Life Links 4/23/12

The Washington Examiner reports that the vast majority of abortion clinics in Virginia will comply with the state's recent law abortion clinic regulation law.

Twenty of the 23 facilities affected by the new rules have already informed the state that they meet those new standards or would make the necessary changes to comply, according to license applications The Washington Examiner obtained through an open-records request. Of the other three that didn't apply for a license, one already stopped providing abortions and two others didn't have to meet the new standards because they plan to perform fewer than five first-trimester abortions a month.

When the regulations were being considered, abortion advocates continually claimed the regulations would force numerous clinics to close. Abortion advocates are now claiming it will cost between $150,000 to $3 million to meet the regulations.


The BBC will produce a live two hour radio program at an abortion clinic.

The BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Victoria Derbyshire will host an edition of her show from an as yet unnamed clinic next month and carry out interviews with women who are undergoing pregnancy terminations, as well as doctors, counsellors and junior members of the clinic's staff. After a period of negotiation the clinic has consented to the programme and is likely to be identified.

Planned Parenthood has stopped distributing RU-486 abortion pills in Wisconsin because of a new law.

It mandates that women having nonsurgical abortions visit the same doctor three times and that doctors ensure the woman is having the procedure voluntarily and without coercion. Failure to follow those requirements could result in felony charges against the doctor..... Planned Parenthood president and chief executive officer Teri Huyck said because of confusion over the new law, nonsurgical abortions are being suspended. Planned Parenthood will continue to provide surgical abortions at its clinics in Madison, Milwaukee and the Appleton area, its leaders said. "The added risks of felony penalties for physicians who provide medication abortion are unnecessary and intended to threaten a physician's ability to provide women with medication abortion,'' Huyck said.

Or maybe it's just not cost-effective for the abortionist to see a woman three times.


The Santa Fe New Mexican has a long article on retired abortionist Lucia Cies.


An Indian woman who was forced into 6 sex-selection abortions is exposing abortion and sonography clinics.

Bhatt had already filed a police case against her husband and in-laws for harassment. But in order to expose this practice Bhatt filed RTI applications with the health officers of two districts seeking details about her abortion case and other such cases. The explosive information exposed a nefarious nexus between gynecologists and sonography clinics involved in illegal abortion and sex determination tests. Bhatt found that her name did not figure in the elaborate list of patients who had undergone sonography tests. "This meant that the government had no information on the tests conducted on me, as mandated under the PCPNDT Act. There may have been many such women like me. The doctors were maintaining a secret list of patients on which sex determination tests were being conducted," says Bhatt. Due to Bhatt's expose, licences of two doctors' were cancelled for malpractice and the state government reviewed the requirements for doctors to submit their monthly reports.