NRL News
Page 6
April 2008
Volume 35
Issue 4

Pro-Life News in Brief
By Liz Townsend

Vietnam Man Provides Crisis Pregnancy Help

In Vietnam, a country with one of the highest abortion rates in the world, Tong Phuoc Phuc provides a rare but invaluable service—giving pregnant women an alternative to abortion.

Phuc began living his pro-life principles by building a cemetery for babies killed by abortion in hospitals and clinics near his home in Nha Trang, the Associated Press (AP) reported. The cemetery now has 7,000 tiny graves. “I believe these fetuses have souls,” Phuc told the AP. “And I don’t want them to be wandering souls.”

As abortive women began to flock to the graveyard to pray for their own lost babies, Phuc asked them to spread the word that he would help women contemplating abortion to choose life.

Soon, with the help and support of his family, he was welcoming pregnant women into his home. They live there until their babies are born, and then Phuc continues to care for the babies until the women improve their circumstances enough to take the babies home, according to the AP.

So far, 60 children have been given the gift of life with Phuc’s help. One mother, Phan Thi Hong Vu, played with her infant while she told the AP how Phuc helped her change her mind and refuse to have an abortion. “I actually went to the hospital intending to get an abortion, but I was so scared,” Vu said. “I decided to go home and think about it. Two weeks later, I met with Phuc.”

Phuc receives support from Catholic and Buddhist groups as well as individuals who have heard about his work, according to the AP. He said that he is committed to keep working to encourage Vietnamese women to reject abortion.

“I will continue this job until the last breath of my life,” he told the AP. “I will encourage my children to take over to help other people who are underprivileged.”

Doctors’ Conscientious Objection to Abortion Threatened

Criticism continues to mount in the wake of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) November 2007 report calling for limits on the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to abortion.

Opinions issued by ACOG influence the process for doctors seeking licenses and certification in their medical specialty. In January, the organization that certifies ob/gyn specialists, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), issued new regulations that tie recertification to compliance with the ACOG ethics board’s opinions.

“This is a raw power play to cripple, and ultimately eliminate from practice, those doctors who hold a conscience conviction on the sanctity of human life, and refuse to have a part in doing, or referring for, the elective, deliberate taking of an unborn human life,” the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists wrote in a February 20 statement. The pro-life group “objects strenuously to this attempt by a professional medical organization (ACOG), using ‘ethics violations’ and ‘denial of recertification’ as a battering ram to force pro-life doctors into pro-choice compliance.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt wrote to ABOG in March seeking assurance that pro-life doctors will still be able to refuse to participate in or refer for abortions without putting their certification in jeopardy.

Leavitt stated clearly that if the board refused to allow doctors to conscientiously object to abortion it would violate the law. “Congress has protected the rights of physicians and other health care professionals by passing two non-discrimination laws and annually renewing an appropriations rider that protect the rights, including conscience rights, of health care professionals in programs or facilities conducted or supported by federal funds,” Leavitt wrote to ABOG executive director Norman F. Gant.

“I am concerned that the actions taken by ACOG and ABOG could result in the denial or revocation of Board certification of a physician who—but for his or her refusal, for example, to refer a patient for an abortion—would be certified,” Leavitt continued. “In particular, I am concerned that such actions by these entities would violate federal laws against discrimination.”

“Secretary Leavitt should be commended for defending federal laws protecting the conscience rights of physicians,” Deirdre McQuade, spokesperson on pro-life issues for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a March 19 statement. “[W]omen and men, physicians and non-physicians, have a fundamental right not to be forced to participate in actions they believe are gravely wrong, especially actions involving the taking of an innocent human life.”

Ohio Supreme Court to Hear Abortion Records Case

The Ohio Supreme Court announced March 26 that it would consider a lawsuit brought by the parents of a 14-year-old who received an abortion without their consent. The parents are seeking records from Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio in order to determine whether the abortion clinic has a pattern of violating Ohio’s parental involvement law, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

“I am really ecstatic the Ohio Supreme Court will look at what we think are extremely important issues related to the issue of child abuse,” Brian Hurley, attorney for the girl’s family, told the AP.

