More than 13 million abortions a year in China

According to the China Daily newspaper there are at least 13 million surgical abortions performed in China every year. In previous years, the Alan Guttmacher Institute estimated there were 9 million annual abortions in China. According to expert Therese Hesketh who has studied family planning policies in China, abortions in China,

are "completely non-taboo, almost a form of contraception really," she said.

The Madian Gynecological Hospital in Beijing said the cost for a surgical abortion at their facility was between 300 to 400 yuan ($44-$59) and patients were not required to leave their name or identification number.

Whereas women in other countries might go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy, Hesketh said, the one-child policy has also made Chinese women "very choosy about when they want to have a baby."

"They want to control it, want to have the baby when it's convenient, like when they have enough money or have a big enough home, and if it's an inconvenient time, they won't go through with it," she said.

Rabbi's Ride for Life

Over the last eight years, Rabbi Glenn Harris has combined two of his passions, bikes and babies, to help raise approximately $35,000 for a local pregnancy care center. Since 2002, he’s been taking an annual trip on his motorcycle to various destinations and urging others to support him in his efforts to help women in unplanned pregnancies choose life for their unborn children.

In his latest journey, Rabbi Harris and five of his fellow bikers rode their motorcycles from his home in Birmingham and traveled around the lower peninsula’s lengthy and scenic shoreline returning home after 5 days and 1,150 miles. Using their connections with friends, family, congregation members and fellow bikers to get pledges, they were able to raise around $5,500 this year for the Care Net Pregnancy Information Center of Berkeley.

Right to Life of Michigan works with more than 100 pregnancy centers throughout Michigan to help ensure that women in unplanned pregnancies know that abortion isn’t their only choice. Right to Life of Michigan also reaches out to teens through advertisements on the popular search engine Google in the hopes of connecting them with the life-affirming web site www.teenbreaks.com.

Rabbi Harris encourages other prolifers to think of ways to use activities they’re already involved in to help the prolife cause by writing, “Anyone can do this. All it takes is a little imagination and a little faith in a very big God. The word of God (I Corinthians 10:31) urges us to glorify God in all of our activities. If there's something you already enjoy doing, why not find a way to direct it to God's glory and to the benefit of other people?”

Prolife Michigan Democrat Leading Efforts to Keep Abortion Out of Health Care Reform

For years, Bart Stupak (D-MI) has been a leading voice for life in the Democratic Party. He’s co-sponsored various prolife legislative efforts including attempts to ban human cloning on the federal level.

Now he is leading the efforts of prolife Democrats in Congress to keep abortion out of health care reform legislation. He, along with other prolife Democrats, is currently pushing Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives to add language which guarantees that insurance companies won’t be forced to cover abortions, tax funds won’t be used for abortions and that prolife state laws will remain intact.

"I think if they do not have [the language] in there and President Obama says we are going to have a bill with nothing in there on abortion, I think it is going to backfire. I think we bring down the rule and it will be explicitly discussed in the health care plan one way or another," Stupak told Washington Unplugged's Michelle Levi after a press conference with Republican collegues on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Stupak told CBS News that he feels confident that "a minimum of thirty nine" democrats would join him in opposing the legislation proposed by House leaders should the abortion language not be written in.

"If there is not direct language and we are denied our ammendment we will focus our attention on the rule," Stupak warned.

"I am optimistic that we will get an ammendment," in the House Energy and Commerce committee which has recessed their mark up of the health care bill in question, the congressman said. However, should the bill leave the committee without banning the use of federal money for abortions Stupak and his collegues will "demand" a house floor vote on the specific issue.

FULL STORY

Obama’s Budget Director Won’t Rule Out Health Care Bill Paying for Abortions

On Sunday, the White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that he wasn’t prepared to rule out abortions being funded by tax payers in the health care reform bill working its way through Congress.

On Sunday, Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag was asked if in the taxpayer dollars would not fund abortions in the government-funded, public health insurance plan President Obama is proposing.

"I think that that will wind up being part of the debate," Orszag said on Fox News Sunday. "I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate….I'm not prepared to rule it out.

