Illinois Right to Life Committee
SEPTEMBER 2005
September, 2005 Pro-Life News (see articles below): 09/27/05 Is it logical? 09/23/05 IRLC
radio messages on WIND 560AM 09/20/05 Planned
Parenthood tries to reduce the need for abortion? 09/13/05 So-called science is becoming more deadly 09/06/05 More evidence embryonic stem cells become cancerous 09/02/05 Claiming science but practicing politics
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, September 27, 2005 You are probably getting tired of hearing about Planned Parenthood’s push for over-the-counter distribution of the Plan B morning-after pill. On September 27th the Chicago Sun-Times ran an editoral suggesting that if the FDA would just allow Plan B to be sold over-the-counter, they would be doing “a better job of protecting our health.” Can we presume the author of the editorial was a woman, or will Plan B protect men’s health too? Exactly how Plan B will protect the health of women is unclear. Even if Plan B works as advertised, it has a 15% failure rate for pregnancy prevention and a 100% failure rate for protecting women from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Read the warning label – Plan B is not intended to prevent STDs. If any women, especially teenagers, feel they can take more risks of participating in casual sex because they have a supply of Plan B available, will they be protecting their health? Hardly! They will be exposing themselves to the consequences of casual sex with more frequency. Their actions will increase the likelihood they will contract an STD. That does not sound very healthy. Eventually, whether they rely on Plan B or any other form of contraceptive, they will get pregnant anyway. If they choose to get an abortion, that will be very unhealthy for them both physically and mentally, but it will be good for Planned Parenthood’s profit margin. Oh, you thought Planned Parenthood was a non-profit organization? Their books show a profit every year, even if they call it “excess revenue.” And, an important portion of Planned Parenthood’s revenue comes from their status as the largest abortion provider in the nation. Planned Parenthood is very willing to step in to help these Plan B users resolve their new problems. For a fee Planned Parenthood will provide them with an abortion or treatments for their STDs. Does provision of these services show that Planned Parenthood has concern for the health of these women? If you think so, consider the following example from an Ohio office of Planned Parenthood. The parents of a 14-year-old girl are pursuing legal action against
Planned Parenthood for violation of two Ohio laws, the requirements for parental
notification before abortion and mandated reporting of potential child sex abuse. Planned Parenthood’s
“compliance” with the parental notification law consisted of a call to a cell phone number where they got
“permission” from a 21-year-old man who was molesting the girl and coercing her
into an abortion. The man, now in prison,
pretended to be her father on the phone, and then posed as her brother at the clinic. He paid with his credit card, and had the girl
injected with Depo-Provera birth control, so he could resume having sex with her three
days later. The victimized 14-year-old girl presented her
school identification card, which showed that she was a junior high school student,
according to the lawsuit filed by the girl's parents. The abuser presented his Ohio
driver's license, which showed that he was 21 years of age and his last name was different
than the girl’s name. Planned Parenthood
did not question either about the differences in their ages or their different last names. This evidence shows failure to note the facts that
should have raised questions about whether parental notification had really occurred. The same facts also establish lack of
compliance with the Ohio law requiring notice to law enforcement, because at her age, a
girl who seeks an abortion is automatically a victim of rape. This Ohio case confirms the findings of
research done in 2002 by Life Dynamics. Through
phone calls to Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation by women representing
themselves as a 13-year-old girl, Life Dynamics generated evidence that Planned Parenthood
was ready and willing to violate both parental notification and mandated reporting laws. If Planned Parenthood was really concerned about the welfare of the women who walk through their doors, would they be willing to ignore parental notification and mandated reporting laws? Isn’t it more likely that they just want to sell abortions? Similiarly, is it logical to think that Planned Parenthood’s desire for free access to Plan B has anything at all to do with concern for protecting women’s health? It seems much more logical to presume they have a concern for their own profit margin rather than any concern for women’s health.
Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, September 23, 2005 IRLC radio messages on WIND
560AM We have three radio messages playing on WIND 560AM as of September 19th. They cover stem cell research, the morning-after pill, and our patient self-protection document as follows: Stem Cell Research Embryonic stem cell research has produced no cures, while research using stem cells from adults and umbilical cord blood has produced an ever-increasing number of cures. Governor
Blagojevich issued an executive order to use $10 million for embryonic stem cell research
and cloning. When
asked about slipping the $10 million into the state budget, he said, "It's the right
thing to do, and however you get there is immaterial." Continuing, he said, "While we are forced to live in a democracy with
several branches of government, sometimes in a democracy the process is frustratingly
slow." Forced to live in a democracy? Does the Governor think
he should be King? It seems safe to say that he does not care what the citizens of
Illinois think. The state legislature
actually defeated stem cell and cloning legislation before the Governor’s end run,
forcing us to pay for unethical research. Is
democracy dead in Illinois? Morning After Pill – Plan B
Have you heard about the push to make the morning after pill available without a prescription? Known as Plan B, it is simply a high dose of the birth control pill. Called a contraceptive, it actually acts as an abortion about 50% of the time. Where Plan B has been available without prescription, there has been no reduction in pregnancy or abortion, but there has been an epidemic level increase in sexually transmitted diseases, especially among 16–19 year olds. Easy access allows someone other than the consumer to buy it, permitting exploitation of under age girls. Increased availability increases sexual activity. In Britain, one in 12 girls reported they were influenced to have sex by ease of purchase. No studies have been done on the harm Plan B could cause to teenage and young adult women and no studies have been done on the health effects of repeated use. Yet, in a British study, one in 7 women reported using the morning-after pill repeatedly in the same year. Where is the concern for the health of women or the protection of teenage girls? Women deserve better! Patient Self-Protection DocumentSince the death of Terri Schiavo by starvation and dehydration, there has been a major push for living wills and durable power of attorney. Illinois Right to Life urges you to consider a life-affirming alternative to these documents. Our Patient Self Protection Document clarifies the difference between life prolonging and life sustaining treatment, between medical treatment and basic comfort care and allows you to choose an agent who understands your wishes. Call Illinois Right to Life at 312-422-9300 to receive your Patient Self Protection Document. Protect yourself now with clear directions for your end of life care. ------------------------------ We hope these messages will reach people who need to hear the facts on these important subjects. Thanks for your support that allows us to get the message out.
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, September 20, 2005 Planned Parenthood tries to reduce
the need for abortion? Publicly, abortion supporters continue to push for the rejection of John Roberts for Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Behind the scenes, recognizing that Democratic Senators are not in a position to mount even semi-rational opposition to John Roberts, pro-abortion organizations have decided to save their money to fight the next nominee for the Supreme Court. In her testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on September 15th, Karen Pearl, interim president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, stated, “And while we fought hard for that right (abortion), and will fight just as hard to protect it, Planned Parenthood does everything in our power to reduce the need for abortion. Yet, there are forces at work in this nation who seek to restrict comprehensive sex education, birth control, and emergency contraception, the very things that would decrease the number of abortions in this country.” While this is only a brief segment of Pearl’s testimony against John Roberts, my focus is on her claim that Planned Parenthood “does everything in our power to reduce the need for abortion.” She accuses her opponents (supporters of life) of trying to prevent Planned Parenthood’s efforts to reduce abortion by seeking “to restrict comprehensive sex education, birth control, and emergency contraception.” Why is it that Planned Parenthood’s annual reports for recent years always show an increase in number of abortions they provide and a decrease in the already minimal number of adoptions that they facilitate? Planned Parenthood is unchallenged in maintaining their position as the number one provider of abortions in our nation with well over 200,000 per year. How could they be seriously trying to reduce abortions? If they were successful, they would take a hit on a major revenue source. Actions speak louder than words.
Planned Parenthood must understand that contraceptive failure leads to abortion and more sexual activity outside of marriage leads to more unwanted pregnancies when contraceptive failure occurs. The research arm of Planned Parenthood, Alan Guttmacher Institute recently reported its analysis of unwanted pregnancies in the United States for 2001 and 2002. Over 53% of these unwanted pregnancies were the result of contraceptive failure. Then Planned Parenthood is very prepared to provide abortion, which remains a key product line for them. They must recognize that comprehensive sex education, birth control, and emergency contraception do the exact opposite of what Pearl claims they are intended to do. Otherwise, Planned Parenthod's business plan would be a threat to one of their key revenue sources.
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, September 13, 2005 So-called science is becoming more deadly
A new study published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility has confirmed that there is massive loss of life after embryos are transferred into their mother's wombs. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that 85% of embryos transferred during in vitro fertilization (IVF) fail to live until birth. IVF specialists boasted last year that over one million children have been born due to IVF (refer to: http://www.ivf.com/overview.html). However, with the results of the Yale study indicating that 85% of embryos transferred do not survive until birth, one can calculate that for one million children to have been born using IVF, over 6.7 million other children died in the process. Director of the Yale Fertility Center, Pasquale Patrizio, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, who led the project, stated, "Something in nature has decided that these implanted embryos are not viable." The Roslin Institute, which also created Dolly the sheep, reported creating the first embryonic humans without the use of sperm – from the genetic material of the mother alone. The group said they stimulated an egg to divide without the use of human sperm, to a stage of development where they hope they can “mine” cells for experimental research purposes. “At the moment we have not managed to get stem cells from these embryos but that continues to be our ambition,” Dr Paul De Sousa said at the British Association’s Festival of Science in Dublin. The article did not explain how these Frankenstein-like science researchers supply the 23 chromosomes otherwise provided by the sperm cell. Presumably, they must have used another cell from the woman’s body to replace the nucleus of the egg with her full 46 chromosomes, thus creating a clone of the woman. Politically correct science has claimed for years that abortion is safer than childbirth. International health experts have published a new study disclosing that 94% of maternal deaths associated with abortion are not identifiable from death certificates alone. Their findings show that proper tracking of pregnancy-associated deaths requires the linking of death certificates to the deceased women's medical records. Only in this way, they conclude, can accurate information about recent pregnancies be determined--information that is frequently missing from death certificates and autopsies. The study, completed by researchers from the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health in Finland, shows that the long held presumption that abortion is associated with fewer deaths than childbirth does not hold up once the pregnancy history of women is actually investigated using record linkage. Previously, it has been widely assumed that the mortality rate associated with abortion was only one-sixth that of childbirth. But those estimates were based primarily on information gathered only from death certificates or other public records. Proper identification of pregnancy history, the researchers found, reveals that the death rate associated with abortion is actually three times higher than that of childbirth. Whether so-called science is used to resolve infertility problems, find new medical cures, or just eliminate the inconvenience of an untimely pregnancy, the results are deadly, making “the cure worse than the disease” especially for society, and in most cases, even for the people involved.
