Tag Archives: Abortion

Zika virus outbreak may not change abortion in Brazil

RECIFE (Reuters) – Six months pregnant with her first child, Eritania Maria has a rash and a mild fever, symptoms of the Zika virus linked to brain deformities in newborn children in Brazil.

But the 17-year-old is too scared to take a test to confirm if she has Zika.

Like other women in the slums of Recife, which squat on stilts over mosquito-ridden marshland in northeast Brazil, Maria has few options if her child develops microcephaly, the condition marked by an abnormally small head and underdeveloped brain that has been linked to Zika.

Brazil has amongst the toughest abortion laws in the world and is culturally conservative. Even if she wanted an illegal abortion and could afford one, Maria is too heavily pregnant for a doctor to risk it. So she prefers not to know.

“I’m too scared of finding out my baby will be sick,” she told Reuters, her belly poking out from beneath a yellow top.

The Zika outbreak has revived the debate about easing abortion laws but Maria’s case highlights a gap between campaigners and U.N. officials calling for change and Brazil’s poor, who are worst affected by the mosquito-borne virus yet tend to be anti-abortion.

Add a conservative Congress packed with Evangelical Christians staunchly opposed to easing restrictions, plus the difficulty of identifying microcephaly early enough to safely abort, and hopes for change seem likely to be frustrated.

As with many countries in mostly Roman Catholic Latin America, Brazil has outlawed abortion except in cases of rape, when the mother’s life is at risk or the child is too sick to survive.

An estimated 850,000 women in Brazil have illegal abortions every year, many under dangerous conditions. They can face up to 3 years in prison although in practice, jail terms are extremely rare.

With two-thirds of the population Catholic and support for Evangelicals growing fast, polls show Brazilians oppose changing the law. A survey by pollster VoxPopuli in 2010 showed that 82 percent reject decriminalization, while a Datafolha poll the same year put the figure at 72 percent.

Vandson Holanda, head of health for the Catholic Church in Brazil’s northeast, said there was no chance the Church would shift its position on abortion because of Zika.

Suspected cases of microcephaly have topped more than 4,000 – with more than 400 of those confirmed so far – since Zika was first detected in April. Around one-third of the suspected cases are in Pernambuco state around Recife.

The figures, which compare with around 150 cases across Brazil in a normal year, show no signs of slowing.

While there is no scientific proof of a connection between Zika and microcephaly, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a global emergency this month, citing a “strongly suspected” link. The virus has spread to 26 countries in the Americas since arriving in Brazil.

Women’s rights groups in Brazil such as Anis plan to appeal to the Supreme Court to relax Brazil’s abortion laws. They hope to build on a successful case in 2012 that legalized abortion for anencephaly, where the fetus develops without a major part of its brain and skull.

Given the difficulty of identifying microcephaly before the final weeks of pregnancy, Sinara Gumieri, a legal advisor to Anis, said the group would petition the court to legalize abortion for women diagnosed with Zika whose child was at risk of the condition, even if it is not diagnosed in the fetus. She admitted it would be difficult.

The doctors who led the anencephaly campaign in 2012 do not expect its success to be repeated.

“It’s completely different,” said Eugenio Pita, a doctor in Recife who performed legal abortions through the public health system for 20 years. “With anencephaly, the baby does not live; an abortion is only speeding up the inevitable. Babies born with microcephaly usually survive.”

CONSERVATIVE CONGRESS TIGHTENING LAW

Legislative reforms seem even more unlikely. A 2014 election returned a more conservative Congress, packed with Evangelicals, who account for roughly a fifth of Brazil’s 200 million people.

The speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, elected with the backing of Evangelical congressmen, has proposed legislation to make it harder to get an abortion in cases of alleged rape, sparking protests across Brazil last year.

Hundreds of Brazilian women die or are seriously injured each year in botched illegal abortions involving improvised equipment — mostly women not wealthy enough to travel abroad or pay for a proper doctor.

“Illegal abortions bring with them serious risks, the complications of which we have to pay careful attention to,” said Jailson Correia, Recife’s health secretary, calling for a national debate on liberalizing the law.

So far, there is inconclusive evidence that Zika has led to a rise in abortions. The website Women on Web, an Amsterdam-based charity that has offered to send free abortion pills to pregnant women infected with Zika, said email requests from Brazil asking about the service tripled last week.

The pills can be used to terminate pregnancy in the first 12 weeks.

