The survey of 187 women seeking obstetric and gynecological services at a Wisconsin women's health clinic was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in July. The women were given a short survey in which they were asked to state their preferences for information about elective medical procedures. They ranked the degree of information they preferred regarding alternative treatments and complication rates, and rated the severity of different types of complications, ranging in severity from headaches to death.

The results showed that 95% of patients wished to be informed of all the risks of a procedure and 69% wanted to be informed of all alternative treatments, not just the alternatives preferred by their doctor.

Moreover, in their ranking of the seriousness of complications, mental health complications ranked as very serious, only slightly below the risk of death or heart disease. This finding may be especially important to the abortion debate since recent peer-reviewed studies have linked abortion to increased rates of mental health problems, such as suicidal behavior, clinical depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and sleep disorders.

"Doctors should anticipate that most women desire information on every potential risk, even risks that doctors may judge to be less serious or inconsequentially rare, and they will generally consider this information to be relevant to their decisions regarding elective procedures," the authors wrote.

Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute and one of co-authors of the study, said that the survey "demonstrates that women have a high level of interest in being informed of any risk that is statistically associated with the procedure, including psychological risks. It also reveals that while some experts may consider some associations, such as a 10 percent higher risk of breast cancer, as relatively unimportant, most women would consider it to be very important to their decision making process."

In its decision, the appeals court ruled that the policy's ban on all political and religious literature was an unconstitutional content-based restriction. The court also ruled that the policy gave too much unrestricted discretion to school officials to deny speech.

It struck down the entire policy as a violation of the First Amendment.

On Tuesday, more than 100 worldwide organizational and religious leaders, including numerous abortion advocates, signed a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao to protest the Chen's treatment and trial.

Coordinated by the pro-abortion group Catholics for a Free Choice, the letter asks national and local officials "to immediately begin investigative procedures into and launch legal supervision of the severe violations of the human rights of Chen Guangcheng."

"This action against Chen is surprising in light of China's recent improvements in law and practice, which call for non-coercive reproductive health services," Frances Kissling, president of the group, said in comments emailed to LifeNews.com.

"International pressure -- especially from those supportive of reproductive health -- is essential to building Chinese resolve to respect the human rights of women regarding reproduction," Kissling added.

Signers of the letter include a who's who of leading pro-abortion organizations.

I know by having an abortion we're just committing more sin, but it's too much for us to keep this child. I don't want to do this, I really don't. But we really don't have a choice. If we have the child it'll change our lives so drastically, and put a stop to so many things. We'll never become the things we planned to become, we'll be outcasted from our own familes, and I seriusly believe that. I wish I wish I could just marry her right now.

But I see what you mean too, if we don't have the child, then we're ruining ourselves just as well. I don't know how we're going to deal with this.

She's talking to me right now but how she's really tired lately, how she had some stomach pain earlier and was hurting... It's killing me to hear that she's in pain. It's physically hurting me in my chest.

I feel like I don't even have a soul anymore.

The parents of a mentally disabled woman who had supposedly conceived through rape and had been given permission by the courts in Argentina to undergo an abortion finally had their wishes granted as the unborn child's life was taken on Friday at a private clinic, in the city of La Plata.

Although the baby was a few weeks short of viability, the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires had authorized an abortion to be administered at the end of July. However, doctors at a public hospital refused to comply with the order, objecting that the baby was too far developed for the procedure to take place.

Although the child's great-grandmother had offered to care for him and local government officials had offered to provide economic assistance, the family's lawyer told reporters the private clinic agreed to carry out the abortion, even though the woman was almost six months pregnant.

"It didn't seem real. Pregnant, me? And then the realization that my baby was dead, gone. And I'd never have the chance to be a mother again," she wrote in the Mirror.

"The nurse tried to comfort me, but I was hysterical by now. They had taken my baby from me -- the baby they said I'd never have," she said.

"Looking back, one small pregnancy test on my urine and they would have known the truth," King wrote.

"I am totally and utterly distressed at the thought of my baby mumbling and stuttering the way my niece does who also has a harelip. I cannot find a way out," Fish wrote in her first post on the web, July 11.

"It was the first time I had ever seen the lovely creature who has accompanied me for six months as I lay on a hospital bed for a check up. He is so cute. Sometimes he stretches, sometimes he gapes, and sometimes he sucks his little fingers. However it makes me shiver to see a cleft, ranging from 3 to 7 millimeters in his upper lip," she wrote the next day.

On August 8, just days after 61-year-old Ruthie Webster's insurance stopped full coverage of her long-term care, the Regency Hospital's bioethics committee in North Dallas, Texas, unanimously told the Webster family that they would discontinue life-preserving dialysis treatment for their mother within 10 days. The hospital claimed that Ruthie Webster's physician "has seen no appreciable change in your mother's medical condition" and that continued treatment was an exercise in futility.

The decision shocked family members, since their mother is not brain-dead, but comatose, and has been making slow progress, breathing now on her own without a ventilator, ever since she suffered a bad reaction after undergoing kidney dialysis in June rendering her mostly unresponsive. The family, however, has said their mother told them to take care of her in such a situation, saying that she believes only God has the right to take life away.