The unidentified girl had the abortion in 2004. John Haller, the baby’s father and the girl’s 21-year-old soccer coach, came with her to the abortion clinic, where she said he was her stepbrother, the AP reported. Ohio law requires that minors receive consent from one parent 24 hours before an abortion can be performed. Her parents insist they were never contacted, and the baby was aborted.

Haller, now on parole, served a three-year prison sentence for sexual battery, according to the AP.

The girl’s parents initially received permission from a Hamilton County Common Pleas judge to review Planned Parenthood’s records of all abortions of girls under age 18, with identifying information removed, the AP reported. Planned Parenthood appealed that ruling, and the 1st District Court of Appeals reversed the lower court.

In January 2008, the Ohio Supreme Court decided 4-3 not to review the court of appeals ruling. However, the court reconsidered and will now hear the case.

Man Declared Brain Dead Awakens

In what his family describes as a “miracle,” Zack Dunlap, a 21-year-old Oklahoma man, began to show signs of awareness hours after he had been declared brain dead and a transplant team had been dispatched to harvest his organs.

Dunlap crashed his four-wheel ATV in November 2007. Doctors scanned his brain for activity, but found no signs of life. “His brain injuries were absolutely catastrophic,” Dr. Leo Mercer, director of trauma services at United Regional hospital, told Dateline. “[He] was dead. He meets the legal, medical requirements for declaring a patient brain dead.”

His parents, Pam and Doug Dunlap, saw the scan and confirmed that it showed there was no blood flow to their son’s brain. Zack Dunlap was declared brain dead 36 hours after the accident, Dateline reported.

Four hours later, while the family was saying their final goodbyes, Zack’s cousin Dan Coffin, a nurse, noticed that his vital signs seemed to be improving. “I grabbed his foot,” Coffin told Dateline. “I pulled my pocket knife out. And I just scraped from his heel up to his toes. He jerked his foot plumb out of my hand.”

Another nurse insisted it was just a reflex movement, but Coffin wasn’t convinced. “So I grabbed Zack’s arm and I stuck my fingernail underneath his fingernail,” he said. “You know that’s a tender area. And Zack just threw his hand over here.”

They called Dr. Mercer, and he was shocked to find that Dunlap was making “purposeful movement.” The organ transplant process was halted immediately.

Five days later, Dunlap opened his eyes. Within 12 days, he began to speak and took his first steps. He has been steadily, if slowly, improving since then.

Dunlap even appeared live on the Today show March 24. He told interviewer Natalie Morales that he heard doctors pronounce him brain dead, and that it made him angry. “I’m glad I couldn’t get up and do what I wanted to do,” he said. “Probably would have been a broken window they went out.”

His family said they are not angry at the doctors for the misdiagnosis—they’re just thankful Zack came back to them. “I had heard of miracles all my life,” Dunlap’s grandmother Naomi Blackford told Dateline. “But I had never seen a miracle. But I have seen a miracle. I’ve got proof of it.”

Politicians Propose Extending Belgian Euthanasia Law

Belgian politicians have proposed widening the law to allow euthanasia for teenagers, terminally ill younger children, and the elderly who suffer from dementia, The Telegraph reported.

Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium liberal party, said he will make legislative proposals for the extension of the euthanasia law. “We will seek, as Liberals, parliamentary majorities,” Tommelein said, according to The Telegraph.

Belgian law has allowed euthanasia since 2002, but it was officially limited to patients over 18 and newborn babies. Currently, doctors report 39 cases of euthanasia each month, although authorities believe there are actually twice that number. Even more disturbing, The Telegraph reported, “more than half of the Belgian babies who die before they are 12 months old have been killed by deliberate medical intervention. In 16 per cent of cases parental consent was not considered.”

