Life Links 12/29/09

A man from Seattle named Daniel Hicks was arrested in California yesterday. Hicks is accused of killing his girlfriend Jennifer Morgan and their infant daughter Emma. He allegedly wanted his girlfriend to have an abortion and apparently killed his daughter because she wasn't a boy.

Through interviews with Morgan's mother, Hicks' brother and half-sister, and one of Morgan's co-workers, detectives learned Hicks had been depressed and suicidal for some time — and his condition worsened when he learned his girlfriend of nine years was pregnant, charging papers say. He wanted Morgan to have an abortion, claiming she "was just trying to trap him with the pregnancy," the papers say.

According to charging documents, Morgan told her mother Hicks was upset the baby was a girl instead of a boy. He also "became very jealous and suspicious of Jennifer," and questioned if he was the baby's biological father, the papers say.

The Catholic News Service is reporting that there isn't any disagreement between the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association on health care reform after a New York Times article claiming there were differing opinions.

Sister Carol said Times reporter David D. Kirkpatrick based his Dec. 26 story on a Dec. 17 CHA statement which noted that CHA had not reviewed the language of various amendments on the table at the time but was "encouraged by recent deliberations and the outline" Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., was developing.

At that point, "I felt they were making progress and were getting where we needed to be," she said.

"I understand that it doesn't make a good story to say (CHA and the USCCB) are working together," Sister Carol added. "But it would have been an honest story."

A man in Dubai has been sentenced to only 6 months in jail after forcing his wife to take Cytotec pills to induce an abortion.

The woman also told the prosecution that her husband became angry when she told him about her pregnancy in April 2008. Instead of congratulating her he said he did not want the baby.

When the woman insisted on keeping the baby, her husband pleasantly coaxed her to accompany him to his father’s farm in Haat. Once there, he asked her to stop eating and forced her to take the drugs.

She tried to escape from the farm, but finally she surrendered to his wish for the fear that he might beat her up severely or kill her which he threatened to do. The woman told prosecution that the foetus was aborted immediately after taking the pills.

A woman in Minnesota has been charged with three counts of criminal vehicular homicide after she allegedly drove drunk, went the wrong way on a street and crashed into another car, killing an unborn child and critically injuring two other passengers.