Austin Ruse not a fan of the Open Minds abortion conference

At the Catholic Thing, Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute President Austin Ruse, provides his take on Princeton's "Open Hearts and Fair Minded Words" abortion conference.

But for the most part the pro-lifers were out-numbered and outclassed. Every single panel was weighted in favor of the pro-abortion side, some embarrassingly so. The panel on preventing unintended pregnancies consisted of four abortion advocates pushing contraception and one priest ineptly explaining Catholic teaching. Pro-lifers who knew what they were doing would never have allowed these kinds of odds. It was worse than what happens on the leftwing MSNBC.....

Besides the speakers who were outmatched or embarrassed or both, many of the others seem to be of the progressive persuasion, which meant the conference was at least in part the Left speaking to the farther Left. Any conference where Notre Dame’s Cathy Kaveny is on the pro-life side means the conference is in trouble from the start. Kaveny is known for siding with Barack Obama, and taking every opportunity to scold pro-lifers, including bishops, who dare to take a strong public position. Another of these was an Evangelical pastor who described himself as a progressive and who could not bring himself to say anything much stronger than abortion should be resisted.

Life Links 10/29/10

A fertility center in Maryland set out to discover what percentage of IVF embryos became born children. As you can imagine, it's not a high percentage:

Researchers from Shady Grove Fertility Center in Maryland set out to quantify the fate of the eggs retrieved in the IVF process. They reviewed all the IVF cycles conducted at their center between 2004 and 2008. In those 14,324 cycles, they retrieved 192,991 eggs. Initially, 110,939 of the eggs fertilized. However, only 44,282 continued to develop into viable embryos. Using the most optimistic set of assumptions, that all the frozen embryos will eventually be used, this will result in 8,366 babies. Thus, only 7.5% of all the fertilized eggs will go on to become live-born children.

An Arizona law which requires that abortionists to be physicians and abortionists to be present for pre-abortion physical exams is scheduled to go into effect on Monday after a judge ruled that Planned Parenthood couldn't amend a lawsuit to block the provisions. Planned Parenthood doesn't think requiring physicians be the ones to perform abortions make abortions safer.

Planned Parenthood released a statement saying women would suffer under the new regulations. "These laws will do nothing to make abortions safer but will end up making some women wait longer for an abortion because of the difficulty to find physicians who can fill in for specially trained, highly capable nurse practitioners," the group said.

A Pennsylvania man named Deaundra Williams has been convicted on two counts of third-degree murder after killing his pregnant cousin and her unborn child.


Both the federal government and adult stem cell researchers James Sherley and Theresa Deisher have filed documents in the case over the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Whatever the appeals court decides about Lamberth’s preliminary injunction will be made moot, however, by Lamberth’s final ruling on the case, which is expected in the near future. Upon request by plaintiffs, Lamberth agreed to consider a so-called summary judgment, deciding the case based on each side’s arguments so far.

Based on the timetable Lamberth laid out, plaintiffs filed their arguments for Lamberth’s consideration earlier this month and the defendants are expected to do so today. The judge will then either rule for one of the parties, or decide that he needs more information to make the decision and take the case to trial.

Life Links 10/28/10

By now, you may have already seen this YouTube video of clips of a debate on Colorado's personhood amendment (Amendment 62) which show members of Planned Parenthood's Advocates for Choice making a variety of embarrassing statements on science, fetal development, etc. What I find most interesting is the "there's people on our side and research that says that the heart doesn't beat ‘til 24 weeks" comment. This young woman obviously knows next to nothing about fetal development and I can imagine why - how the unborn child develops is not something most abortion advocates care to learn about.

The only reason I can think of that she would have said something about "24 weeks" would have to viability, right? I think she thinks an unborn's heart doesn't start beating until the child is viable.


A man in Pennsylvania has been arrested after attacking his pregnant ex-girlfriend. She told him she was pregnant and wasn't going to get an abortion. He told her she was going to get an abortion and hit her in the lower abdominal area.

Steven Lee Dry, 32, of Parkesburg, is facing charges including first-degree felony aggravated assault of an unborn child, first-degree felony aggravated assault and simple assault.....

The woman told police that Dry is her ex-boyfriend. She informed him that she was pregnant and was not going to have an abortion, according to court documents.

After she told Dry the news, she said he grabbed her neck "and repeatedly struck her in the lower abdominal area," according to court documents.

He told her she was "getting rid of that baby" and "you must have an abortion so I never have to see you again," according to court documents.

There's been more coverage of the aborted babies in dumpster incident in Michigan including the Lansing State Journal, Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.


Charles Camosy, one of the organizers of a recent conference about abortion and finding common ground at Princeton, believes the conference was at least partially sucessful. RH Reality Check's Aimee Thorne-Thomson disagrees.

Life Links 10/27/10

There are various local news stories in which Lansing 40 Days for Life organizer Chris Veneklase discussed how he discovered aborted children in the dumpster of a Michigan abortion clinic alongside the names of the mothers who aborted. State Representative Rick Jones has introduced legislation to make it a crime to dispose of fetal remains this way.

"At the end of the days they did abortions, the clinic staff would bring out a large black trash bag," said Veneklase. "I never saw a medical waste service come to this clinic which is usually common. ..."I began to wonder what they were throwing out."

A big black trash bag from the clinic was noticed being carried by an employee and put into the trunk of a car. Then the bag was driven across the complex and taken to the dumpster and what was found next, Veneklase says was mortifying.....

"They were in bags with the mother's name on the bag. Additional medical records were there along with bloody gauze, bloody gloves and other various things from an abortion," said State Representative Rick Jones.

A bishop in Texas has issued on statement on an upcoming lecture by a priest who teaches at SMU. The priest, Charles Curran, appears to be one of those priests who doesn't really accept the Catholic Church's teaching abortion, though he claims he does.

"This paper is not about the Catholic moral teaching on abortion," Curran said Tuesday. "In fact, the paper accepts the Catholic moral teaching that direct abortion is always wrong. The paper deals solely with abortion law and argues that one who holds the Catholic moral teaching can come to different conclusions about what the law should be."

So abortion is the unjustified intentional killing of a human being and is always wrong but should be legal? No wonder then-Cardinal Ratzinger declared him unfit to teach theology at a Catholic school in 1986.


A mother in India has been arrested after dropping her female child out of the hospital window. The child died from head injuries. The mother gave birth to premature twins, a boy and a girl.