"My mom spent her life in the church. She always felt like, 'Who are we to decide? God decides,'" said Lacresia Webster on Thursday. "If this is the way she's going to be, she's still my mom. I'm not giving up on her."

However, the Regency Hospital board defends its decision citing a 1999 statute in Texas' Health and Safety Code that gives a hospital's ethics committee the last word about continuing a patient's care. Under the law, if the ethics committee decides to end a patient's medical care, including life-saving treatment, a family has only 10 days to transfer to another medical facility that will care for the patient.

Although Regency has offered to help find another medical facility for Ruthie Webster in Atlanta or Indiana, the family does not want to move their mother, unless they can help it.

"I find it hard to believe this is a law, because you're basically saying if this person is a burden to someone, let's just kill them, and that's unacceptable," Lacresia Webster told Dallas's NBC 5.

"When God is ready for her, God will take her, not anyone else," Lacresia Webster vowed.

Patte Smith of Sanctuary Ministries tells LifeNews.com she called the Orlando Women's Center pretending to be interested in setting up an appointment for an abortion. To her shock, staff there began making arrangements with her to have one.

Smith called OWC Monday morning and spoke with a staffer who told her she could see an abortion practitioner to obtain an ultrasound of her "pregnancy" at a Tuesday morning appointment.

The staff member told Smith the cost would be $150 and to call back Tuesday morning to find the specific time to come to the abortion facility.

Smith tells LifeNews.com she called back this morning and was given a variety of options for an appointment for an abortion.

The staff member "gave me an abortion appointment for Monday, August 28th at 9 a.m.," Smith told LifeNews.com and "offered me abortion appointments for all the other days of the week next week."

The OWC staffer told Smith the abortion would cost $440, she was offered various choices for anesthesia, and told she had to make the payment with cash, credit card or a money order.

His Nesting Place, a pro-life home for unwed mothers will be featured on FX Networks "30 Days" program this Wednesday, August 23rd at 10:00PM.

Morgan Spurlock, producer of Super Size Me, sent his video crew along with pro-choice activist, Jennifer from Atlanta Georgia, to His Nesting Place for 30 days. During these 30 days Jennifer lived in the home under the same guidelines as any pregnant woman in a crisis pregnancy situation would live.

Jennifer was required to help out around the home as well as volunteer at the crisis pregnancy center ran by His Nesting Place. She was also asked to spend some time out on a public sidewalk in front of an abortion clinic to participate in sidewalk counseling, although Jennifer did go to the sidewalk adjacent to the abortion facility she refused to engage in any counseling efforts.

Today marks the United States appearance of the birth control pill, or "the Pill" as it came to be known. While it celebrates 46 years in America, the first clinical trials began 50 years ago.

"The birth control pill revolutionized women's lives not just here in the United States, but worldwide," said Katherine Spillar, executive editor for "Ms. Magazine," the largest and oldest feminine magazine in the world. "It is a major component of radical changes that came about for women."

"Despite the fact that this procedure, by which a child is partially delivered and then killed with scissors in the back of the neck, has gotten national attention for over a decade, there still aren't enough Americans who know about it. As people do learn what it is, they re-evaluate the whole idea of 'pro-choice' and 'Roe v. Wade,' because they never imagined either of those terms connected with such a brutal and repulsive procedure," Fr. Pavone explained.

When it comes to abortion, however, it seems increasingly difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal homicide.

So many people think that if you have an abortion it means that you are anti-life, that you hate children, that you never want them, that you're selfish. I've always wanted children. I struggled with the possibility of adoption and decided against it; I knew I couldn't go through with it after carrying the child that long and then letting it go. I knew I wasn't at a stage in my life where I could give a child everything it needed and wanted. I was afraid of how my ex would treat it. In the weeks that I waited for the procedure, I grew attached to the baby inside me. Even though I was getting the procedure done, I didn't drink, cut off my caffeine intake, and ate healthier than I ever do. I thought a lot about what a beautiful baby it would be. I thought about how endearing first smiles, first words, first steps would be. I knew that I would love that child more than anything else in the world. But I am realistic, and I knew, and know, that love was not enough.

Dierdre McQuade, Director of Planning and Information at the Bishops Conference, said that the drug may not even succeed in its intended purpose and may pose a danger the women, "A number of studies have shown that readier access to emergency contraception does not lower unintended pregnancies or abortions. Such access may also lead to an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy and of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Plan B fails the test of addressing an urgent medical need - a new human life is not a disease - and may expose women to greater harm."

Saying the Catholic Church should not be seen as a "collection of prohibitions," Pope Benedict strongly condemned abortion.

"Christianity, Catholicism isn't a collection of prohibitions: it's a positive option," Benedict said. "We've heard so much about what is not allowed that now it's time to say: we have positive ideas to offer."

"As far as abortion is concerned, it's part of the fifth, not the sixth, commandment: 'You shall not kill," the pontiff explained.

"We have to presume this is obvious and always stress that the human person begins in the mother's womb and remains a human person until his or her last breath," he said.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that the drive for over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill are part of the abortion lobby's propaganda campaign. The lobby knows that public support for contraception is much higher than public support of abortion-hence, its insistence on calling the morning-after pill "emergency contraception".