But a for-profit online service, Aborto na Nuvem, said it reported no change beyond a usual 15-20 percent monthly increase the site has registered since it launched last year. Its co-founder, Heinrick Per, said the service was mainly used by wealthy Brazilians and he did not expect to see a rise because of Zika.

DETECTED LATE

With state-of-the-art equipment, experts say signs of microcephaly may be detected from about 24 weeks but it is impossible to determine how severe a case it might be. In Brazil, if identified before birth at all, it is usually registered at 30 to 32 weeks, by which time most doctors will not perform an illegal abortion.

“After 12 weeks it is hard to find a doctor to do an illegal abortion in Brazil. After 24 weeks, it’s impossible,” said Dr Elias Melo, a leading obstetrician at Hospital das Clinicas in Recife.

Though they are rarely prosecuted, doctors can face up to 10 years in prison.

“It’s not just a legal thing, it is cultural as well,” Melo said, noting that by 30 to 32 weeks you have a 2 kilogram (4.4 lb) baby that could survive if removed from the womb.

Complicating matters, as many as 80 percent of people with Zika do not show symptoms and there is no quick and reliable test for the virus widely available.

As a result, some women may opt for preemptive abortions early in pregnancy to avoid the risk of microcephaly, experts say.

French historian of science Ilana Löwy draws parallels with rubella in Britain and France in the 1950s, when abortion was illegal yet the number of terminated pregnancies rose dramatically.

Yet unlike with rubella, where up to 85 percent of fetuses infected in early pregnancy develop defects, doctors so far have no proof that Zika causes microcephaly, let alone an idea of its likelihood.

“Half of my 50 patients had Zika-like symptoms at some stage of their pregnancy,” said Melo. “Not one of them had a child born with microcephaly.”

Still, a dramatic rise in microcephaly cases could put a huge burden on poor families and public health services already under strain.

At a hospital in Recife, Gabriela Falcao cradles her 2 month old baby who was born with microcephaly and twisted legs as she waits to see a doctor.

“If I could go back, I still wouldn’t have an abortion,” she said. “I hold out hope my baby will grow to be like other kids.”

(Additional reporting by Ueslei Marcelino; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Kieran Murray)

Anti-abortion activists indicted in Texas for Planned Parenthood video

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Two anti-abortion activists behind the filming of videos on fetal tissue procurement by Planned Parenthood were indicted by a Texas grand jury on Monday, while clearing the women’s health group of any wrong-doing.

The videos released last summer led Texas and other Republican-controlled states to try to halt funding for local Planned Parenthood operations, with Republicans in the U.S. Congress also pushing for a funding cut.

The grand jury reviewed the case for more than two months and its decision was a result of a probe launched last year under Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who accused Planned Parenthood of the “gruesome harvesting of baby body parts.”

“After a lengthy and thorough investigation by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, the Texas Rangers, and the Houston Police Department, a Harris County grand jury took no action Monday against Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” the Harris County District Attorney’s office said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood has denied the accusation and called the probe politically motivated.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were indicted by the grand jury for tampering with a governmental record, said prosecutors for the county in which Houston is located. The felony charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The two were involved in covert videos last year in which a Planned Parenthood official discussed the procurement of fetal tissue.

Daleiden, leader of the Center for Medical Progress that released the videos, was also charged with violating a prohibition on the purchase and sale of human organs, a misdemeanor, the Harris County District Attorney said.

There were no details released on the allegations against them.

“I respect their decision on this difficult case,” Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said of the grand jury.

The videos purported to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to negotiate prices for aborted fetal tissue. Under federal law, donated human fetal tissue may be used for research, but profiting from its sale is prohibited.

“These people broke the law to spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood in order to advance their extreme anti-abortion political agenda,” said Eric Ferrero, vice president of Communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

It is unclear what triggered the surprise indictments during the grand jury’s closed-door proceedings, said David Sklansky, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center and a professor at Stanford Law School.

“It would be quite unusual for the grand jury to change direction without the cooperation and approval of the prosecutor,” Sklansky said. “But pretty much everything associated with this case seems unusual.”

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee weighed in, saying in a statement: “It’s a sick day in America when our government punishes those who expose evil with a smartphone – while accommodating those who perform it with a scalpel.”

Texas leaders said they would not back down on their probe.

