Healthcare Prof:

Nigeria’s restrictive abortion laws are major contributors to the country’s high maternal mortality rate, in accordance with a draft report of the Society of Gynecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria discussed at a recent stakeholders meeting by Secretary General Professor Innocent Ujah, This Day/AllAfrica.com reports. The report analyzed clandestine abortions in the country, where abortion is illegal except to save the life of a woman. Providers who violate the law can face up to 14 years in prison.

According to This Day/AllAfrica.com, about 11% of all maternal deaths in the country are attributed to unsafe abortions. Nigeria has a maternal mortality rate of 800 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In addition, a recent Ministry of Well being report found that for every death from unsafe abortions, 30 girls survive the procedure with “reproductive wellness scars,” This Day/AllAfrica.com reports.

At the meeting, Ujah told participants — which included members of the National Council of Ladies Societies and IPAS Nigeria — that the government really should legalize abortion and establish health facilities to provide abortion services to safeguard the lives of females who undergo clandestine abortions. He added that many people in Nigeria are ignorant to the advantages of legalizing abortion because of the restrictive laws against it.

Ejike Oji, country director for IPAS Nigeria, stated that contrary to popular belief, the problem of legalizing abortion in the country is not a religious issue because females who seek abortions are from all religious groups. Oji stated that the recent actions to liberalize abortion laws in Romania, South Africa and India have lowered maternal mortality in each of the countries (Nzeshi, This Day/AllAfrica.com, 5/28).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You are able to view the whole Day-to-day Women’s Wellness Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Day-to-day Women’s Wellness Policy Report can be a cost-free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

Antiabortion Democrats in the Michigan House could have difficulty securing endorsements from Right to Life of Michigan in the coming election because some members of RLM are upset over how the elected officials handled votes on two bills related to so-called “partial-birth” abortion, the AP/Battle Creek Enquirer reports. The House last week voted 74-32 to pass a measure (SB 776) that would ban the procedure. Twenty-four House Democrats supported the bill, which Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) is likely to veto.

RLM is threatening to withdraw its endorsement of House Speaker Andy Dillon (D) because a vote has not been held on a companion bill (SB 1049) towards the abortion ban that would establish sentencing guidelines. Even though the abortion ban legislation itself establishes penalties of up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000, supporters of the companion bill have said that adding the penalties towards the state’s criminal code would allow for more consistent punishment. Sen. Cameron Brown (R), who sponsored SB 776, said that the companion bill would be helpful but that it would not jeopardize the main bill if it fails.

RLM also is upset that the House took action on two emergency contraception-related measures after passing SB 776 without addressing the companion measure. One EC measure, passed by a 57-51 vote, would provide information about and access to EC to females who have been sexually assaulted. Another measure that would have needed state wellness officials to develop and distribute information on EC was withdrawn before the vote was counted. In accordance with the AP/Enquirer, it is possible that the votes on the EC-related measures were a “trade-off” with Democrats who were opposed to SB 776. Dillon also has been criticized by abortion-rights advocates who questioned why he would schedule a vote on a measure they believe is “election-year posturing” by Republicans because partial-birth abortion already is banned under a federal law (PL 108-105), the AP/Enquirer reports.

RLM not endorsed any House members running for re-election for the 2008 election cycle. The group has sent questionnaires towards the opponents of Democratic candidates it has endorsed in previous elections but did not send the questionnaires to opponents of Republican candidates. The group has said it will announce endorsements for Republicans soon (AP/Battle Creek Enquirer, 5/29).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You are able to view the whole Every day Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Day-to-day Women’s Health Policy Report is actually a free service of the National Partnership for Females & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

The Missouri Senate’s decision to adjourn its 2008 legislative session without considering a measure (HB 1831) that includes several restrictions on abortion rights is “good news, regardless of one’s views on abortion,” Kansas City Star columnist Barbara Shelly writes in an opinion piece. In accordance with Shelly, senators’ decision to stage a “quiet revolt” and “mak[e] up their own minds … suggests that there can be a threshold beyond which lawmakers won’t be pushed by interest groups” (Shelly, Kansas City Star, 5/29). Among other provisions, the measure would have allowed felony charges to be filed against physicians who perform abortions when they suspect ladies have been “coerced” (Daily Women’s Well being Policy Report, 5/20).