The girl's mother initially claimed that her daughter had been stolen but security camera footage showed her going into the toilet with the baby and emerging without her.

Life Links 10/26/10

The Irish Times reports that Irish custom authorities seized more than 1,000 packages of abortion drugs in 2009.

The majority of seizures by customs and other services related to the drug Misoprostol (1,118 units) and Mifepristone (98), which are typically available on the internet.

Canada's Globe and Mail has named abortionist Henry Morgentaler as one of their "25 Transformational Canadians." I found this quote from Morgentaler to be...well...

“My experience during the Holocaust showed me the depth of depravity that human beings can become involved in,” he says. “It made me, more than ever, conscious of the inherent evil that human beings can descend to, and that it is our duty not to ever allow this to happen.”

The Columbus Dispatch has more information on the teen-marriage-because-mom-supposedly-wanted-daughter-to-have-an-abortion case.

"What was your mother's reaction?" Acker asked.

"She was shocked. She couldn't believe it," Gabrielle said. "She said that I hope I do the right thing, and I look at all my options, and I told her I want to keep it. She started saying I should get an abortion. 'This isn't right. You guys are too young.' It just, like, killed me 'cause I thought she'd be happy for me, but she was all negative."

This Times of India article on adult stem cells being used to treat Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cerebral palsy sounds a little too good to be true. They do claim the Parkinson's research was published a peer reviewed journal.


A cheaper way to way cancer drug using tree stem cells?


One Wisconsin scientist say he has a moral obligation to kill human embryos.

"If the embryo would be destroyed anyway," says Kahil, "we have a moral obligation to say, ‘Let’s see if we can use it and bring some betterment to humanity.’"

Ronald Kalil also thinks that he's not immoral or unethical because he works long hours in a lab.

Thanks, Abortion! web site

Today I came across a web site called Thanks, Abortion! which allows women to post their abortion stories and thank abortion. Check out the web site's t-shirt section.

Here are the two designs they offer.











I'm guessing this site has to be run by an over-the-top abortion advocate. I don't how else to explain these t-shirt designs. One shows a drawing of an unborn human child in the womb sucking her thumb and says no thanks (basically admitting that abortion kills innocent human beings) and another seems to argue that abortion is a good choice because you might get into an argument with your child in the future.

I think you'd have to be a fairly disturbed individual to wear either of these shirts. Imagine how disturbed you'd have to be to produce them.

They also have a facebook page. Ron Fitzsimmons of "I lied through my teeth" partial-birth abortion fame is a fan.

Life Links 10/25/10

The Live Action blog has a video of a speech by Stephanie Gray, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, relaying what she believes is the best prolife argument.


The Alliance Defense has secured a temporary restraining order which prevents the parents of teenage girl in Texas from forcing her to have an abortion.

On two occasions, the teenager's mother literally dragged her to local abortion facilities, including International Healthcare Solutions and Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region, demanding that her daughter terminate the life of her child. Though she refused and the child's father also does not want the baby killed, her parents continued to insist that they will force her to have the abortion. The court's order prevents that from happening.

A probate judge in Ohio allowed a 17-year-old to marry her boyfriend without her parents' permission because the girl believed her parents would force her to have an abortion if she was living with them.

According to Acker's ruling, Gabrielle believed she would be forced to have an abortion if she remained at home.

"Gabby felt she was in an unsafe environment for her baby," said Jerome "Jerry" Goldman, Dustin's father and a lawyer who was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1973. According to Acker's entry, testimony demonstrated that "Gabrielle is currently living in a volatile home where Gabrielle fears for her and her unborn child's physical and mental health and safety."

Gabrielle's parents said they were never told of a hearing and never got to tell their side.....

His wife said she never pushed her daughter toward an abortion and recently saw a priest for guidance.The Rev. Michael Watson, of St. Andrew Church in Upper Arlington, confirmed that Mrs. Squeglia phoned Wednesday, worried that her daughter had married so young and asking for help. He said he recommended a woman's care center "that preserves life."

Abortionist Richard Grossman needs to retake 8th grade biology

Colorado abortionist Richard Grossman (who previously claimed "When a woman says a fetus is a person, I think it is one. I believe the woman empowers the fetus," is one of those "the world is overpopulated" types and is somehow employed at a Catholic hospital) has an editorial in the Durango Herald against Colorado's most recent person amendment. In it he claims:

If Amendment 62 passes, it would make removing a diseased ovary illegal. Worse, a doctor who performs such a lifesaving surgery would be punished for murder.

Here is what the proposed Amendment 62 says: "Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the term 'person' shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."

Anyone who graduated from an eighth-grade health class knows that the start of the biological development is the human egg, and girls are born with all the eggs that their ovaries will ever contain. So removing an ovary - even if diseased - would mean the removal of thousands of "persons."

Looks like Grossman wasn't paying much attention in his eighth grade health class if he thinks the biological development of a human being starts as a human egg. If that's the case then women would reproduce asexually.

Life Links 10/22/10

Wesley Smith notes a study which examined how long it took to starve infants to death after withdrawing nutrition and hydration. It took one child 26 days to die.


The Washington Post has an article where various law professors opine about the attempted murder charges against a man in Ohio who attempt to force a woman to have an abortion at gun point.

But Michael Benza, a criminal law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said that on the face of it, the facts are against Holt-Reid. "The law for attempt is taking overt steps toward the completion of a crime," Benza said. "He certainly took steps toward the charge of unlawful termination of pregnancy."

Nadya Suleman's (AKA Octomom) doctor testified at a state licensing hearing to determine whether he can keep his California medical license.

The Beverly Hills fertility doctor said he felt legally bound to go ahead with the 12-embryo transfer — six times the norm for a woman her age — because Suleman wouldn't consent to any other option. "She did not want them frozen, she did not want them transferred to another patient in the future," he said.

As months passed from their last meeting, Kamrava said he was apprehensive because he couldn't reach Suleman. Kamrava didn't hear from her again until after she delivered octuplets in January 2009, according to his testimony.....

Kamrava said he implanted the 12 embryos after Suleman consented to fetal reduction, if necessary. In fetal reduction, a fetus or fetuses are injected with a drug to stop their growth. That procedure also poses dangers, including a possible loss of the entire pregnancy.

And you want to be my Congressman?

