Pro-Life News in Brief
By Liz Townsend

Canadian Legislator Plans Unborn Victims Bill

Responding to recent cases, a Canadian legislator said he is planning to introduce a bill that would treat unborn babies as separate victims of violent acts. Member of Parliament Maurice Vellacott, a member of the Conservative Party from Saskatchewan, is drafting a private member's bill to add a charge to the Criminal Code for killing an unborn baby without the mother's consent, according to the Calgary Sun. The bill would not apply to abortion.

"A pregnant or recently pregnant woman is more likely to be a victim of homicide than to die of any other cause, and that's a very scary statistic," said Vellacott, according to the Canadian Press (CP).

"This is about women. This is about children. At the point where women and their pre-born children are most vulnerable of all, we need to do something."

Vellacott began calling for an unborn victims bill in July, after Liana White and her four-month-old unborn baby were murdered in Edmonton, Alberta, according to CP. Liana's husband Michael White was charged with second-degree murder and "offering indignity to human remains" for killing his wife and leaving her body in a ditch, but no charges could be filed for the death of the baby.

In another recent case, Olivia Marie Talbot and her 27-week-old unborn baby died November 23 in Daly Grove, Alberta, after a friend of Talbot's shot her several times, the Edmonton Journal reported. Jared Eugene Baker was charged with first-degree murder for Talbot's death, but will face no penalties for killing her baby.

"I want to see him get the ultimate punishment: charged with both murders," the baby's father, Talbot's fiancé Lane Griffith, told the Journal.

Griffith's sister, whose now one-year-old son was born prematurely at only 26 1/2 weeks, agreed. "Olivia was over 27 weeks pregnant," Tammy Brownlee told the Calgary Sun. "To me that baby was more than viable. To me that baby was a human being. I just can't fathom they're not charging him with two counts of murder. That baby had rights as well."

It is not clear when the bill will be introduced, since the current Parliament was dissolved after a no-confidence vote November 28 toppled the Liberal government. Legislators will stand for election in January.

Liechtenstein Voters Legalize Abortion

Voters in the small European country of Liechtenstein approved a proposal to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, rejecting a counter-initiative that would have protected human life from "conception to natural death," according to the Associated Press (AP).

The principality, located between Switzerland and Austria with a population of 33,000, held a referendum November 27 where voters could choose between two initiatives. Almost 80% voted for the government's proposal, which reversed the country's abortion ban and legalized it during the first three months of pregnancy, the AP reported.

Only 18.7% voted for the pro-life proposal offered by conservative groups and the Catholic Church. "Resistance must be brought forth against the pressure from the culture of death," Archbishop Wolfgang Haas wrote in a leaflet distributed in support of the pro-life proposal, according to the AP.

The initiative would have amended Article 14 of the Liechtenstein Constitution to read, "The highest responsibility of the State shall be to protect human life from conception to natural death and to promote the overall welfare of the People. For this purpose, the State shall be responsible for establishing and safeguarding law and for protecting both human dignity and the religious, moral and economic interests of the People" [amended portions in italics].

Since this proposal was rejected, legal experts predicted that the door will now be open in Liechtenstein to calls for stem cell research and assisting suicide, which are already legal in neighboring Switzerland, the AP reported.

Doctor Kills Himself after Discovering Suicide Patient Lied

A Swiss doctor who helped a German woman commit suicide killed himself when an autopsy discovered the woman was not terminally ill. The woman traveled to Switzerland in May to die with the assistance of the euthanasia group Dignitas, according to the London Times.

The unidentified 69-year-old woman had her general practitioner in Augsburg, Germany, falsify a medical report, stating that she had terminal cirrhosis of the liver. The general practitioner said he thought the woman needed the report to get sick leave from work, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported.

Instead, she traveled to Dignitas headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, and presented the medical report as proof that she was terminally ill and should be helped to die. Dignitas officials arranged for the unidentified Swiss doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of sodium pentobarbital, according to BMJ.

After her death, her body was sent back to Germany. An autopsy discovered no liver disease. The woman did, however, have a history of depression, BMJ reported.

After he was told the woman was not terminally ill, the Swiss doctor took his own life, the Times reported.

Officials from Dignitas admitted no wrongdoing. "The doctor's report that I was given indicated the woman was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver as well as hepatitis," said Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli, according to BMJ. "And in any case every person in Europe has the right to choose to die, even if they are not terminally ill."

Authorities in Germany have opened an investigation into the case. "We are investigating the German doctor for issuing false documents and negligent bodily harm, and the Dignitas doctor in Switzerland for causing death through negligence," Hans-Jürgen Kolb, the public prosecutor of Augsburg, told the Times.

"We are co-operating with the Swiss authorities. Post mortem reports have already shown that she was not suffering from irreversible liver damage, and if we find that her mental health was in doubt the charges could be more serious."

Over 450 Europeans have killed themselves with the help of Dignitas, BMJ reported. The group is known for attracting "suicide tourists," citizens of countries without legal assisted suicide who travel to Switzerland to die. Dignitas reported that 37 Britons and 253 Germans have traveled to Switzerland to die in the last three years.

In October, the group opened a second location in Hanover, Germany, intending to directly provide information about assisted suicide to Germans and to pressure the country to legalize the practice, the Washington Post reported.

 Indiana Informed Consent Law Upheld

The Indiana Supreme Court ended a 10-year legal battle over the 1995 law requiring women to receive counseling in person and then wait 18 hours before an abortion by declaring November 23 that it "does not impose a material burden" on the rights of Indiana women.

The law provides an exception for medical emergency, the Indianapolis Star reported.