Belgium’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Danneels denounced the practice of euthanasia. “Avoiding suffering is no act of bravery,” he said in an Easter Sunday sermon, according to the Catholic News Agency. “Our society seems unable to cope with death and suffering.”

Missouri Appeals Court Considers Cloning Ballot Language

The back-and-forth dispute over the ballot wording of a proposed Missouri constitutional amendment has reached the state Court of Appeals. The measure is in response to passage of “Amendment Two” in 2006.The ballot summary of Amendment Two misleadingly said it would “ban human cloning.”

But within the over 2,100-word-long amendment (nearly half the length of the U.S. Constitution) was a provision that would allow “somatic cell nuclear transfer.” SCNT is cloning—in fact, it is the same method Ian Wilmut used to clone Dolly the sheep. Cloning is legal under Amendment Two as long as the cloned embryos aren’t implanted in a woman’s womb—”clone and kill.”

Pro-lifers propose to ask voters in November to close that loophole by prohibiting SCNT. However, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s ballot summary deceptively said the measure was “redefining the ban on human cloning or attempted human cloning to criminalize and impose civil penalties for some existing research, therapies and cures.”

Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce ruled in favor of cloning opponents who claimed Carnahan’s language was misleading and issued new wording in February that stated the ballot proposal would “change the definition of cloning and ban some of the research as approved by voters in November 2006,” the Daily Record reported.

Cloning supporters appealed Judge Joyce’s decision, and the appeals court heard arguments from both sides March 26. Edward Greim, attorney for Cures Without Cloning, the sponsor of the new amendment that would ban SCNT, argued that Carnahan’s wording is unfair. “[Carnahan’s] statement really missed the legal core of this proposal,” Greim told the Associated Press. “Instead it made predictions and policy arguments and various other types of claims that don’t belong in a summary statement.”

The appeals court did not indicate when its ruling would be issued.

French Woman Denied Euthanasia Found Dead

Denied a request for doctor-assisted euthanasia, a French woman who suffered from facial tumors died of a barbiturate overdose March 19. French officials said they would investigate to determine where Chantal Sebire, 52, obtained the lethal drugs, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Sebire had esthesioneuroblastoma, tumors in her nasal and sinus cavity that disfigured her face and caused blindness, according to the AP. Although French law only allows the terminally ill to refuse treatment but bans active euthanasia, Sebire asked the courts to allow a doctor to help her die. The court in the city of Dijon denied her request March 17, Agence France-Presse reported.

Two days later, she was found dead. Prosecutor Jean-Pierre Alacchi told Le Monde that an autopsy discovered “fast-acting barbiturates in Sebire’s system three times the lethal dosage.”

Although Sebire’s former attorney Gilles Antonowicz and others have called for the prosecutor to “just close his eyes,” the AP reported, “The law must know whether her death was a natural one or if someone helped her put an end to her life,” Alacchi said.

Abortion Clinic Improperly Disposed of “Medical Waste”

To the dismay of pro-lifers, a Michigan abortion clinic found to be improperly disposing of medical waste, including “fetal tissue,” was spared serious sanctions and will only have to retrain its employees.

A March 10 inspection by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality of the WomanCare abortion clinic found “medical documents, fetal tissue and other biomedical waste” thrown away together in a dumpster, in violation of disposal regulations, according to Detroit News. The department charged the abortion clinic with three violations: “improper disposal and separation of medical waste, placement into unlabeled containers and mixing medical waste with other waste at the facility,” the newspaper reported.

“It was observed by the Medical Waste Regulatory Program staff during the inspection that black trash bags were being used for all medical waste generated at the facility prior to the transfer to the red medical waste storage bags and bins downstairs,” wrote Andrew Shannon, a state environmental quality analyst, in a letter to the abortion clinic, according to the News.

“It was determined that this may have ultimately led to the improper disposal, as new cleaning staff reportedly confused it with general solid waste and deposited in the Dumpster.”

The department is scheduled to re-inspect the abortion clinic on April 3, and all employees must be retrained by April 18, the News reported.