Via the Grand Rapids Press' profile of congressional candidate Patrick Miles.

A passer-by stopped to ask Miles, 42, a few questions.

“What do you think is the biggest problem in the country?” Comstock Park resident Phil Rood wanted to know.

“Extreme partisanship,” Miles answered without missing a beat. “The politicians in Washington are not working together to solve people’s problems.”

I read that I thought to myself, "He seriously cannot be that stupid."

The biggest problem in the United States is that Republicans and Democrats in Washington don't get along. Come on.

It's not the breakdown of the family, it's not irresponsible spending habits, it's not high unemployment, it's not debt to GDP ratio, it's not the unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security. It's not any of the long list of serious issues facing our nation.

The biggest problem is that Barack Obama and John Boehner think the other one is wrong about how to solve these problems.

What a childish, thoughtless answer.

Life Links 10/21/10

NPR and Press Association cover Al-Jazeera's report of a forced abortion on a 8-months pregnant woman in China.


Jodi Jacobson is calling Carly Fiorina a liar because Fiorina uses Boxer's "when you bring the baby home" quote during the partial-birth abortion debate to describe Boxer's position on abortion. You can watch it on YouTube here.

Jacobson also thinks Roe v. Wade "confers rights on fetus at viability." Um....wrong.

You'd think the editor-in-chief at the RH Reality Check would at least know the basics of Roe v. Wade, huh?


At Public Discourse John Finnis, a professor at Oxford and Notre Dame, writes about the moral status of the unborn.

All sorts of stages have been proposed for “becoming a person” or “acquiring moral status”: implantation, development of the primitive streak, brain life, sentience, quickening, viability outside the womb, actual birth, actual birth unless it was an induced abortion, formation of desires, formation of concepts, formation of self-consciousness, valuing your own existence—but these all cancel each other out, and anyway, with the talk of the threshold being desires, or self-consciousness, or conscious concern to stay alive, we are now deep, deep into infanticide territory with Peter Singer and Jeffrey Reiman. These are positions that willy-nilly are incompatible with non-arbitrarily affirming the personhood of adults who are in even temporary unconsciousness. And what is wrong in principle with their positions is that they deny human equality, elevating various subrational animals of their choice above healthy young babies weeks, months, and years after birth, and above the deeply disabled mentally or physically.

The thing about moral status is, if you believe in morality at all, that it is not a matter of choice or grant or convention, but of recognition. If you hear anyone talk about conferring or granting moral status, you know they are deeply confused about what morality and moral status are. The very idea of human rights and status is of someone who matters whether we like it or not, and even when no one is thinking about them; and matters, whether we like it or not, as at bottom an equal, because like us in nature as a substantial kind of being.

UPDATE:Members of Diane Tweedle's family are claiming the report below is false.

British model Diane Tweedle was found dead on April 15, hanging from a hair dryer cord. An inquest into her death has heard that she had an abortion a couple of weeks before the suicide.

One of several notes she left read: ‘I didn’t want to do it.’ The model’s boyfriend, Paul Dodd, told police she had an abortion two or three weeks earlier but was not ‘down about it’.

Planned Parenthood Radio Ad

While listening to the radio station 105.3FM last night while driving in my car I heard a radio ad for Planned Parenthood. It started like this:

Are you trying to lose weight?

Getting pregnant won't help.

The ad then talked about Michigan's Plan First program which Planned Parenthood is taking part in.

Life Links 10/20/10

A man accused of attempting to force a woman to have an abortion at gunpoint has been charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and firearms charges. The attempted murder charge seems to be based on his attempt to kill his unborn child.

"He is charged with attempted murder for the attempt at gunpoint to force her to have an abortion against her will," O'Brien (the case's prosecutor) wrote.

"The (state) murder statute was amended a few years back to prohibit 'unlawful termination of a pregnancy' in order to avoid the debate whether an unborn fetus is a 'person' under the law.

"I have tried homicides where the murder victim was pregnant, and we were able to charge and convict for two counts, but this case is the first under these kinds of facts."

Here's another example of pro-choice intolerance:

Pro-Life Students of La Crosse had spent three hours Sunday setting out 1,100 crosses to resemble a cemetery on Wittich Field.

But the crosses were pulled from the ground sometime overnight and left stacked in heaps, group president Alyssa Gebel said. “I felt like our efforts went unnoticed and they mocked the views and beliefs of our group,” Gebel said. “It was a terrible thing to see on a campus that is so welcoming of free speech.”

The crosses weren’t damaged, she said, so the group set them up again along with another 400 that will remain on the field through Thursday.

Speigel Online International has an article about Polish women coming into Germany for abortions. It's a very pro-abort article but the end of the article notes how some European countries have limits on abortion which would be considered "severe" by pro-aborts in the U.S.

The fourth patient had come too late: She was already in the 19th week of her pregnancy. In Germany, abortions are only permitted until the 12th week. This patient will probably get back into her car and drive even further west. The Netherlands permit terminations until the 22nd week of gestation.

Life Links 10/19/10

The California Catholic notes that an abortion clinic run by abortionist Feliciano Rios is still open as Rios awaits firearm charges. Apparently, he had a couple of semi-automatic guns in his office. That's a no-no for a felon.

In January, the state attorney general filed a criminal complaint against Rios charging him with three counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and two counts of being a felon in possession of ammunition. If convicted, Rios’ probation could be revoked and he could be sentenced to prison.

In light of Rios’ criminal history, the medical board is now seeking to have Rios’ license to practice medicine revoked, alleging in part, “he has been convicted of crimes substantially related to the qualifications, functions or duties of a physician and surgeon…”

Both the New York Times and the Boston Globe have obits for former National Right to Life Committee president Mildred Jefferson who died on Friday at the age of 84.


The Daily Princetonian has an article on a recent conference on abortion at Princeton entitled, "Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair Minded Words."

"I don’t know why I didn’t leave."

At the blog Evolution of Chase, blogger Chase (who describes herself as pro-choice) is struggling with an abortion she had sometime in the last year (probably around 10 months ago). This was written at the end of September (language warning).