FULL STORY

Your Action Can Save Lives

Today go on record that you oppose abortion in health care reform. The message is: Abortion and abortion funding must be "explicitly excluded" from any health care/insurance reform legislation.

The U.S. Senate and U.S. House committees are presently working on health care reform packages including various amendments that will directly affect both abortion and rationing of health care. National proabortion groups see this legislation as an opportunity to mandate abortion and abortion funding. They will not need to pass the Freedom of Choice Act if they get vague wording inserted, (i.e. reproductive health services, family planning services, comprehensive health services) into the bills and if an appointed national health advisory board is part of the packages.

In addition, Planned Parenthood, the number one abortion provider in the United States, could reap millions of tax dollars from any bill that creates federally funded community women health clinics.

What are the ramifications if abortion is not explicitly excluded from health care/insurance reform?

- forced coverage of abortion by all health care plans

- nullification of state abortion laws and commonsense regulations protecting mothers and unborn children

- your tax dollars paying for abortions

- mandated establishment of abortion clinics

- elimination of conscience clause protections for doctors and health care workers

President Barack Obama and proabortion Congressional Leaders are determined to have bills passed this month before the public realizes the abortion flood gates being opened. Don't delay. Call today.

Action Item:

Call, fax and e-mail Senator Carl Levin, Senator Debbie Stabenow and your U.S. House Representative and let them know abortion and abortion funding must be "explicitly excluded " from any health care/insurance reform legislation.

Congressional Contact Information

We have no time to lose. There is no doubt your efforts to explicitly exclude abortion from health care reform will save the lives of thousands of unborn children. Please act today.

Study finds the unborn have memories

A study by researchers from the Netherlands published in the medial journal Child Development has confirmed that the unborn have memories. Using sound and vibrations, alongside of ultrasounds, the researchers discovered that unborn children have short term memory by at least 30 weeks of gestation.

On five occasions during the last eight weeks of their pregnancies, the women received a series of one-second buzzes on their bellies with a "fetal vibroacoustic stimulator," a hand-held diagnostic device used to gauge an unborn baby's heart rate and general well-being.

The baby's responses - primarily eye, mouth and body movements - were closely monitored over the weeks with ultrasound imaging to gauge "fetal learning" patterns. The researchers found that the babies acclimated themselves to the sounds and vibrations to the point that they no longer bothered to respond - a process known as "habituation."

"The stimulus is then accepted as 'safe' " by the babies, the study said.

The team also found that the tiny test subjects actually improved these skills as they grew older, with those who were 34- or 36-weeks old clearly showing that they had become familiar with the hum outside the womb.

FULL STORY

Senate panel votes to secure the reversal of Mexico City Policy

On July 9, 2009, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 17-11 to make it a law that international organizations who advocate for abortion overseas can receive international family planning funds. In the past, the Mexico City Policy prevented international family planning funds from going to organizations who provide and promote abortion in other countries. This policy was first enacted under President Reagan, reversed while President Clinton was in office, re-enacted under President Bush and then reversed again by President Obama a few days after taking office.

The House has already passed a version of this bill which doesn’t include this amendment. If a conference committee keeps the changes made in the Senate version of the bill, the next president wouldn’t be able to restore the Mexico City policy without the approval of Congress.

NIH releases final guidelines on human embryonic stem cell research

On July 6, 2009, the web site of the National Institutes of Health posted the final "National Institutes of Health Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research." These guidelines allow federal tax dollars to support research on human embryonic stem cell lines obtained from human embryos at in-vitro fertilization clinics.

The guidelines fail to require IVF clinics to inform couples considering donating their embryonic children to research about the possibility of embryo adoption if the clinic doesn’t offer any embryo adoption services. This means numerous couples with frozen embryos will never be fully informed about their options.

These guidelines follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order overturning President Bush’s limits on using federal tax dollars to fund research on new embryonic stem cell lines. Human embryonic stem cell research has not helped treat one human being and necessitates the killing of human embryos.

