Life Links 12/16/10

The European Court of Human Rights has ordered the country of Ireland to pay a woman approximately $20,000 for violating her human rights under the European Rights Convention. The woman was in remission of a rare form of cancer (which she felt my relapse during pregnancy) and went to the UK to have an abortion after unintentionally becoming pregnant and not getting the information about the possible risk to her life from her doctors.

The Court rejected the arguments of two other women who claimed they needed abortions for health reasons.

The court found in favor of Ireland in two other cases, brought by women whose lives were not at risk, saying the country has the right to restrict abortions given "the profound moral values of the Irish people in respect of the right to life of the unborn."

The BBC also has an informative Q and A on this case. There are a lot of ridiculous/inaccurate attention grabbing headlines about this case.


An abortion clinic in Kansas City has been training two physicians to perform abortions. The would-be abortionists Drs. Mila Means and Greg Linhardt, want to perform abortions in Wichita, the former home of George Tiller's abortion clinic but don't plan on performing late-term abortions.


In Canada, members of parliament voted down a bill designed to make coercive abortion illegal.

The bill was defeated with 178 votes against to 97 for it.

While Harper and many Conservatives voted against the bill, ten Liberals supported it.

"I'm disappointed that the Conservatives message here is somewhat contradictory," said Liberal MP Dan McTeague.

Roxanne's Law was named for Roxanne Fernando, a young Winnipeg woman who was killed after refusing demands from her boyfriend to have an abortion. The woman's brutally beaten body was discovered in a snow filled ditch outside of Winnipeg in February 2007.