Mommy *sighs*. That could have been me. Mommy. I just want my child back and I can never have that. (Expletive), I am never going to heal from this. I’m just going to live in regret, agony, and tears for the rest of my life. I have no purpose. For a few fleeting moments my purpose was to be a mother and all that is gone now and I am left with nothing. And the would-be daddy? He didn’t give a (expletive). He just wanted me to kill it. He never cared one ounce about his child I was carrying. He didn’t want the responsibility even though he was physically and financially able to give his child the life it deserved. So now here I am. Alone. Empty. Utterly empty. Nothing can replace the child I wanted more than anything when I found out I was pregnant. But that chance has passed and now I am left alone. Crying. Alone. Inconsolable. I no longer have a purpose except to be miserable.

She describes why she had an abortion here.

What is making it so difficult for me is the fact that I didn’t want to have an abortion. When I found out I was pregnant I wanted the baby. I knew I couldn’t handle an abortion, I knew I didn’t want one, I knew as I sat in the clinic crying I should leave but I didn’t. I got on that table crying, shaking, being told by the nurses I needed to calm down so they could give me the anesthesia. It was horrible. It was traumatic. I don’t know why I didn’t leave. I let TK convince me if I did it everything would be OK, that he was going to take care of everything and make it better. I knew in my gut that was not going to happen. I knew I shouldn’t abort my child but I wanted to believe in the impossible. I wanted to believe that if I did it magically TK and I were going to have some kind of wonderful relationship. We didn’t have a relationship before I got pregnant, why would I think we could have one after? I longed for what I had never had – love, family, someone to be there for me. I knew if I kept the baby TK was going to shut me out so stupidly I did what he asked me to, I aborted my baby.

Her due date was August 3.

Here she discusses her problems with finding counseling.

Searching for counseling I’ve found two main schools of thought in the majority of practices. First is the more religious approach. Ask god for forgiveness, name your baby and have a funeral for it, return to the church an enlightened “forgiven” pro-lifer. Um no. The second is the non-apologetic approach. I should be happy I had an abortion. I did the right thing by not being selfish, I should feel empowered by my decision and shouldn’t regret it. Well, that’s not me either.

Life Links 10/18/10

Susan Boyle's mother was supposedly advised to abort her.

International singing sensation Susan Boyle has revealed that she could have been aborted as a baby in her mother's womb if her mum had followed doctors' advice.

But to her mother, a devout Roman Catholic, an abortion was unthinkable and she went through with the pregnancy.

Miss Boyle said doctors had told Bridget Boyle, then a 45-year-old mother of eight, that having another baby could kill her.

I think Abortion Gang member prochoicegal is forgetting someone when she talks about how God would want her to fight for "the rights of all people."

When I found the reproductive justice movement, I found God's calling for my life. God's purpose for our lives isn't to spend our time hurting people, lying, and gossiping like many anti-choicers do. Instead of hurting, lying, and gossiping, wouldn't it make more sense that God wants us to fight, with love and passion, for the rights of all people, women included? Isn't that who God really is?

Greg Fundstein had a post at the Corner about NYC's attempt to regulate pregnancy centers.

"It would be a great world if nobody needed an abortion. Nobody's in favor of abortion," Bloomberg said. But the mayor is wrong. Speaker Quinn, Council Member Lappin, and their friends at Planned Parenthood and NARAL are in favor of abortion. When the head of the city's legislative body and local subsidiaries of some of the most powerful organizations in the country attack fewer than 20 shoestring operations in New York City that offer free abortion alternatives, while nearly 90,000 women procure an abortion every year in the city, it is clear that it's not about choice. It's about abortion.

A man in the UK with multiple sclerosis set his flat on fire after his girlfriend refused to have an abortion.


A human embryo who had been frozen for nearly 20 years was recently born after being implanted. Amanda Marcotte thinks her LOL arguments are the reasons some prolifers don't like IVF.

Apparently, they can be stored indefinitely. My first thought, unsurprisingly, went to how the anti-choicers out here are going to react to this. Since they believe that life begins at conception, and this kid was conceived in 1990, does that mean he's 20 now? Does he get to vote? Will he get to drink next year? When he's in kindergarten, will he be old enough to rent a car? I honestly think half the reason anti-choicers hate IVF is that it brings up questions like this that destabilize their worldview, and so they'd just rather ban it and forget about it.

My worldview is destroyed by such unstoppable arguments.

What is somewhat interesting is how Marcotte phrases the development:

"And a healthy baby is born from a 20-year-old embryo."

When I first read that I was like: What? How can an embryo give birth?

I then realized Marcotte's pro-choice vision of what an embryo is makes it difficult for her to say the embryo grew and developed into a born child because only living things grow and develop.

Boxer the Brightest Pro-Choice Leader?

Via the LA Times:

At Thursday's event, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, described Boxer as "the brightest star in the galaxy of pro-choice leaders in our country" — an introduction that made the three-term senator visibly emotional.

If Barbara "I am not answering these questions!" Boxer is the brightest star amongst pro-choice leaders then the night sky must be pitch black.

Life Links 10/15/10

At the Live Action blog, Jennifer Rego has a post with pictures of what she describes as a "ten week old embryo" removed from a woman who had uterine cancer.


The Center for Genetics and Society blog has posted an updated translation of a paper originally published in German on how American bio-tech companies are attempting to skirt laws which prohibit the purchasing of human eggs for research cloning purposes.

My investigation revealed that researchers in California are taking innovative approaches to introducing the dimension of payment into egg procurement strategies, thereby undermining the spirit if not the letter of state law. One approach already being implemented is the “seamless integration” of a fertility clinic and biotech company and the use of oocytes for which payments have been made for reproductive purposes. Another approach, still apparently in the planning phase, involves the commercial outsourcing of egg brokerage and “egg sharing.”

Feministing's Jessica Valenti was recently able to bring home her daughter Layla, who was born at just 29 weeks and spent 56 days in the NICU.

Investor's Business Daily has an editorial on Geron's clinical trial using cells made from embryonic stem cells to treat patients with spinal cord injuries.

Geron's announcement puts the lie to the claim ESCR was stopped dead in its tracks by President George W. Bush's announcement that federal funding of ESCR would continue only for stem cell lines then in existence, not from new stem cell lines derived from human embryos destroyed specifically for that purpose.

I'd also point out the Geron is a U.S. company which used private money for its research and it was approved for the first clinical trial in the world as far as I know. This kind of puts to bed two pro-ESCR talking points. 1.) Tax dollars are needed to move this research forward as quickly as possible and 2.) The U.S. was failing behind other nations.