While President Obama and some researchers are focused on killing human embryos, others are working hard to find ways to avoid the ethical dilemma of killing human embryos for their stem cells. To date, more than 70 treatments from adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells have been used to help patients.

READ THE GUIDELINES

Michigan Abortionist Fined $10,000 after a Woman Dies in his Clinic

Alberto Hodari, an abortionist who owns various abortion clinics in Michigan has been fined $10,000 after the Disciplinary Subcommittee of the Board of Medicine found that he was negligent after the death of Regina Johnson.

Regina Johnson died of anoxic encephalopathy due to cardiac arrest in September of 2003 after receiving an abortion at one of Hodari’s abortion clinics. In August of 2007, Attorney General Michael Cox filed an administrative complaint against Hodari charging that he was negligent, incompetent and lacked a good moral character. It was recently discovered Hodari resolved this complaint order in March of 2009 by pleading no contest to the charge of negligence and agreed to pay a $10,000 fine to the state of Michigan.

Alberto Hodari has previously been in the news after the bodies of aborted children were found in the dumpster of one of his clinics in the spring of 2008 and after the death of Tamia Russell, a teenager who died in 2004 after Hodari performed a late-term abortion on her without her parent’s knowledge or consent.

The Link Between Abortion and Premature Births

In the Lansing State Journal, Mollie Schweppe provides an explanation for why the number of premature/low weight births continues to rise despite the fact that pregnant women in the Lansing area are smoking less and receiving more prenatal care.

There is another factor contributing to low birth weight and premature births in these and all counties in Michigan - previous abortions. The abortion/premature birth link is the hidden reason why Michigan just can't seem to reduce incidences of low birth weight and premature birth.

A major European study released just this week in Amsterdam confirms that one previous abortion increases by 20 percent the risk of a future premature birth, with premature birth defined as birth at less than 37 weeks gestation. More than one prior abortion? The risk increases by 90 percent! In addition, more than one prior abortion doubles the likelihood of a premature birth at 34 weeks gestation or less. At that stage of prematurity, the child is much more likely to suffer from cerebral palsy, mental retardation, epilepsy or autism.

She then relates what this study means for women in Michigan.

Yet here in Michigan, when smoking goes down, teen pregnancy goes down, the number of women without prenatal care goes down, and premature births still go up, we all shake our heads, bewildered. Let's clear up the confusion: The culprit is abortion. Michigan residents had 24,006 abortions in 2007. For 52 percent of the women, it was their first abortion. Their risk of having a premature baby in the future has increased by 20 percent to 35 percent, depending on how premature birth is defined. For 48 percent of those women, it was their second abortion, or more. Their risk of having a premature baby has doubled. It's high time we face the fact that abortion does carry significant, long-term health consequences - and financial consequences.

RLM Vice-President Explains Embryo Research Legislation

The Traverse City Record-Eagle has printed an editorial by Right to Life of Michigan Vice-President Joseph Kincaid in which he discusses the recently introduced Embryo Research and Fertility Clinic Transparency Act.

Kincaid writes,

As a result of the passage of Proposal 2 last November, human embryos stored in fertility clinics now qualify as research material and are up for grabs to research laboratories. Most human embryos remain protected from research, with the exception of those produced in "excess" of their parents' childbearing desires and can be designated for stem cell research.

While the election concerning the "leftover embryo" is over, many questions remain. Who decides which university or private research entity will be awarded the highly sought-after embryos? How many are there? What happens when the supply is depleted? Will additional "research subjects," whether human or human-animal hybrid, be manufactured to satisfy the demand? If steps are taken outside the provisions of Proposal 2, what are the penalties?

.....

Transparency and accountability are a must when it comes to this emerging scientific field. The purpose of this legislation is not to impose government regulation but to add transparency. For the first time in Michigan history, a population of human beings will be classified as "research material" and destroyed for their parts.

Without setting these policies in place, we face just the beginning of a field wide open to trafficking human clones into the state, mixing interspecies DNA through creating human-animal hybrids and other potential unspeakable acts of human experimentation.