Life Links 10/17/11

China is a buzz after a toddler was hit by a van and then at least 18 people passed by the bleeding toddler without doing anything to help the wounded child. The incident was caught on video camera. The Daily Telegraph has the video and various comments regarding the how China is becoming a land without morals. The girl, named Yueyue, is in critical condition.


One of the state of Washington's largest hospital systems will stop performing abortions when it merges with a Catholic-run health organization. However, Swedish Medical Center it will help pay for a new Planned Parenthood abortion clinic opening in 2012.

A secular institution with five hospitals and 11,000 employees, Swedish announced last week that is it seeking an affiliation with Providence Health & Services, a Catholic group. Based in Renton, Providence has 27 hospitals across five states and nearly 53,000 employees. Each organization also has many clinics.....

On late Friday, Swedish announced that it will transition services for elective abortions to a new Planned Parenthood center in First Hill. The company said it will help underwrite the costs of establishing the center.

Another article notes that Swedish will refer women to Planned Parenthood for abortion.

"I'm extremely pleased that this has the potential to work for everybody," said Chris Charbonneau, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest. "Our plan is to make sure that not a single woman can't get the services they need."

Planned Parenthood's local CEO even claims abortions at Planned Parenthood are safer than abortions at hospitals because hospitals unneccesarily "medicalize" them.

Both Tizon and Charbonneau said abortions are more often — and more appropriately — performed in a clinic than in a hospital.

"Swedish should never have been doing those things in a hospital, anyway," Charbonneau said. "We have really perfected the office procedure. When you take people into a hospital, you add a level of complications and danger," unnecessarily medicalizing the procedure and typically making it more expensive, she said.

New Jersey's cuts to family planning funding have lowered the number of clients visiting Planned Parenthood.

From June 2010 to June 2011, Planned Parenthood and similar providers statewide saw 16,340 fewer visits to their centers, Planned Parenthood of New Jersey's statewide coordinator Michele Jaker said. She said there were 81,978 visits to centers statewide from June 2009 to June 2010. That number was down 20 percent just one year later, to 65,638.

A doctor in Uganda has been arrested after allegedly performing an abortion on a minor whom who allegedly impregnated. The abortion seems to have been against her will.