Overheard: The Jokes of Abortion Workers

From the Abortioneer About a Girl in a post entitled "Laughter is the Best Medicine.

They make fun of each other with quick wit. There are things you’d only hear abortion workers wittingly joke about: aspirators; forceps; stuck condoms; flavored lubricant; sex; vaginas; cervixes and uteri. We laugh about tampons and periods. About blood. The humor lets us speak the unspeakable. Express fears of violence and discuss the visceral aspects of abortion (like the smell of blood + the autoclave = “clinic”).

Life Links 10/14/10

Placental stem cells are being used to treat patients with Peripheral Artery Disease at Duke University.

Cells are taken from the placentas of Israeli women who've given birth. Once injected, they secrete proteins, which boost additional cell growth. Then, it's believed those cells may contribute to the growth of additional vessels around the plaque, circumventing the blockage.

Three days after injections, Ronald was walking, and doctors say the oxygen level in his leg tissue jumped from 43 percent to 67 percent. This specific type of stem-cell therapy is currently involved in a phase-one clinical trial. P-A-D affects up to 20-percent of people over the age of 65.

A jury in Australia found a couple not guilty after they were arrested for importing RU-486 drugs from Ukraine to abort a pregnancy.

In summing up the two-day trial, Judge Everson explained to the jury that Ms Leach could be found guilty regardless of whether she had been pregnant or not when she attempted to procure her own miscarriage.

As a result, he said, the jury must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the drugs Ms Leach took were noxious to her health, rather than to the health of her unborn child.

Prolifers in Pittsburgh have won an injunction against a littering law which prevented them from placing prolife voter guides on cars.


A Montana school board has voted to end Planned Parenthood's 7-year run of providing presentations on birth control and STDs.

New Jersey Medical Board Suspends Abortionist Steven Brigham's License

The most detailed article I could find was in the Philadelphia Inquirer. His license is temporarily suspended and he has appealed the decision. The hearing lasted around 9 hours.

The New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners on Wednesday temporarily suspended the license of abortion doctor Steven Chase Brigham, ruling that the Voorhees-based entrepreneur is "a clear and imminent danger to the public health and safety."

Brigham, the board said, "has consistently and repetitively engaged in manipulative and deceptive behavior . . . to eviscerate the protections afforded New Jersey patients."

The board sided with the state Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting that case, in concluding that Brigham initiated late-term abortions in Voorhees and completed them in his facility in Elkton, Md., because "he could not qualify to provide those abortions in New Jersey." The board also concluded that Brigham routinely and purposely had kept patients in the dark about where their abortions would take place, and who would do the surgery.

Brigham was able to find two abortionists to testify in his favor.

Rajan also testified that Brigham had met the "standard of care" in the abortions he performed. Rajan, who served as the director of a Philadelphia abortion clinic in May, was asked to explain why he had left that affiliation off his resume.

"You won't get promotions. You pay a price for serving women," he said. "We have created a major crisis. There are very few doctors trained to do abortions."

Life Links 10/13/10

Some members of the New York City Council are proposing to regulate crisis pregnancy centers by forcing them to disclose that they don't perform or refer for abortions among other items.

The legislation, backed by Speaker Christine Quinn, would require the centers to disclose to clients that they do not provide abortion services or contraceptive devices, or make referrals to organizations that do. Centers that don't have licensed medical providers onsite would also have to disclose that information.

Under the bill, the centers would be required to hang disclosure signs in their offices and post statements on websites and in advertisements.....

Chris Slattery, president of Expectant Mother Care Frontline Pregnancy Centers, which operate in the city, said the legislation is a violation of First Amendment rights. He accused the council of championing the "abortion industry's agenda."

"This is an outrageous interference with an extremely helpful and positive outreach to often disadvantaged expectant mothers," Mr. Slattery said. "How many other New York City businesses will be required to say on their doors what services they don't offer?"

I'm wondering if the NYC City Council, which apparently cares so much about women, has done anything to stop Pierre Renelique, an abortionist who lost his license in Florida for medical malpractice, from practicing in NYC.

Susan Dominus' New York Times article on the Council's plans is unintentionally hilarious.

The centers — crisis pregnancy centers — provide support for women who would like to continue their pregnancies but are in dire financial straits. They provide useful social service referrals and offer a sympathetic ear for women continuing their pregnancies.

They do not, however, provide a full range of alternatives (like the morning-after pill) or condone all choices.

Can you imagine that? They don't condone all choices? The horror!

We also learn that a NARAL Pro-Choice America investigation (which was certainly scientific and unbiased) found that CPCs do a bunch of things NARAL doesn't like. But the investigation was "year-long" so it must have some merit, right?


At the Acton Institute Michael Miller discusses a piece in the Weekly Standard by Jonathan Last entitled, "America's One Child Policy," which I somehow missed. From Last's piece,

During the last 50 years, fertility rates have fallen all over the world. From Africa to Asia, South America to Eastern Europe, from Third World jungles to the wealthy desert petro-kingdoms, every country in every region is experiencing declines in fertility. In 1979, the world’s fertility rate was 6.0; today it’s 2.6. Industrialized nations have been the hardest hit. America’s 2.06 is one of the highest fertility rates in the First World. Only Israel (2.75) and New Zealand (2.10) are more fertile.

China and America have yet to witness the effects of falling fertility because of demographic momentum. Populations increase even as fertility rates collapse, until the last above-replacement generation dies, after which the population begins contracting. The rate of contraction speeds up as each generation passes. No society has ever experienced prosperity in the wake of contracting population.

Overheard at the Abortioneers' blog:

I see patients who are sad after their abortion just as often as I see patients who are elated they aren't pregnant anymore.

Life Links 10/12/10

The New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners will meet on Wednesday to decide what should happen to abortionist Steven Brigham after authorities discovered his process of starting late-term abortions in New Jersey and then leading a caravan of women to another abortion clinic in Maryland to finish the abortions.

Attorney General Paula Dow wants the state Board of Medical Examiners, the disciplinary panel for doctors, to pull Brigham’s license for this "grossly negligent and dangerous pattern of practice.’’ Brigham used the two-state scheme to flout a New Jersey law prohibiting doctors from performing abortions outside a hospital or other licensed facility after the 14th week of pregnancy, and put his patients "at risk of serious harm,’’ according to Dow’s complaint.