Illinois Right to Life News for Tuesday, September 6, 2005 More evidence embryonic stem cells
become cancerous While some researchers
continue pushing the speculative benefits of embryonic stem cell research, new findings
suggest more problems even before any useful results have been produced. Researchers are concerned about a discovery
that embryonic stem cells cultured in the lab develop genetic mutations over time that are
cancerous. The new development may mean
embryonic stem cells may never be able to help patients suffering from various diseases. Unless such cells can be kept fresh until use
and thoroughly checked for problems, embryonic stem cells may never be used. However, the longer they are kept and they more
they divide, the more errors in their genetic code appear, giving rise to cancer. "These mutations we are finding are a much
bigger problem," says Aravinda Chakravarti of the Johns Hopkins University in a
report in the journal Nature Genetics. Chakravarti
and his colleagues examined embryonic stem cell lines created before August 2001, and
eligible for federal funding under President Bush's limits on using taxpayer funds to
destroy human life. They compared the original embryonic stem cells
with those produced from those lines. Out of
nine cell lines, eight developed one or more genetic changes commonly observed in human
cancers, the Johns Hopkins team reports. "This
is not good news. It suggests that the
biological properties of the cells before and after replicating could be different,"
says Chakravarti. Transplanting such
embryonic cells into a patient could cause more medical problems than they would be likely
to solve, scientists said. "If it turns
out these cells really do become unstable over time," he said, "then that would
put limits on the practical life spans of the cells and their usefulness for therapeutic
purposes." The discovery further demonstrates that efforts need to be focused on adult stem cell research, touted as a more ethical and more effective alternative. Such cells come from non-controversial sources like umbilical cord blood and bone marrow rather than by destroying days-old unborn children. They have already produced treatments for dozens of diseases and conditions.
Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, September 2, 2005 Claiming science but
practicing politics The criticism is rolling in,
and the mainstream media is covering it. The
critics claim the FDA put politics ahead of science when the decision on allowing
over-the-counter sale of the Plan B morning-after pill was delayed. Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Patty
Murray of Washington wrote, "It is time for the FDA to stop playing games with the
health and well-being of millions of American women."
Isn’t the FDA’s reluctance to approve over-the-counter access to
Plan B an indication that they have stopped playing games with the health and well-being
of millions of American women? Would access to Plan B improve the health of American women? Only if pregnancy is viewed as a disease! Yes, that is what they think -- especially if it is an unwanted pregnancy! But is the cure more dangerous than the “disease”? What about the July 29th press release issued by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO)? They declared combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives as carcinogenic. The IARC placed the contraceptives into their Group 1 classification, the highest classification of carcinogenicity, used only "when there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans." That is a mouthful, but I think you get the point. I checked the Internet. There is no evidence that the mainstream media reported this classification of oral contraceptives as a known cancer causing agent for humans. And the same media report and editorialize that failure to approve Plan B over-the-counter puts women’s health at risk? True science seems to suggest the exact opposite, so let's delve into this a bit more. Since Plan B contains a significantly higher dosage of a synthetic progestogen,
doesn’t this mean that Plan B might contribute to factors causing cancer in women who
use it? Where is the science that evaluates
this risk? Oh, there isn’t any! That risk was washed away by assuming that Plan B
will only be used once. You know, because it
is only needed for an emergency. In actual
use, that assumption has been proven wrong. When
the morning-after pill was made easy to obtain in Sweden and England, it was used as
another form of contraception. In Sweden, over the next five years after
over-the-counter access was legalized, the teen abortion rate went up by 31%. In England, significant increases in sexually
transmitted diseases occurred, especially among 16-19 year olds. Susan Wood, director of the FDA's Office of Women's Health, resigned. In her resignation letter, she wrote "I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled." If approval of Plan B over-the-counter is dictated by science, then the health of women is apparently not a factor in that science. And I thought the FDA was supposed to make decisions to protect the American public from dangerous drugs! Did any of these three women
get upset because the abortion pill RU-486 has killed 5 women? Did it bother them that Planned Parenthood did not
follow the FDA’s usage protocol in the four of these deaths? Were Planned Parenthood’s actions scientific? It seems to me that when supporters of Plan B and
RU-486 invoke science, their messages are political and are not supported by science.
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