"Today's ruling is a common sense victory for women in Indiana who have a right to know all of the facts prior to making abortion decisions, as well as the time to reflect upon this information," said Mike Fichter, executive director of Indiana Right to Life.

"It is a reasonable and necessary requirement to ensure that women are not rushed or pressured into decisions that will impact their own lives and the lives of their unborn children."

The Indiana legislature passed the law over the veto of then-Gov. Evan Bayh in 1995. A federal case against the law wound through the courts until 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a 7th Circuit Court ruling upholding the law.

The case then went to the state courts, although abortion clinics said they have been following all provisions of the law since 2003, according to the Star.

The state Supreme Court received the case after a trial court and an appeals court declared that the law does not violate Indiana's constitution. Writing for the 4-1 majority, Justice Robert Rucker found that the law "would not impose a material burden upon any fundamental right of privacy that includes protection of a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy that might exist under Article I, Section 1, and is, therefore, constitutional." The decision did not make a ruling on the contentious issue of whether or not the Indiana Constitution includes a right to abortion.

Justice Brent Dickson concurred with the majority but wrote a separate opinion. Rather than sidestepping the larger question of the right to abortion, Dickson would have faced the issue head on. "I prefer this Court to address that question and to explicitly declare that the Indiana Constitution does not protect any alleged right to abortion," he wrote.

"In addition, because the challenged statutory pre-abortion requirements not only discourage harm to fetal life, but also protect the health of pregnant women, particularly in light of the risks to women from post-abortion psychological harm, I am convinced that these requirements not only are a proper exercise of legislative power but also are in direct harmony with and furtherance of core values of Article 1, Section 1, of the Indiana Constitution, which declares the inalienable right of 'life' and the institution of government for the 'peace, safety, and well-being' of the people."

 Australian Abortionist Charged with Manslaughter

In the first case in New South Wales against a doctor for killing an unborn baby since the early 1970s, Australian prosecutors brought charges of manslaughter November 25 against abortionist Suman Sood, The Australian reported.

Sood gave labor-inducing drugs to an unidentified 20-year-old woman in May 2002, telling the woman to return home and come back to Australian Women's Health Clinic in Sydney the next day. During the night the woman had severe abdominal pains and called Sood, who told her to take pain medication, according to the Daily Telegraph.

However, at 3:30 a.m., the woman delivered the 23-week-old baby at her home, the Daily Telegraph reported. Mother and baby were taken to the hospital. However, the baby boy weighed only 520 grams (1.15 pounds) and died at 8 a.m.

Prosecutors "alleged the procedure was an illegal and dangerous act that caused the premature birth and predictable death of the baby," the Sydney Morning Herald reported. They contended that Sood did not question the woman, as required by New South Wales law, to determine whether the risks of the abortion were outweighed by "a threat to the woman's physical or mental health, or economic or social well being."

The woman testified at an August hearing that she sought the abortion because she was unemployed, according to the Daily Telegraph. Her parents had offered to raise the baby, but they were planning to move overseas and "she did not want her child to live overseas," the Daily Telegraph reported.

Sood, 56, told The Australian that she has performed 10,000 abortions in her career. She denied any wrongdoing. If convicted, Sood could face up to 35 years in prison. 

Adult Stem Cells Treat Woman's Heart Disease

With stem cells derived from her own blood, Jeannine Lewis of Huntington Mills, Pennsylvania, was treated in Thailand for congestive heart failure. Three months after the treatment, Lewis improved from Class III heart failure (almost to the point of requiring a heart transplant) to Class I, which is the mildest form.

"My neighbor said to me when I got back from Thailand, 'You can't use your own stem cells' and I said, 'But I did,'" Lewis told the Times Leader. "When you hear about stem cell therapy, all you hear is embryonic and cloning."

The treatment was conducted by Dr. Amit Patel of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in May. Patel only recently received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct clinical trials on heart disease patients in the United States, according to a press release from TheraVitae, the company that developed the treatment.

Lewis became the first patient to receive the treatment, called VesCell therapy. Stem cells are harvested from one pint of the patient's own blood, avoiding more invasive methods of extraction such as from bone marrow, the press release stated. The stem cells are then injected into the patient's heart.

Patel said that attracting funding for adult stem cell research has been difficult. "All of my funding right now is from UPMC," he told the Times Leader. "Slowly in time, there are more programs from the federal government. It is a matter of educating people on what this program is all about."

Diagnosed with heart problems when she was only 17, Lewis's condition deteriorated until she had the treatment. Now 29, Lewis feels better than she has in years. "I no longer have congestive heart failure ... and my heart has gotten noticeably smaller," Lewis told WNEP-TV. "It's pretty amazing." 

Euthanasia Doctor to Move to New Zealand

Soon before Australia's new law against euthanasia promotion by telephone or the Internet goes into effect January 7, euthanasia proponent Philip Nitschke plans to relocate to New Zealand, according to the AAP.

Nitschke has become notorious in Australia for finding ways around laws banning assisted suicide. He conducted workshops to teach elderly people how to make their own "suicide pills," patented and displayed a suicide machine, and provided information on how to commit suicide. He formed a pro-euthanasia group, Exit International.

In July, the Australian parliament passed a law prohibiting discussion of suicide over electronic services, the AAP reported.

Nitschke's operations would have to stop if he remained in Australia. "If I am talking to someone over the phone and they ask about certain dosages and I give them information then that will be illegal from next year," Nitschke told the AAP.

"We have always been able to get around the illegality of assisting someone to die by merely providing people with information. Now even that will be hard for us."

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society in Auckland will provide the new headquarters for Exit International beginning December 31, according to the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA). Nitschke already plans to hold more "suicide pill" workshops.

"The climate is a lot less oppressive in New Zealand," he told NZPA.