Family Research Council's David Prentice responds to Geron's embryonic stem cell announcement.

In its usual style, Geron has put out a press release that it has injected the first patient for its trial of embryonic stem cells for spinal cord injury. Of course their main goal is to increase their stock price and cash flow from investment. Not about science, not about helping patients. After all, this is just an announcement that the patient has been injected with millions of cells. No results, no peer-reviewed publication, nada....

From the total of two published rat studies on which the human experiment is based, Geron already knows that their ESC-derived cells will not work on chronic spinal cord injury; patients must be recruited and injected within the first 14 days after their injuries. They also know that the patient must be juiced with immunosuppressive drugs, so that the injected cells are not rejected by the immune system, since they are foreign to the body. And because of the significant possibility that ESC-derived cells can run amuck, growing out of control or forming improper tissues throughout the body, Geron has already said they will have to monitor the patients for 15 years to assess the danger.

Olympic College in Washington has adopted a policy of restricting non-student protesters a year after graphic photos of aborted children were displayed on campus.

U.S. patient has been injected with cells derived from embryonic stem cells

This is the first news that a patient was accepted in Geron's FDA approved clinical trial which hopes to put cells created from human embryonic stem cells into patients with recent spinal cord injuries. Most of the articles like this one just provide information from Geron's press release.

Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN) today announced the enrollment of the first patient in the company's clinical trial of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, GRNOPC1. The primary objective of this Phase I study is to assess the safety and tolerability of GRNOPC1 in patients with complete American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale grade A thoracic spinal cord injuries. Participants in the study must be newly injured and receive GRNOPC1 within 14 days of the injury.

The patient was enrolled at Shepherd Center, a 132-bed spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation hospital and clinical research center in Atlanta, GA. Shepherd Center is one of seven potential sites in the United States that may enroll patients in the clinical trial.

Overheard

Fr. Tim Moyle discusses the struggle of Canada's prolife movement and how all their efforts seem to be for naught.

Year after year since the Trudeau government in 1969 legalized abortion, pro-lifers have prayed, protested and lobbied Parliamentarians, only to find their efforts come to naught. In fact, since the Canadian Supreme Court removed all limitations on abortions in 1988, almost one-third of all pregnancies in Canada today end with an abortion......

Yet they do not stop. Indeed they believe that they cannot quit trying to inculcate what Pope John Paul II called a “culture of life.” For them, the issue of abortion is not a question of choice; it is a matter of life and death.....

Pro-lifers have reason to hope. History teaches that nothing is held more firmly than common consensus until the moment it changes.

Life Links 10/11/10

Born-alive aborted children are being left to die in Australia. HT: Joe Carter

BABIES that are surviving late-term abortions at Melbourne's Royal Women's Hospital might be being left on shelves to die, according to an Anglican minister.

Dr Mark Durie, minister of St Mary's Caulfield, said staff were finding it hard to cope with a reported six-fold increase in late-term abortions at the Women's since abortion was decriminalised in Victoria two years ago....

He said in one case - not at the Women's - a trainee was deeply traumatised when she was told to drop a living foetus in a bucket of formaldehyde.

Dr Durie said even in 2007, 52 babies survived late-term abortions, according to government figures. In some clinics they had simply been put on a shelf and left to die, and the public deserved to know what was happening now.

At the Live Action blog, Ana Benderas posts 5 tips for conversing about abortion.

If they say the world is overpopulated, don’t get into it about how it’s really not. It doesn’t matter. We don’t kill humans as population control. If they say more women will die from back-alley abortions, don’t go into statistics about how it’s not true. It doesn’t matter. It is not ok to kill humans just because “it will happen illegally anyway (for more on this topic see my Facebook note Self- Induced Abortions).”

When it comes to the wild goose chase, refuse. Stay on topic. Abortion is wrong because it kills innocent people. Killing innocent people is wrong.

Wesley Smith notes how one of the winners of CIRM's stem cell poetry contest based his poem on a speech Jesus made at the Last Supper. The poems have been removed and CIRM has apologized.


Talk about completely different approaches - Steve Wagner talked at a South Dakota Right to Life Conference about engaging in dialogue with pro-choice activists.

“Pro-choice ideas are the enemy, not pro-choice people,” Wagner said, urging people to “destroy confusion, not people.”

Meanwhile, Amanda Marcotte writes,

The number one mistake anyone can make when dealing with anti-choice activists is to take them at their word. Believing that they’re in this strictly because abortion itself offends them, and seeking ways to reduce access to abortion? Reproductive rights activists would be the first in line to tell you that’s never going to work. And if you stick around and listen to reproductive rights activists dispensing advice, the second thing we’d tell you is that people who enjoy going to clinics to yell at patients live for opportunities to harass people, and you’d be much better off avoiding them in the first place.

Stem cell poetry contest

CIRM, California's stem cell agency recently announced the winners and finalists of the 2010 Stem Cell Awareness Day poetry contest. Interestingly, one of the winning poems discusses how the author's daughter began life as one cell.

One cell, followed by many more
The mosaic forms a new life
A young child will freely soar
Yet untouched by sadness or strife.

The cells divide, and we behold
Newborn, toddler and then a teen
Innocence turns to loud and bold
A movie, never before seen.

To me it seems odd for an organization in favor of killing human embryos for their stem cells to award a win to a poem which seems to discuss the humanity of the human embryo. Maybe there's some cognitive dissonance here with both the judges and the author.

Stem cells used to treat doggie arthritis

Veterinarians at the Adobe Animal Hospital in Scottsdale removed fat from "Lilly, a 14-year-old American Eskimo suffering from severe arthritis," harvested the adult stem cells and re-injected them into her joints.

The headline of the article claims this is the first stem cell procedure performed on a dog.

Life Links 10/8/10

Linda Meek, the former director of a Tulsa abortion clinic pleaded guilty to reporting a false bomb threat. She'll be sentenced in January.

Meek, who is no longer employed at the clinic, told the court Thursday that she bought an egg timer at a department store Aug. 13, set it so it would start ticking, and put it in her trash can. She then called the police and reported a bomb......

Meek has never given a reason for falsely reporting a bomb.

Abortion is playing a role in Brazil's presidential election.

Abortion has become a big issue in Brazil's presidential election after religious activists dropped support for leading candidate Dilma Rousseff due to her past support for legalizing it....

