Life Notes February-March 2016

Abortions decline to historic low

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveals abortion numbers are at a historic low. The report shows that 699,000 babies lost their lives by abortion in 2012, the latest year the CDC has figures for. This figure represents about half the 1.5 million abortions per year in the late 1980s. The abortion rate for 2012 was 13.2 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. From 2003 to 2012, abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 17, percent, 18 percent, and 14 percent respectively.

At the high point of abortion numbers, one in three pregnancies ended in abortion. Thanks to pro-life laws, educational efforts and pregnancy support centers, that number has fallen to one in five.

The report also notes that more than 9,000 babies were killed in abortions at or after 21 weeks; 22 weeks is the earliest time a baby can survive outside the womb. Women in their twenties account for the majority of abortions. The CDC also revealed that 20.8 percent of all abortions involve the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone (RU 486), a 10 percent increase over 2011 numbers. [www.lifenews.com/2015/11/25/abortions-decline-to-historic-low-cdc-report-shows-31,000-saved-from-abortions]

Abortionist injures another Woman

A patient of late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart was transported by ambulance to a Germantown, Maryland hospital on January 19, 2016. The patient was reported to have been the first of 21 patients Carhart saw that day, and the last to leave the clinic in the ambulance eleven hours later. One month earlier, another of Carhart’s patients experienced emergency hospitalization. Carhart specializes in late-term abortions, performing abortions throughout all nine months at the Germantown Reproductive Health Services facility where he has worked for the past five years. He also operates his own abortion facility in Bellevue, Nebraska.

Jennifer Morbelli, who died of complications from a 33-week abortion on February 7, 2012 was also a patient of Carhart’s. The inability of staff to reach Carhart as Morbelli’s condition worsened contributed to the fatal delay that resulted in her death. Carhart was never held accountable for Moribelli’s death.

“When Carhart moved his late-term abortion business to Germantown, we predicted he would kill again, and that prediction came true. Now, he has hospitalized two women within a month of each other and we do not know if either woman is dead or alive. Carhart is a dangerous abortionist that has maimed and killed enough. We urgently call on the Maryland Board of Physicians to step in and stop Carhart from practicing in Maryland before he kills again,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.[www.lifenews.com/2016/01/22/abortion-doc-who-killed-woman-in-botched-abortion-injures-another-woman]

Pregnancy centers saved 300,000 babies in 2015

Heartbeat International announced, in its first annual Life Trends Report (at www.heartbeatinternational.org/ltr-2015), that 300,000 babies were saved from abortion in 2015 — a number equal to the population of Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. There are 2,500 life-affirming pregnancy help centers and medical clinics in the U.S., including those affiliated with Heartbeat International, Care Net, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), Life Matters Worldwide, and local organizations who are not affiliated with broader networks.

Jor-El Godsey, vice president of Heartbeat International, says those who work at pregnancy help centers are committed to the idea that “no woman should ever feel so alone, coerced, or hopeless that she ends her child’s life through abortion.” She explains, “What’s incredible to me about the overall numbers is how quickly we can overlook the value of each individual life in the context of 300,000 saved from abortion. Staff and volunteers at local centers, clinics, maternity homes, and non-profit adoption agencies are concentrated on just one person at a time. If we can reach that one person — that mom — with the practical help and compassionate support she deserves and is oftentimes without, we know the impact that can make. A report like this helps us get our arms around the positive ripple-effect pregnancy help organizations really have in our world.” [www.lifenews.com/2015/12/29/pregnancy-centers-across-america-saved-300000-babies-from-abortion-in-2015]

The Netherlands euthanizes Alzheimer’s patients without consent

Pro-lifers have long maintained that once killing is accepted as an answer to human suffering there will be no stopping it. For example, in the Netherlands, euthanasia is widely practiced and the infanticide of seriously disabled and terminally ill babies is allowed. “In the Netherlands, euthanasia is supposed to be strictly restricted to mentally competent people who repeatedly request to be killed, and even then, only when it is the only way to prevent suffering,” explains bioethics attorney and euthanasia expert Wesley Smith.

However, the government recently relaxed those guidelines. DutchNews.nl (1-7-16) recently reported: “The guidelines for performing euthanasia on people with severe dementia have been relaxed a little so that patients can be helped to die even if they are incapable of making their current feelings known, the justice and health ministries said on Thursday. However, they will have to sign a euthanasia declaration with their family doctor before they became seriously ill to be considered for help in dying, broadcaster Nos reports.”

Smith responded saying, “So much for repeated requests made by competent patients. But then, protective guidelines aren’t meant to really protect, but give false assurance.” [www.dutchnews.nl/archives/2016/01/euthanasia-rules-relaxed-for-people-with-serious-dementia]

Adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood yielding “miraculous” results

The U.S. Congress recently reauthorized $53 million annually for five years for research using adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood. The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act ensured that two programs, the C.W. Bill Young Transplantation Program and the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI), two programs that support treatment and therapies, share the funding. Rep. Chris Smith said the re-authorization act “provides hope to the thousands of Americans and their families who suffer from painful and potentially life-threatening blood cancer or other bone marrow disorders.” Smith added, “Americans willing to give the gift of life to others are at the heart of the success of this program. We are grateful for the adult donors willing to provide bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells, as well as the mothers who donate their child’s cord blood through public cord blood banks. Cord blood, what was once seen as medical waste, is now making miracles.”

Americans have access to more than 12 million adult volunteer donors and 209,000 cord blood units through the national registry known as “Be the Match.” Stem cells from umbilical cord blood and bone marrow have successfully treated tens of thousands of patients with leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and dozens of other disorders.

Doctors from the United Kingdom are reporting “remarkable” improvements and “miraculous” results in treating multiple sclerosis (MS) with adult stem cells. Their peer-reviewed work was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on January 20. The results are part of an FDA-approved trial begun in 2006 with collaborators from the U.S., U.K., Sweden, and Brazil.

MS is an autoimmune condition where some of the body’s immune cells go rogue and attack the body’s own nervous system. In the trial, the patients’ own stem cells are collected from bone marrow or bone, receive chemotherapy to kill the rogue cells, and are re-infused into the patient where, in the bone marrow, they produce fresh immune cells. Doctors note that this is the only therapy to date shown to reverse neurologic deficits in relapsing-remitting MS.

Over a million people worldwide have been treated with adult stem cell therapies and the number is growing rapidly. You can read patient stories at www.StemCellResearchFacts.org. [www.lifenews.com/2016/12/16/congress-passes-pro-life-congressmans-bill-to-spend-53-million-on-adult-stem-cell-research; www.lifenews.com/2016/01/19/adult-stem-cells-yield-miraculous-results-as-they-reverse-condition-of-patients-with-MS]