The House approved the bill in April, along with the Senate was expected to approve it, according to Shelly. However, Republican senators who oppose abortion rights “complained about becoming used as pawns” by interest groups — including Missouri Right to Life — to “pass laws that are certain to be found unconstitutional in court,” Shelly writes. She adds, “Rest assured, Missouri senators listened” to antiabortion groups, but “this year, they asked questions,” such as: “Where is the evidence that females are becoming coerced into having abortions? And how can it be a crime to persuade someone to do something that’s legal?”

The Senate’s decision to not consider the bill “speaks towards the ability of the senators to look beyond the special interests and see the big picture,” Shelly writes, concluding that the decision also “suggests that sooner or later, the will of the people who occupy the sane center of the political spectrum will prevail over narrow agendas” (Kansas City Star, 5/29).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for e-mail delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is actually a totally free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

An initiative that would require parental notification and a 48-hour waiting period before minors could receive abortions will be on California’s Nov. 4 ballot, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen (D) announced Friday, the AP/San Jose Mercury News reports. In accordance with Bowen, a assessment of a random sample of petitioners revealed that supporters of the initiative gathered more than the 694,354 voter signatures necessary to place the measure on the ballot (AP/San Jose Mercury News, 5/31).

According to the Sacramento Bee‘s “Capitol Alert,” the same coalition that supported similar initiatives in 2005 and 2006 is leading this year’s effort. Voters rejected the two earlier initiatives. Assembly member Don Sebastiani (R) has contributed $500,000 to the campaign to pass the initiative, and San Diego newspaper publisher James Holman has donated $1.four million. Supporters submitted more than 1.2 million signatures.

Kathy Kneer, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said in a statement that voters will reject the measure “once again because the public understands this initiative puts our most vulnerable teens at risk” (Goldmacher, Sacramento Bee, “Capitol Alert,” 5/30).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You’ll be able to view the entire Every day Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Well being Policy Report is really a totally free service with the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

Former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore (R) on Saturday secured the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat over Virginia Del. Robert Marshall (R) by 70 votes out of 10,378 votes cast at the party’s state convention, the Washington Post reports. Based on the Post, Gilmore nearly lost the nomination because with the efforts of a coalition of antiabortion advocates and other groups who supported Marshall. During his campaign, Marshall criticized Gilmore’s support for abortion rights until the eighth week of pregnancy (Craig/Kumar, Washington Post, 6/1).

Marshall has called himself the “authentic pro-life” candidate and has stated that people opposed to abortion rights “will sit on their hands” if Gilmore is the Republican nominee because of Gilmore’s view on the issue. Gilmore has said that as governor, he helped pass a 24-hour waiting period for girls seeking abortions, enacted a statewide ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortion and pushed legislation requiring minors seeking abortions to notify their parents (Daily Women’s Well being Policy Report, 4/1).

After losing the primary election, Marshall told supporters it will be important that Gilmore defeat the likely Democratic nominee for the seat, former Gov. Mark Warner (D), in the November election (Washington Post, 6/1). However, Marshall stated Monday that he probably will not endorse Gilmore unless Gilmore promises to advocate a total ban on abortion (Craig, Washington Post, 6/3). Marshall told his supporters that the Republican Party “needs to be united behind principled, pro-life, real pro-life (leaders) who respect the rights of all people, old and young” (Washington Post, 6/1).

Gilmore spokesperson Ana Gamonal stated that Gilmore’s campaign will tell conservative voters that he signed “every single pro-family, pro-life legislation that came to his desk” (Washington Post, 6/3). Gilmore and Mark Warner are running for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. John Warner (R) (Washington Post, 6/1).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You’ll be able to view the whole Every day Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Day-to-day Women’s Wellness Policy Report is actually a free service of the National Partnership for Females & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell (R) plans to ask the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to assessment a decision by a three-judge panel with the court declaring Virginia’s ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortion unconstitutional, the AP/Washington Post reports. In a statement announcing the decision, McDonnell said, “It is my belief that Virginia’s partial-birth abortion ban, passed overwhelmingly by the people’s elected representatives in the General Assembly, is constitutional” (AP/Washington Post, 5/30).