A 2007 interview Rousseff had given declaring it was "necessary to legalize abortion" as a matter of public health that began furiously circulating on the Internet. Many evangelical churches called on their followers to not vote for her....

Rousseff herself said she underestimated "the conservative forces" ranged against her, and blamed the Internet campaign and "religious values" on her lower-than-expected score.

Since becoming Lula's chosen successor, she has changed her tone on abortion, saying Tuesday she is "above all, in favor of life."

A "For Sale" sign has been posted outside abortionist George Tiller's old office.

David Gittrich of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life sent an e-mail to members Thursday mentioning the sign. He also floated the idea of buying the former clinic and turning it into a memorial for the fetuses aborted there.

This gives you a good look into the ideology of the members of the Detroit Free Press editorial board. They decided against endorsing a local judicial candidate in the primary election solely because she was endorsed by a prolife group.

Carleton University has a place where prolife beliefs can be shared

Via the University of Toronto Students for Life in response to the university having students arrested for displaying photos of abortion:

Life Links 10/7/10

Dominic Holt-Reid has been arrested after allegedly attempting to force the mother of his child to have an abortion at gunpoint after she refused to go through with the scheduled abortion.

Police found him about 9:45 a.m. in a parking lot behind Founder's Women's Health Center, 1243 E. Broad St., said Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Columbus police spokesman.

Holt-Reid and Yolanda M. Burgess, the woman he forced to the clinic, have a child together, Weiner said. But they do not appear to share a home address, he said. State birth records show that child is a 4-year-old boy.

Burgess was in a vehicle with Holt-Reid yesterday morning after dropping their child off at school, according to a police statement. Holt-Reid became angry after Burgess refused to go through with an abortion that had been scheduled for 9 a.m. at the clinic.

Holt-Reid pulled a handgun from the glove compartment, pointed it at her and forced her to drive to the health clinic, according to police. The woman passed a note to a clinic employee, who called police.

The National Post has a story about a couple in Canada who used a surrogate in an attempt to have a child. After the child was diagnosed as having a good chance of having Down Syndrome, the parents wanted the surrogate to have an abortion.

When a B.C. couple discovered that the fetus their surrogate mother was carrying was likely to be born with Down syndrome, they wanted an abortion. The surrogate, however, was determined to take the pregnancy to term, sparking a disagreement that has raised thorny questions about the increasingly common arrangements.

Under the agreement the trio signed, the surrogate's choice would mean absolving the couple of any responsibility for raising the child, the treating doctor told a recent fertility-medicine conference......

The surrogate, a mother of two children of her own, eventually chose to have the abortion, partly because of her own family obligations.....

Françoise Baylis, a Dalhousie University bioethicist, said the case highlights how human life can become like a commodity in such transactions.

"The child is seen by the commissioning parents as a product, and in this case a substandard product because of a genetic condition," Prof. Baylis said.

Charges against a prolife protester in Tulsa have been dropped after a local prosecutor was unable to prove Carol Harp yelled so loud, she could be heard inside an abortion clinic.

During the brief trial, two employees of the abortion clinic said they could hear her shouting from across the street, "You are murderers."

Kumpe said, "They said they could hear her from 100 feet away through a brick wall and a plate glass door. We had two witnesses who say she didn't say those words and she was not louder than anyone else."

Kumpe said a pro-abortion advocate stood on the abortion clinic property and yelled at the pro-life group across the street. He yelled various things, including some comments meant to sound like they were pro-life sentiments.

A small study in the UK has found that women prefer surgical abortions to chemical abortions in the second trimester. It also notes that women who use the abortion pill later in pregnancy are more likely to have unwanted thoughts and nightmares.

As a group, the study found, women who received a medical abortion reported more pain and had more vaginal bleeding than those who'd had surgery. And two weeks after the procedure, they had a higher average score on a standard measure of "intrusive" psychological symptoms -- such as unwanted thoughts or nightmares....

n the U.S., the abortion pill is approved for use within the first nine weeks of pregnancy. In the UK, it is approved for use up through the 24th week;.....

Only 60 percent of the women in the study completed that follow-up, however.

Justice For All at Colorado State

The Rocky Mountain Collegian has articles on the JFA display and the pro-choice protest of the display. From the article about the pro-choice protest:

When she heard that JFA was coming to campus, CFA President Lexy Hall started a Facebook event that invited students to join in a protest against the display. On Monday afternoon, the group had 127 confirmed attendees.

And though only six joined Kulcsar in the counter-demonstration by 7:30 a.m., they said their message wasn’t any less clear.

Life Links 10/6/10

A draft resolution from the Council of Europe would attack the conscience rights of doctors who refuse to perform abortions.

A draft resolution would end the opt out and compel medical staff to carry out the procedure itself against their wishes if patients have nowhere else to go for the treatment.

It also calls for a register of doctors who object to abortion on conscientious grounds and a complaints mechanism for women who feel aggrieved by a refusal of a doctor to either grant an abortion or to perform the procedure directly.

The resolution will be put to a vote of assembly members on Thursday and while it would not be legally binding on Britain, if it is formally adopted it would put pressure on member-states to ban conscientious objection as a protection for doctors.

One Abortion Gang member is mad that some people are using the word abortion to describe something that has failed.

We don’t need the word “abortion” to become more used unless it is used to describe a procedure to end a pregnancy. I would rather the term “abortion” remain spoken out loud only in the safe haven that clinics and select OB/GYN offices have become than be bastardized by those ignorant individuals prone to outrageous overstatement and exaggeration.

Joe Carter on the latest advance in eugenics and embryocide - filming embryos in vitro to discover which ones have the greatest chance of developing.

So creating more children than you can carry in your womb creates the need for fetal reduction? Create and kill, for we can’t have another Octomom.

We live in an age where our talent for creative barbarism is outmatched only by our genius for euphemism.

"Here's $500 and a power washer, stab my ex-girlfriend in the stomach and kill her baby"

If you're thinking of dating Alexei Ramey, you might want to reconsider.

The court document states Alexei S. Ramey provided a picture and address of the 19-year-old woman, who is more than eight months pregnant, during a meeting Tuesday with an individual whom he believed would carry out the attack. The would-be conspirator was actually an undercover State Police investigator, authorities said.

The complaint indicates Ramey met with the investigator again Thursday and provided payment of "$500 along with a Titan brand pressure washer to commit this murder."

......