Arkansas and Louisiana, two neighboring states that have launched similar moves to cut state Medicaid funding after the videos, have been on the losing end of federal lawsuits, with judges blocking their attempts to halt funds.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Additional reporting by Jim Christie in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Bernard Orr)

Obama vetoes efforts to repeal Affordable Care Act, defund Planned Parenthood

Republican-backed legislation that would have repealed portions of the Affordable Care Act and prevented federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood was vetoed by President Barack Obama on Friday, effectively ending the legislature’s latest efforts to eliminate Obamacare.

Obama returned the bill to Congress without his signature, according to a message to lawmakers that appears on the White House’s website. A Republican majority controls both the House and Senate and had enough votes to send the bill to Obama’s desk for the first time, but the party lacks the two-thirds majority required to override his veto and force the bill to become law.

“This legislation would not only repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, but would reverse the significant progress we have made in improving health care in America,” Obama wrote in the veto message to lawmakers. He added there have been more than 50 attempts to “ to repeal or undermine” the legislation, and criticized Republicans for continuing to pursue the goal.

“Rather than refighting old political battles by once again voting to repeal basic protections that provide security for the middle class, Members of Congress should be working together to grow the economy, strengthen middle-class families, and create new jobs,” Obama wrote Congress.

Citing data from the Congressional Budget Office, Obama wrote that the bill would have caused the number of uninsured Americans to rise by 22 million after next year, and 1.2 million people would have experienced difficulties paying other bills because of a higher cost of health care.

In sending the bill back to Congress, Obama also wrote that about 150 million Americans who obtain health insurance through their employers would have been at risk of higher premiums.

“This legislation would cost millions of hard-working middle-class families the security of affordable health coverage they deserve,” Obama wrote Congress. “Reliable health care coverage would no longer be a right for everyone: it would return to being a privilege for a few.”

Critics of the Affordable Care Act say it has actually led to increased health care costs and limited the options of many Americans since the president initially signed it into law six years ago.

In a statement, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) said Congress would hold an override vote (which will be mostly symbolic) and vowed to continue efforts to eliminate Obamacare, adding Friday’s vetoed bill “will get signed into law” if a Republican wins the presidential election this fall.

“The idea that Obamacare is the law of the land for good is a myth. This law will collapse under its own weight, or it will be repealed,” Ryan said in a statement.

Obama also wrote the bill would “effectively defund” Planned Parenthood because it would have prevented the group from obtaining federal Medicaid funding. The group is often criticized because it provides abortions, though it also provides many other health services to women.

Obama noted there are existing laws in place that prevent using federal money for abortions, unless the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest or could endanger the mother’s life.

Accused Planned Parenthood Shooter: ‘I’m Guilty’

The man accused of killing three people and wounding nine more during a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs last month reportedly confessed his guilt in a courtroom outburst on Wednesday afternoon, calling himself “a warrior for the babies.”

The Colorado Springs Gazette reported Robert Lewis Dear interrupted his attorney to make the comments early in the hearing. It was one of multiple outbursts he’s said to have made.

“I’m guilty. There’s no trial. I’m a warrior for the babies,” the newspaper quoted Dear as saying.

The comments appear to reference the fact that Planned Parenthood is an abortion provider, though the organization does provide several other health services to women. NBC News had previously reported Dear made the statement “no more baby parts” to police investigators.

Dear was in court to be formally charged for the Nov. 27 shooting. He’s accused of killing a police officer who responded to the scene and two people who accompanied friends to the clinic.

According to CBS Denver, prosecutors said in court that they will levy 179 charges against Dear.

The Gazette reported Dear’s attorney, a public defender, wants his client to undergo a mental health evaluation to determine if Dear is competent to stand trial.

Court: Wisconsin abortion law unconstitutional

A state law requiring abortion providers in Wisconsin to obtain the ability to admit patients at nearby hospitals has been declared unconstitutional.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued the 2-to-1 ruling on Monday, multiple news agencies reported, upholding the ruling of a lower court judge.

The Associated Press reported Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services had challenged the 2013 state law, arguing the law was essentially an illegal impediment on the procedures, which are currently legal in the United States under Roe v. Wade.

Proponents of the Wisconsin legislation argued it was designed to protect women whose procedures did not go smoothly and needed hospitalization. Those against it countered that some doctors could not obtain the required privileges, which would force some clinics to shut.

A district court judge in March sided with the providers, Reuters reported. The law had been on hold since.

Richard Posner, one of the Seventh Circuit judges who voted to declare the law unconstitutional, said it could have placed women in danger. If clinics shut down, women would have to wait longer for the procedures at other clinics. That could push their pregnancy into another trimester.

