PRO-LIFE NEWS IN BRIEF

By Liz Townsend

Nitschke Plans to Sell Suicide Machine

Philip Nitschke, Australia's leading euthanasia practitioner, announced December 2 that a machine that dispenses pure carbon monoxide for use in suicide will be available in Australia in February. Nitschke described the "COGEN" machine at a workshop in Townsville, Australia, where he discussed methods of euthanasia, according to the Townsville Bulletin.

Nitschke said that the machine was developed by the U.S. euthanasia group Hemlock Society, and will be officially launched at its January national convention in San Diego, Agence France-Presse reported.

The COGEN machine will mix specific chemicals to produce carbon monoxide, which would be delivered to the suicidal person through a mask usually used to provide oxygen. According to Nitschke, the device will circumvent laws against such lethal machines because it can also produce oxygen, which is legal, according to the Bulletin.

Labels on the machine--written as a warning but really meant as a recipe for death--will describe how to mix the chemicals to produce the deadly carbon monoxide. "The warning will say 'don't put these chemicals in because if you do it will be deadly,'" Nitschke told the Bulletin.

The machine is only the latest in Nitschke's ever-expanding crusade for assisted suicide. In July, Nitschke introduced to Australians the so-called "exit bags," plastic bags with a tight elastic band that are meant to be placed around suicidal people's heads to suffocate them.

Assisted suicide is illegal in Australia. Police are currently investigating Nitschke for the deaths of a couple who committed suicide after attending one of his suicide workshops, the Courier Mail reported. Queensland police are also looking into his involvement in the May death of Nancy Crick, who killed herself with Nitschke's help, according to the Australian news agency AAP.

Pennsylvania Woman Charged with Killing Unborn Baby

Corinne D. Wilcott of Erie, Pennsylvania, faces charges of criminal homicide and assault after a 14- to 16-week-old unborn baby died in June after Wilcott allegedly kicked the mother in the stomach repeatedly. Police say Wilcott attacked Sheena Carson because the baby was conceived by Carson and Wilcott's husband during an affair, the Erie Times-News reported.

The attack occurred after a party June 8. Carson testified that Wilson came upon her from behind, pulled her hair forcefully, and knocked her to the ground, according to the Times-News.

Carson testified that Wilcott said, "I told you I was going to get you for sleeping with my husband." According to Carson's testimony, Wilcott then kicked her in the stomach at least twice, saying, "I hope the bastard dies." The Times-News reported that Carson walked away from the attack but later went to a hospital, where doctors could not detect the baby's heartbeat.

Carson went back to a doctor four days later, and again the heartbeat could not be found. Doctors at St. Vincent Health Center induced labor June 13 but the baby was stillborn, the Times-News reported.

Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook told the Times-News that the baby died after the placenta pulled away from the uterine wall during the attack. The baby died of suffocation, Cook said.

The charges of criminal homicide/murder and aggravated assault of an unborn child are the first to be brought in Erie County under the Crimes Against Unborn Child Act, a 1998 law that allows an unborn child to be considered the second victim of an attack, according to the Times-News.

Doctors at Canadian Hospital Decide to Stop Performing Abortions

Doctors at the South East Health Authority in Moncton, New Brunswick, decided to stop performing non-emergency abortions beginning December 31. About half of all abortions in the province of New Brunswick were performed at the hospital in 2001-02, according to the Canadian Press (CP).

South East Health Authority's chief of staff, Dr. Ken Mitton, told CP that the decision was based on resource allocation, since about half of the women who schedule abortions do not show up for their appointments. "Some surgeons have waiting lists of up to two years," Mitton told CP. "Meanwhile, you've got [operating] time that goes unused."

Pro-abortionists told the Moncton Times & Transcript that there will be no hospitals performing abortions in the entire eastern portion of the province. They said that women who receive abortions paid for by the province under the Medical Services Payment Act will be able to receive government-funded abortions in only two other hospitals.

Government officials, however, said that the doctors have the right to refuse to offer abortions. "The same law, the Medical Services Payment Act, says that physicians can decide what procedures they are going to perform," Don Richardson, spokesman for the Department of Health and Wellness, told the Times & Transcript. "The government cannot force them to take a patient against their will."

"They decide what services they will provide and what patients they are going to see," Richardson added. "They are complying with the legislation."

Arizona Abortionist Charged with Abusing 35 Patients

Arizona abortionist Brian Finkel has been charged with 67 counts of sexual abuse against 35 patients, abuse that allegedly occurred between 1983 and 2001. Many of the women accused Finkel of touching them inappropriately while he was examining them and before performing abortions, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

One woman told the Arizona Republic that Finkel acted abusively when she went to his Phoenix clinic for an abortion in October 2001. "He came in and yelled, 'Gown above your chest!' I wasn't sitting close enough to the end of the table, so he grabbed my legs and pulled me down on the table," the unidentified woman told the Republic. "He was very crude, militantlike, very abrupt. At that point I just wanted to get it over with and get out of there." The woman claimed that Finkel fondled her genital area and made rude comments. "It was very inappropriate the way he touched me," she told the Republic.

Police arrested Finkel in October 2001, and the case has been tied up in various court proceedings since then. Courts have been trying to decide whether to try the cases separately or as a group. On November 27, a Superior Court judge asked the state Court of Appeal to consider this question. The appeals court will review the case on January 8.