District Attorney Robert Carney said Friday that Ramey targeted the unborn child but "didn't care if she (ex-girlfriend) died in the process." It's unclear if Remy ever lived with the woman or if he is the father of the child.

Life Links 10/5/10

The National Post has more information about the students arrested at Carelton University for displaying graphic photos of aborted children.

Four of the students are members of Carleton Lifeline and a fifth is a supporter from another campus. Ottawa police took them into custody and charged them with trespassing yesterday after they attempted to erect the display on the school’s Tory Quad.

“The students feel they were turned down simply because their opinions are unpopular,” said Albertos Polizogopoulos, the lawyer representing the students. “They believe the university has acted outside of their own policies. Those policies include students not to be not discriminated against, academic freedom, free exchange of ideas on campus. This is not a case of pro-life versus pro-choice; this is a free speech issue.”

A 44-year-old man in Florida named Peter J. Fehily was jailed after attacking this 26-year-old girlfriend after they argued about her recent abortion.

The woman told deputies that she and Fehily were arguing over her abortion when he chased her into the garage. The woman hid in a vehicle, but Fehily broke the glass and stabbed at her with a broken beer bottle, a report says.

A pro-choice group at Colorado State is preparing for Justice for All's visit.

We need to do something,” said Lexy Hall, who is one of three women planning today’s pro-choice response to the campus visitors. “These folks come to campus every year, and we need to voice our views the same way they do.”

This makes no sense is right

ChoiceUSA has posted this short film on YouTube which is supposed to make some point about how personhood amendment don't make sense because it wouldn't make sense for a pregnant women to play doubles tennis by herself and be charged for two plane tickets. Why a personhood amendment would make pregnant women play doubles tennis by themselves or be charged for two plane tickets is never really explained. Anyone who isn't in love with abortion would think almost immediately, "Well, they don't charge for little babies to have plane seats. Does this mean they're non-persons?" Or, "sometimes very large individuals are forced to buy two plane tickets, does this mean they become a double person?"

Canadian prolife students arrested for displaying graphic photos

The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform FaceBook page has some pictures of prolife students at Carleton University getting arrested for display images of aborted children.

Life Links 10/4/10

An abortionist from Tennessee was arrested at South Carolina abortion clinic after showing a gun to abortion protesters.

Police arrested Gary Boyle, 62, a Blountville, Tenn., physician, on charges of pointing a firearm.

Boyle drove into the parking lot of the clinic on Ashley River Road near Fuseler Road at around 8:30 a.m. When three protesters, including a 17-year-old boy, approached him, Boyle brandished a black handgun loaded with 15 rounds, according to a police report.

Boyle then stepped out of his SUV and walked into the clinic without further incident, the report says. One of the three protesters, 50-year-old John Karafa, called 911.

"We were like, 'Well, that was a gun,' " Karafa said. "You can't do that."
......
The incident wasn't the doctor's first legal snag.

He and his partner operated their clinic without a required certificate of need from the Tennessee Health Department for several years in the 1990s, and the health department tried to shut them down, according to court filings.

The dispute dragged on for years until 2002, when an appeals judge ruled that the state statute requiring the certificate had violated a woman's right to privacy.

Boyle usually aborts at the Bristol Regional Women's Center. Interesting, the Bristol Regional Women's Center isn't affiliated with the National Abortion Federation while the Women's Center in Nashville is. They have similar web pages and the same logo so I'm assuming the different Women's Centers are affiliated with each other.


University of Michigan researchers have announced that they've created a human embryonic stem cell line.


The Live Action blog points to one abortionist's completely unscientific view about when life begins. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland abortionist Jill Meadows thinks that "life begins, not at conception, but when it becomes meaningful, when ensoulment is possible, when viability and taking breath is possible. The miracle of life occurs at birth, she says."


British television pundit Virginia Ironside said she would suffocate a suffering infant and that abortion was "a moral and unselfish act" yesterday on a BBC program Sunday Morning Live.

Overheard

Suzanne at the Big Blue Wave responds to 4000 years of choice campaign:

Wait a minute: hasn't the patriarchy always controlled women's reproduction, and feminism was a response for that?

Is this an Orwellian manipulation of history or what?
......
Look folks, no matter how many icons, symbols and images you create, they will ALWAYS be superimposed on the image of a dead fetus. Because that's always the result. So no matter what kind of symbols of "empowerment" are created, they are always created against the backdrop of death and destruction.

Life Links 10/1/10

Christopher Tollefsen has a piece at Public Discourse regarding the differing definitions of pregnancy and how clarifying the issue can help provide a better definition of what abortion is.

Some liberals define the term as meaning the period from implantation of an embryo in a mother’s womb forward. Conservatives often define it as beginning at the point of conception. Quite a lot can seem to depend on the definition, since it can seem natural to think that a contraceptive, for example, works by preventing pregnancy, and an abortion by disrupting it. Thus, if pregnancy is not initiated until implantation, and an abortion disrupts pregnancy, then drugs that prevent implantation would be considered contraceptive, and not abortifacient. Conservatives rightly resist this claim, and do so by contesting the meaning of pregnancy.

But a better strategy might be to accept the liberal definition of pregnancy, but reject the conclusions that purportedly follow from it. On three issues—contraception, abortion, and embryo-adoption—I’ll argue that the liberal definition of pregnancy can actually help clarify what sound morality demands.

NOW decided to encourage its supporters to protest Lila Rose's recent speech in Indianapolis. The Live Action blog has a picture. One sign reads "95% of (women) hate Lila. See(?) I can make up statistics too." So instead of being mad at abortion clinics for looking the other way at statutory rape and lying to women about fetal development, NOW is mad at Lila for exposing them.


LifeNews reports that two more women have died after having taken RU-486 abortion cocktail.

The two women died after developing a Clostridium sordellii infection after using the abortion drug. Two separate studies -- conducted by the University of Michigan and a Brown University researcher -- showed that off-label use of the drug caused the infections in the women who took it and the infections led to septic shock that claimed their lives.

The two new cases include the 2008 death of a 29-year-old Hispanic woman and the 2009 death of a 21-year-old Caucasian woman.

If the study conducted by the University of Michigan included a woman who had an abortion in Michigan, her death wasn't reported to the Michigan Department of Community Health.


Bristol Palin took some time off from practicing her dancing to speak at a prolife group's dinner last night.