Many national abortion issues may be decided next year when the United States Supreme Court weighs challenges to a Texas state law regarding the procedures.

Supreme Court to Hear First Major Abortion Case in 8 Years

On Friday, the Supreme Court made a decision to hear a challenge against a Texas law that put strict requirements on abortion providers in the name of protecting women’s health. This is the first major abortion case that the Supreme Court has agreed to give a voice to in 8 years. This ruling could raises questions about the legal fate of similar laws in more than a dozen other states.

The 2013 law requires abortion clinics to meet the same medical standards as standalone surgery centers, and forces doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals within 30 miles of their clinics.

Conservative groups that approve of the laws say they’ll protect women and prevent abuses like the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion provider sentenced to life in jail for first-degree murder.

Gosnell, was a doctor that ran an abortion clinic called the Women’s Medical Society in West Philadelphia.The grand jury report is full of horrific and gruesome details about the clinic that Gosnell ran for more than three decades. Patients were neglected; providers were not certified. Most abortions were done after 24 weeks and at a clinic that was described as a filthy house of horrors.

On May 13, 2013 a jury found Gosnell guilty on three of four charges of murder of babies born in his clinic who were born alive but whom he killed. The jury also found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter from the death of one of his abortion patients.
“Until recently, abortion clinics were held to similar health regulations as beauty salons or public pools,” the March for Life Education & Defense Fund said in a statement.

Supporters of the clinics note that when the laws were passed in 2013, there were more than 40 clinics in the state. Only 10 would remain if the laws are upheld, to serve 5.4 million women of reproductive age.

Whatever the court’s ruling will set precedent for either imposing clinic regulations or cause similar requirements in other states to be challenged. Ten of the 50 U.S. states have imposed requirements similar to those in Texas. Six have enacted laws requiring hospital grade facilities.

The Court’s ruling is set for June.

Pope Relaxes Catholic Church Abortion Rules for Jubilee Year

Pope Francis has instructed priests to offer absolution to women who have obtained an abortion during the upcoming Jubilee year.

During the “Year of Mercy”, Francis has issued these instructions to priests:  “I have decided, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness.”

The Pope said while he knows some women seek abortion for selfish reasons, there are many women around the world who are forced into that situation and “bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision”.

The Pope was clear that the change is only for the Jubilee Year that begins in December 8, 2015 and runs through November 20, 2016.

Under Catholic doctrine, a woman who has an abortion commits a grave sin that can have them thrown out of the church.

The Pope has previously issued strong denunciations of abortion.

“It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day,” he said in 2014.  “Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as unnecessary.”

The Pope also called for the release of prisoners around the world who have truly repented of their crimes.

“The Jubilee Year has always constituted an opportunity for great amnesty, which is intended to include the many people who, despite deserving punishment, have become conscious of the injustice they worked,” he said.

New Undercover Planned Parenthood Video Reveals Organ Harvesting from Live Babies

The latest video from the Center for Medical Progress features a former staffer of a baby part harvesting company revealing they cut through the face of a still alive baby to obtain its brain.

“‘I want to see something kind of cool,’” Holly O’Donnell says her supervisor told her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”

O’Donnell said it was her supervisor that ordered her to cut through the baby’s face to get to the brain.

“I can’t even describe what that feels like,” she said.

An executive of one company that purchases baby organs from Planned Parenthood admitted in the video that in some cases, the child is still alive with a beating heart.

“There are times when after the procedure is done that the heart actually is still beating,” said Dr. Ben Van Handel, the Executive Director of Novogenix Laboratories, LLC, and also of Perrin Larton, Procurement Manager of Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR).

In a major win for the Center for Medical Progress, the group that formerly employed O’Donnell, StemExpress, has quietly announced they will no longer work with Planned Parenthood.

“We value our various partnerships but, due to the increased questions that have arisen over the past few weeks, we feel it prudent to terminate activities with Planned Parenthood,” the company said in a statement. “While we value our business relationship with Planned Parenthood, that work represents a small percentage of our overall business activity and we must focus our limited resources on resolving these inquiries.”

New Planned Parenthood Video Reports Transactions Took Place without Parental Consent

A new undercover video released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) shows that Planned Parenthood has been selling the parts of aborted babies without the permission of the mother, a violation of federal law.

“If there was a higher gestation and the technicians needed it, there were times they would just take what they want,” said Holly O’Donnell, the ex-procurement tech for StemExpress who is featured in the 10-minute release.