On May 20, the court stated Virginia’s law is more restrictive than the federal abortion ban (PL 108-105). Both laws prohibit physicians from using a procedure — known as intact dilation and extraction, or intact D&E — and both measures allow physicians to perform a standard dilation and evacuation procedure.

In the majority opinion, Judge Blane Michael wrote that the federal law would charge a physician with violating the ban only when he or she intended to perform an intact dilation and extraction from the outset. Virginia’s law, on the other hand, would charge a physician who performed the procedure by mistake, Michael wrote. Michael stated that the only way doctors in Virginia could avoid “risk of criminal prosecution, conviction and imprisonment” would be to cease performing second-trimester abortions, which would pose an “undue burden” on girls seeking the procedure (Daily Women’s Wellness Policy Report, 5/21).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You are able to view the entire Everyday Women’s Wellness Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Day-to-day Women’s Well being Policy Report is really a free of charge service with the National Partnership for Girls & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

3 (2 votes)

An unidentified Roman Catholic priest who recently denied Holy Communion to a former Reagan administration official because he endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president has fired the “opening shot” in a debate about no matter whether priests ought to deny Communion to Catholic voters who support candidates favoring abortion rights, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes in an opinion piece.

According to Dionne, Douglas Kmiec, who headed the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in the late 1980s, was denied Communion during an April Mass because the priest believed his endorsement of Obama made Kmiec a “willing participant in a grave moral evil.” Kmiec — presently a law professor at Pepperdine University and former dean with the Catholic University Columbus School of Law — can be a “long-standing critic” of Roe v. Wade, according to Dionne. In an interview, Kmiec stated he endorsed Obama despite his position on abortion rights because Catholics should consider the “broad social teaching of the church” and whether a “legal prohibition of abortion” is the “only way to promote a culture of life.”

Even though some U.S. Catholic bishops have asked Catholic politicians who support abortion rights not to receive Communion, the priest’s decision is “almost certainly out of line” with U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops policy, based on Dionne. A November 2007 USCCB statement says that Catholics “cannot vote” for candidates who “tak[e] a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion … if the voter’s intent is to support that position,” according to Dionne. In accordance with the statement, Catholics “can support pro-choice candidates” if their vote is “not to promote abortion,” Dionne adds.

Denying Communion to a “private citizen” who has a “long history of embracing Catholic teaching on abortion” for “political reasons may spark an even greater outcry inside the church” than when bishops have suggested Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be denied the sacrament, Dionne writes (Dionne, Washington Post, 6/3).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You’ll be able to view the entire Day-to-day Women’s Well being Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for e-mail delivery here. The Every day Women’s Well being Policy Report is actually a free service with the National Partnership for Ladies & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

5 (1 votes)

Roe v. Wade – which might be in danger of becoming “swept aside” by an increasingly conservative Supreme Court — “finally” gave females the “full rights of first-class citizens” and freed their doctors to “treat them as such,” retired ob-gyn Waldo Fielding, author with the book Pregnancy: The Best State with the Union, writes in a New York Times opinion piece.

Abortions “have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days,” Fielding writes. He details his experiences in treating girls who experienced complications from clandestine abortions before Roe while he was a practicing ob-gyn in New York City from 1948 to 1953. Fielding adds that a woman’s “desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force” behind her decision to use “any method available” to perform an abortion, putting her at “total risk” and not knowing “whether she would live or die.”

According to Fielding, Roe “did not mean that abortions could be performed” but rather said that “ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting” (Fielding, New York Times, 6/3).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. It is possible to view the entire Day-to-day Women’s Wellness Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for e-mail delivery here. The Day-to-day Women’s Well being Policy Report is really a totally free service of the National Partnership for Girls & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Healthcare Prof:

3.86 (7 votes)

Article Opinions:1 posts
New research from a large scale study in the US found no evidence of a link between incomplete pregnancy, such as that from induced abortion, and risk of breast cancer, which the researchers said ought to put an end towards the much debated issue.

