in this issue
abortion: CURETTAGE FOLLOWING MIFEPRISTONE, POSTABORTAL ABORTION
adolescents: DATING VIOLENCE
birth control and health insurance: WASHINGTON STATE
birth control pill: OVARIAN CANCER
congress: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT OF 2001
elder abuse: UNDERTREATING PAIN
morning after abortion pills: ACCESS
planned parenthood: GOES TO SUMMER CAMP
reflection for prayer: 2 TIMOTHY 1:7-8
ask the president: WHY THE SILENCE?
abortion
CURETTAGE FOLLOWING MIFEPRISTONE (RU-486): Researchers studied women who underwent curettage after a medical abortion that was conducted using mifepristone and vaginal misoprostol. Among the 4,393 women enrolled in two studies, surgical intervention to abort was found to be “rare” among these women, less than 100 in all. However, the researchers point out that using “this medical abortion regimen in broader practice settings may result in higher curettage rates with more varied indications than reported here.” Hedging!
(Reading: “Curettage after mifepristone-induced abortion: frequency, timing and indications,” Obstetrics and Gynecology, 7/01, pp. 101-106, subscription only)
POSTABORTAL ABORTION: Denying that IUDs, Norplant and similar methods cause early abortion, researchers found that among the 150 Turkish women who follow surgical abortion with a form of birth control few experience immediate pregnancies or problems. Of interest: “At the time of abortion, women are highly motivated to start an effective method of contraception [sic], and they are inclined to discontinue their previous method, which has failed.”
(Reading: “Immediate postabortal contraception with the levonorgestrel intrauterine device, Norplant and traditional methods,” Contraception, 63 (2001) 309-314, members only)
adolescents
DATING VIOLENCE: Researchers found that 9th through 12th grade girls “who report a history of experiencing dating violence are more likely to exhibit other serious health risk behaviors” such as smoking, drug abuse, binge drinking, and risky sexual behavior.
(Reading: “Dating violence against adolescent girls and associated substance use, unhealthy weight control, sexual risk behavior, pregnancy, and suicidality,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 8/1/01, pp. 572-579, abstract)
birth control and health insurance
WASHINGTON STATE: Twelve health insurance carriers in Washington State were surveyed; 75% of customers covered did not have contraceptive coverage, 37% did not have sterilization coverage and 98% were not covered for infertility treatment.
(Reading: “Reproductive and sexual health benefits in private health insurance plans in Washington State,” Family Planning Perspectives, 7/8/01, pp. 153-160, 179)
birth control pill
OVARIAN CANCER: Researchers recommend that the pill not be used “for chemoprevention of ovarian cancer” in women who carry BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. In fact, the risk of ovarian cancer among such women does not decrease if they are on the pill.
(Reading: “Parity, oral contraceptives, and the risk of ovarian cancer among carriers and noncarriers of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation,” New England Journal of Medicine, 7/26/01, pp. 235-240, abstract)
congress
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT OF 2001: Senators Bob Smith, Jesse Helms and Sam Brownback introduced S. 1373, a bill “to protect the right to life of each born and preborn human person in existence at fertilization.” For a copy of the bill see Library of Congress and search by bill number. Will your member of the U. S. House of Representatives introduce this bill in the House? Is he or she truly pro-life?
elder abuse
UNDERTREATING PAIN: Arguing that Dr. Wing Chin made their father suffer terribly due to undertreatment of pain, the children of deceased William Bergman were awarded a $1.5 million settlement in an elder abuse case in California.
(Reading: “Doctor guilty of elder abuse for undertreating pain,” American Medical News, 7/23/01)
morning after abortion pills
ACCESS: Researchers studied the provision of morning-after abortion pills by pharmacies in the state of Washington and insist that “women’s access to emergency contraception can reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion.”
COMMENT: That’s because the regimen kills human beings on their way to implanting in their mothers’ wombs and thus ends those unintended pregnancies by abortion.
(Reading: “Increasing access to emergency contraception through community pharmacies: lessons from Washington State,” Family Planning Perspectives, 7-8/01, pp. 172-175)
planned parenthood
GOES TO SUMMER CAMP: New Jersey pro-life activists have exposed the activities of a local Planned Parenthood which was teaching children ages 5-12 “about self esteem” during day camp. One citizen participant at a Housing Authority meeting stated, “How can we, as parents, trust our children to an organization whose primary agenda is to aggressively pursue nullifying parents’ rights and undermining parental authority?”
(Reading: “Camp class under fire,” Asbury Park Press, 8/16/01; for information on stopping Planned Parenthood see STOPP)
reflection for prayer
2 TIMOTHY 1:7-8: Out of deep love for Timothy and respect for his gift of faith, St. Paul writes to him:
“I am reminding you now to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you. God’s gift was not a spirit of timidity, but the spirit of power, and love, and self-control. So you are never to be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord, or ashamed of me for being his prisoner, but with me bear the hardships for the sake of the Good News, relying on the power of God who has saved us and called us to be holy — not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace.”
ask the president
WHY THE SILENCE? Re: human embryonic stem cell research
(a) Can an embryonic stem cell be coaxed into becoming a human embryo?
(b) Is human embryonic stem cell research on existing stem cell lines going to allow human cloning?
EXCERPT FROM:“Analysis: Parts I and II: Stem Cells that Become Embryos: Implications for the NIH Guidelines on Stem Cell Research, the NIH Stem Cell Report, Informed Consent, and Patient Safety in Clinical Trials” by Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D. (July 22, 2001).
The analysis is currently under peer review. Dr. Irving wrote the analysis as a fellow of the Linacre Institute (CMA), consultant for the Catholic Medical Association (USA), and consultant for the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), in issues relating to human embryology and human embryo research.
What has not been included in the public debates so far, nor addressed by the NIH, is the fact that in addition to human embryos being destroyed as the source of these “stem cells,” these “stem cells” themselves can naturally become living embryos which could also be cultivated and then destroyed during experimentation. That is, once separated from the whole, intact human embryo, these separated cells naturally tend to undergo “regulation” — i.e., to “heal” themselves from any injuries, and they then revert to being new living whole embryos — human beings — themselves. We know this from our own observations of natural monozygotic twinning, as well as by simply looking in the human embryology textbooks …
Three things should be noted from these direct quotations from the human embryology textbooks. First, the tendency of separated individual cells-or even separated groups of cells-to undergo “regulation” and become whole embryos themselves is a natural tendency or property inherent in these separated cells or groups of cells. Second, this ability to “heal” and form new living embryos applies not only to the earliest embryo (e.g., from the 2-16 cell stage embryo which involves “blastomere separation”), but also to the embryo at the blastocyst stage (5-7 days post-fertilization which involves “blastocyst-splitting”), as well as to the bilaminar embryo, which has already implanted (up to 16 days post fertilization). Third, virtually all of these stages of the early human embryo-from fertilization to just before the formation of the mesoderm (gastrulation)-are included in the definition of “pluripotent” as found in both the NIH guidelines and the NIH stem cell report. These objective scientific facts are also known by IVF researchers and clinicians, who consider exploiting this natural “healing” tendency in order to produce more embryos for cultivation, implantation and research purposes…