“And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”

CMP has been the target of two federal judges who have tried to stop the group from releasing videos.  However, the restraining order that bars release of footage involving StemExpress, a body parts sales company, only bars footage of three executives of the company at a restaurant in May.  The video released Wednesday contains a former StemExpress employee not taken at the May meeting.

O’Donnell said in the video that Planned Parenthood looks for opportunities to harvest baby parts.

“They give you a sheet, and it’s everybody for that day, who’s coming in for an ultrasound, who’s coming in for an abortion, medical or a late-term abortion,” O’Donnell said.  “Pregnancy tests are potential pregnancies, therefore potential specimens. So it’s just taking advantage of the opportunities.”

O’Donnell said one time she was being ordered to get consent from a woman who was crying and throwing up as a result of the drugs used in her abortion.

“The women I worked for were… cold. They don’t care,” O’Donnell recalled. “They just wanted their money. They didn’t care that a girl was throwing up in the trash can, and crying… and even, there were times to when the patients would ask me, they would come in and be crying and say, ‘Should I do this? Should I be doing this?’”

The woman in the video, Holly O’Donnell, says that she is now pro-life after experiencing the situations at Planned Parenthood.

“Experiences like Holly O’Donnell’s show that Planned Parenthood’s abortion and baby parts business is not a safe place where vulnerable women can be cared for, but a harvesting ground for saleable human ‘product.’ Taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood’s barbaric abortion business should be revoked immediately, and law enforcement and other elected officials must act decisively to determine the full extent of Planned Parenthood’s offensive practices and hold them accountable to the law,” said CMP project lead David Daleiden.

StemExpress released a statement in July, following Daleiden’s interview, saying that his accusations are false.

“We coordinate with clinics and hospitals to obtain human tissue and blood — specimens that would be otherwise be disposed of — and provide them to biotechnology and academic institutions performing research to find a cure,” said Beau Phillips, spokesman for the group. “The nation’s and the world’s greatest research facilities need a reliable source of healthy human-derived blood, tissue and cellular specimens to perform their studies. As a point of clarification, StemExpress has never requested nor received an intact fetus.”

Planned Parenthood continually denies that they have broken any laws.

“The video released today shows someone who has never worked for Planned Parenthood making false and outrageous claims, without any evidence to back them up,” said Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communication, Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a statement out Wednesday. “Planned Parenthood follows all laws — period.”

Republican Candidates Take Aim at Abortion; Planned Parenthood

Abortion and Planned Parenthood were two of the hot topics during the two Republican presidential primary debates held Thursday in Cleveland.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was asked about gaining support for President while supporting things like a Constitutional amendment banning abortion.

“I disagree with the idea that the real issue is a constitutional amendment. That’s a long and difficult process. I’ve actually taken the position that’s bolder than that,” Huckabee said. “A lot of people are talking about defunding Planned Parenthood, as if that’s a huge game changer. I think it’s time to do something even more bold. I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception.”

“The reason we know that it is because of the DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on,” Huckabee continued. “And, this notion that we just continue to ignore the personhood of the individual is a violation of that unborn child’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights for due process and equal protection under the law.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio made comments very similar to those of Huckabee in saying that he is pro-life in all situations and that laws need to protect life at all stages.

“In fact, I think that law already exists. It is called the Constitution of the United States,” the 44-year-old Rubio said. “And let me go further. I believe that every single human being is entitled to the protection of our laws, whether they can vote or not. Whether they can speak or not. Whether they can hire a lawyer or not. Whether they have a birth certificate or not.”

Rubio also said that future generations will be appalled by abortion, adding they will “call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live.”

When the topic of Planned Parenthood and the recent undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress that show the selling of parts from aborted babies, both former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and current Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talked about how they defunded the group in their states.

“I’m pro-life, I’ve always been pro-life, and I’ve got a position that I think is consistent with many Americans out there in that I believe that is an unborn child that’s in need of protection,” Walker said.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was very blunt in his comments about Planned Parenthood.

“Planned Parenthood had better hope that Hillary Clinton wins this election because I guarantee that under President Jindal, January of 2017, the Department of Justice, and the IRS, and everybody else will be consenting, and the federal government will be going into Planned Parenthood,” Jindal asserted. “This is absolutely disgusting and revolts of conscience of the nation. Absolutely, we need to defund Planned Parenthood.”