Life Links 4/7/11

The Hill has an editorial by Abby Johnson regarding Planned Parenthood and then a response from Planned Parenthood's medical director Deborah L. Nucatola. Nucatola doesn't really say anything new (her whole piece is assertions without evidence) except asserting that Abby Johnson is lying about "Planned Parenthood count(ing) a 12-month supply of birth control pills as 12 visits." What's really crazy is that some commenter named Josh still thinks Planned Parenthood doesn't provide abortions despite their medical director saying they do.

PP doesn't offer abortions period. No federal funding can go towards abortions the Hyde amendment Assures that. Planned parenthood is a pre pregnancy health service and once a woman is diagnosed as pregnant they only offer information of what there potential options are and refer women to other prenatal care that is more equipped to help these women. This why I'm and so utterly confused by this. They don't actually perform abortions.

Kathryn Jean Lopez has a long piece on Planned Parenthood in the National Review.


Really? How pathetic is it that Planned Parenthood has to pay for activists who will appear to be doing the same things prolifers volunteer to do?


The first Geron spinal cord patient to receive human embryonic stem cells has revealed himself. It doesn't sound like the stem cells have magically healed him yet.


The Economic Observer has an interesting piece on proposed legislation in China's Guangxi Province which appears to be aimed at reducing sex-selection abortions.

The new law included two items of note: the first, included provisions that ensured that only medical agencies approved by the health department are authorized to provide gender checks to unborn fetuses; secondly, women who are old enough to give birth, who conceived under "lawful conditions" and have been pregnant for over 14 weeks are not allowed to have an abortion, unless they can provide proof as to why they need one. That is to say, women have no choice but to carry their pregnancy to term.

At first glance, this news reminded the author of America where the issue of abortion has been a topic of constant debate. Aside from religious concerns, American laws seek to balance the right to life of the fetus and women's right to choose. In recent years, the issue has been highly politicalized and an individual's attitude toward abortion has become an indicator of political-orientation.

But unlike America, the abortion ban in China respects neither the right to life of the fetus nor the rights of pregnant women. It has only one goal: adjusting the country's skewed sex ratio.

I found this to be an interesting example of how the internet can really spread information. Tom Bessinger wrote a long prolife letter to the editor of the Muskegon Chronicle in response to another letter. In that letter, he notes research from the Alan Guttmacher Institute which found that 54 percent of women who have abortions were on some form of contraceptive in the last month. New York-based Alan Guttmacher employee and abortion researcher Lawrence Finer responds with his own letter. Bessinger then responded to Finer's letter.