "the baby...."

The fight over ultrasounds starkly shows exactly what anti-choice forces have glommed onto, and what unnerves some of us on the other side so deeply: that having a choice and seeing that choice are two different things. Because, uncomfortable as it may be for many of us to acknowledge, a human heartbeat is a powerful thing.

What a truly backwards way of thinking. Williams recognizes (or at least claims to recognize) that the unborn are living human beings and understands abortion is a procedure which kills these living human beings. Yet instead of being outraged over the ongoing slaughter of these human beings, she's outraged over laws which show women images of the child who is about to be killed. It's almost like her starting point of thinking is "Abortion must legal" and questions like "what is the unborn" and "are the unborn valuable human beings" don't matter because "abortion must legal."