The study was conducted by researchers from the new department of cancer etiology at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, California, and colleagues, and is published in the June issue of the journal Contraception.

Despite mounting evidence from large prospective studies of no link between induced abortion and breast cancer risk, public concern continues, stated lead investigator Katherine DeLellis Henderson and colleagues, explaining the reason for the study.

They wrote that, “much with the data prompting this concern came from case-control studies, many of which may have been affected by bias or design flaws,” reported Medwire News.

These have given rise to two beliefs about women who have incomplete pregnancies. First, that they don’t have as much long-term protection against breast cancer as they would from full term pregnancies; and second, that their breasts are exposed to high hormone levels of early pregnancy and then don’t benefit from the terminal cell differentiation of late pregnancy, possibly making them more vulnerable to cancer causing chemicals.

For this study, the researchers examined breast cancer as it relates to incomplete pregnancy, including the total number of induced abortions, age at first induced abortion and total number of miscarriages among participants of the ongoing California Teachers Study (CTS), a prospective study of current and former public school teachers or administrators who are with the California State Teachers Retirement System.

DeLellis Henderson and colleagues looked at data taken from the CTS baseline questionnaires in 1995-96 where the ladies had responded to detailed questions about pregnancy history, including incomplete pregnancy. By linking the CTS records with the California Cancer Registry, the researchers found 3,324 females from the CTS study diagnosed with incident breast cancer up to 2004.

Using a statistical tool known as Cox multivariable regression, they found no statistically significant link between any measure of incomplete pregnancy and breast cancer risk.

The researchers adjusted for established risk factors including ethnicity, first degree family history of breast cancer, and age at onset of menstrual periods (menarche).

They found that having an induced abortion at first pregnancy did not increase risk of breast cancer neither among those women who went on to have full term pregnancies, nor those who never went on to give birth.

Also, miscarriage in a first pregnancy did not increase risk for breast cancer in either of these groups.

The researchers said their findings supported those from a recent large scale study of nurses, the Nurses Health Study II.

They concluded that:

“Our results provide further, strong evidence that neither induced abortion nor miscarriage is associated with breast cancer risk and may help to resolve any remaining uncertainty as to regardless of whether such a relationship exists.”

“Incomplete pregnancy isn’t associated with breast cancer risk: the California Teachers Study.”
DeLellis Henderson K, Sullivan-Halley J, Reynolds P, Horn-Ross PL, Clarke CA, Chang ET, Neuhausen S, Ursin G, Bernstein L.
Contraception, Volume 77, Issue 6, Pages 391-396 (June 2008).

Click here for Abstract.

Source: journal abstract, Medwire News.

Response by The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

Healthcare Prof:

The Australian government is contemplating lifting a requirement that no group receiving foreign aid can use the funding for abortion counseling, services or coaching, Bob McMullan, parliamentary secretary for international development help, said Wednesday, AFP/Straits Times reports (AFP/Straits Times, 6/4). In accordance with the AP/Seattle Times, Australia and the U.S. are the only countries that at present prohibit foreign aid from being spent on abortion-related services (McGuirk, AP/Seattle Times, 6/3).

The ban was implemented in 1996 by conservative former Prime Minister John Howard, whose coalition was defeated in November 2007 by center-left Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s coalition. Rudd’s administration has asked Parliament to debate lifting the ban (AFP/Straits Times, 6/4). In accordance with McMullan, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has asked a parliamentary committee to prepare a report on whether the ban must be lifted, despite the fact that parliamentary approval just isn’t needed to lift the ban.

Conservative opposition Sen. Ron Boswell said Rudd would face “political backlash” from some conservative Christians if the ban is lifted. Julie Munday, Asia-Pacific regional CEO for the reproductive rights group Marie Stopes International, noted that Australian girls have access to state-subsidized abortions, adding that the ban is “quite an arrogant stance to assume that what’s very good for Australians isn’t necessarily good for women overseas.” McMullan declined to state an opinion on the ban but said the review would lead to debate (AP/Seattle Times, 6/3).

Reprinted with type permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You’ll be able to view the whole Day-to-day Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Day-to-day Women’s Wellness Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

? 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.