Finkel's attorney asserted that trying the cases as one would be unfair, presenting Finkel with "the virtually impossible burden of having to defend every incident of an entire lifetime in a single trial," Richard Gierloff told the AP.

Prosecutors offered Finkel a plea bargain in November in which he would have pled guilty to 12 counts, the AP reported. The other charges would have been dropped, and Finkel would have been sentenced to 20.5 years in prison. However, Gierloff told the AP that the offer was rejected.

Victim's advocate attorney Stacy Clark told the AP that Finkel's alleged victims are frustrated. "They just want to finally see Finkel held accountable," Clark said. "It has been more than a year and they're tired. They understand that at times delays are necessary, but the case should go forward."

Indiana Pro-Lifers Continue to Seek to Halt Abortions In Local Hospital

Pro-lifers in northwest Indiana are waging a grassroots effort to stop abortions at Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso, the only abortion provider in Porter County. Although the hospital board narrowly voted September 25 to continue performing abortions, right to life supporters have not given up hope.

"The fight is not over," Julie Wheeland, president of Porter County Right to Life, told NRL News. "We've just moved to phase two."

Wheeland said that she has petitioned the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the agency that accredits and monitors hospitals across the country, to look into the board's decision-making process. Wheeland would also like state agencies to determine whether the hospital is following Indiana regulations on abortion.

"Many questions remain unanswered," Wheeland told NRL News. "We want the investigative bodies to come in and get to the bottom of the situation at Porter."

The controversy began in June, when the board announced that it was reviewing the hospital's abortion policy. According to Wheeland, the most recent board-approved policy was passed in 1998, prohibiting second-trimester abortions except for those needed to "prevent a substantial permanent impairment of the life or physical health of the pregnant woman."

However, in July, a document signed by Ronald Winger, president and CEO of the hospital, expanded the reasons for second-trimester abortions to include "maternal risk" and "fetal disability." Hospital officials claimed that this new policy merely "clarified existing policy," attorney Robert Welsh told the Chesterton Tribune. "Nothing is different in terms of actual practice."

Pro-lifers strongly disagreed with this view. "This document made critical changes in policy," said Wheeland. "Maternal risk could mean the mother is a little depressed because she just doesn't want the baby. Fetal disability could mean something as minor as cleft palate."

The board held a public forum September 18 to hear community opinion about its abortion policies. Right to lifers presented a petition signed by 10,000 people asking that the hospital ban all abortions, the Tribune reported.

The board took its final vote September 25, and decided 4-3 to continue performing abortions. Instead of considering the previous official policy from 1998, the board voted on and approved the July revision, according to the Tribune.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Indiana applauded the board's decision, according to the Associated Press.

Louisiana Abortion Malpractice Law Goes into Effect

A Louisiana law allowing women to sue abortionists who injured them or their unborn children will go into effect after the state Supreme Court refused to hear a case filed against it by pro-abortionists.

The 1997 law exempts abortion from state malpractice regulations, which limit the time in which a case can be filed and the amount of money that can be awarded, according to the Times-Picayune. Women injured in an abortion have up to 10 years to file suit, and there is no monetary limit.

Pro-abortionists filed suit charging that the law is unconstitutional because it would restrict the availability of abortions, since it would make it difficult for abortionists to obtain malpractice insurance.

In 2001, a federal appeals court ruled that the case must be decided on the state level. A state district judge later enjoined the law, but that decision was overturned by the 1st Circuit Court in May 2002.

The state Supreme Court, in a 6-1 decision announced November 1, ruled that since no doctor has been sued under the law yet, there is no issue for the court to decide, according to the Times-Picayune.

Ohio Man Convicted in Unborn Baby's Death

An Ohio judge sentenced Paul Tarver II of Canton to 31 years to life in prison for arranging to have his unborn baby killed. The three-month-old unborn baby died two days after the mother, Keisha Lewis, was shot in the abdomen during what appeared to be a robbery March 7, according to the Canton Repository.

"For committing the ultimate selfish act, you arranged for the unthinkable ... to have the baby killed in its mother's womb," Stark County Common Pleas Judge Sara Lioi admonished Tarver during the sentencing hearing November 1, the Repository reported.

Tarver, 29, was the father of Lewis's baby, although their relationship was troubled, according to the Associated Press (AP). Lewis testified at trial that Tarver asked her to meet with him to discuss their relationship.

She and her two-year-old child were sitting in Tarver's car in the parking lot of a restaurant March 7 when a masked gunman confronted them, shooting Lewis three times in the abdomen, the AP reported. Tarver was shot once in the leg as he fled the car. The little girl was unharmed.

Although the gunman has not been apprehended, investigators were suspicious of Tarver's role in the incident because the shots seemed to have been targeted at Lewis's unborn baby. "Why else would he point the gun only at Lewis and fire three times into her belly from inches away?" prosecutor Chryssa Hartnett asked in her closing arguments, according to the AP.

Hartnett asserted that Tarver wanted Lewis to abort the baby so he would not have to be a father, the AP reported.

A jury convicted Tarver October 24 of complicity in the death of the unborn baby and complicity in the assault on Lewis, according to the Repository. Ohio law considers the unborn baby as a second victim of a crime.

Although Tarver continued to proclaim his innocence, Lewis said she is convinced the right man was held responsible, the Repository reported. According to a statement read at the sentencing hearing, Lewis wrote, "I cry because I loved you and your family, and you promised that you would never hurt me. God will handle you in his own way."