But, one has to wonder-If groups such as Planned Parenthood are in the business of family planning, why would there be millions of emergencies requiring a pill to resolve? What Planned Parenthood is really promoting is irresponsibility, carelessness, and, in the end, surgical abortion.

Because, if a woman still finds herself pregnant after taking the morning-after pill, she'll be lured into thinking that the only solution to her problem is to abort her baby the old-fashioned way.

One of the most difficult things about grief is that nobody completely understands. We try so hard to explain our struggles and emptiness only to have others brush aside our pain as not being so bad. How does one put into proper words the true meaning of an empty heart?

The 30 feminists met on Tuesday at the Cathedral in La Plata and marched toward the university campus, where they shouted insults at the rector, distributed pamphlets and even painted graffiti on buildings used by the Department of Law. Fences were later put up around the Cathedral and its rectory in order to keep them from painting graffiti there as well.

A large group of students staged a counter protest by praying the rosary, Emilio Nazar Kasbo, a La Plata lawyer told CNA.

Pamphlets distributed by the women echoed the pro-abortion slogans made popular by pro-abortion forces in the US, such as, "Get your rosaries off our ovaries."

UK schoolgirls are being handed the morning-after pill in an effort to reduce teen pregnancy rates in a region with one of the highest in Western Europe.

According to a Norwich Evening News report, two schools in Norwich and five in Great Yarmouth have begun distribution of the abortifacients to girls below the age of consent, which is 16 years of age in Great Britain... Norfolk teenage pregnancy strategy unit Lead Officer Becky Oliver said the program is available to girls as young as 11. "This confidential service is available to young people in all years at the participating schools and has the full support of the schools management and governing bodies."

CMA Executive Director Dr. David Stevens said, "Politicians are trying to push FDA approval through with strong-arm tactics that have no place in evaluations of women's health and safety. We saw these same tactics deployed in the previous administration, when then-President Clinton's first official act was to order the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to coordinate the marketing of the dangerous abortion drug RU-486.

"This move by the FDA appears to be based on political expedience and ideology rather than science. It makes no medical sense to offer over-the-counter access to a powerful hormonal drug when lower doses of those hormones in contraceptives require a physician's prescription," Stevens observed.

"Over-the-counter use of these drugs is unsubstantiated by data," Dr. Stevens added. "'Emergency contraception' has been promoted as the regimen that would lower unwanted pregnancy and abortion rates, but hard data to back this claim is lacking. In the two largest 'advance placement' studies of which we are aware...neither happened. Because of a lack of studies on repetitive use, which is likely with many users, we do not know the long-term risks of these drugs."

Dr. Gene Rudd, an obstetrician and CMA's Associate Executive Director, noted, "Over-the-counter sales of these drugs facilitates predators and pressure. Though the use is supposed to be limited to those 18 and above, it will not prevent older sexual predators from purchasing them for use in covering up their actions. They will also be purchased by older boyfriends to coerce underage girls into sexual activity."

Dr. Rudd also addressed the issue of the abortifacient nature of "Plan B." Despite clear data that "Plan B" has a secondary mechanism which prevents an already fertilized egg to implant in the womb--effectively, an abortion--this mechanism is not publicized or acknowledged by Barr Pharmaceuticals, the company that manufactures "Plan B".

"The current packaging of these pills," pointed out Dr. Rudd, "also violates the vital medical principle of informed consent. The FDA allows patient education material to claim that the product does not affect pregnancy or cause abortion. The drug's labeling falsely assures women that they are not taking the life of a human being when they take the pill. While some within the scientific community have obfuscated for political reasons the terms associated with early human development, a significant percentage of women still consider pregnancy to begin with fertilization.

"Adequate informed consent requires that information be appropriate for the patient--not the provider. No credible expert disputes that EC must have post- fertilization effects to be effective (especially since in real life it is often taken post-ovulatory). Many women will feel betrayed when they learn the scientific realities of the mechanisms of action."

A Canadian woman who suffered from a botched abortion and nearly committed suicide twice afterwards because of the emotional pain she experienced has filed a lawsuit. She also said the stress of the situation resulted in the breaking off of her relationship with her fiance.

The woman, a 28 year-old student, found out she was pregnant in June 2004 and was referred to the Kensington Clinic abortion facility.

According to the lawsuit, a degenerative hip disease made it so she could not carry the pregnancy to term, according to a Calgary Herald news report.

Ted Busheikin did an abortion on her on July 21, 2004 at the abortion facility and the lawsuit says the woman continued to experience sever pain in her hips. The woman saw her doctor, Dr. John Barrow, to obtain pain medication, which she took for the next three and a half months without feeling any improvement.

The lawsuit says the woman underwent tissue and blood tests at Kensington Clinic following the abortion and officials at the abortion center assured her the abortion was successful.

"Three days following the procedure (she) received confirmation from the Kensington Clinic that the pregnancy was terminated," the lawsuit said.

She went back to the abortion business for an ultrasound in October 2004, the Herald reported, which confirmed she was still pregnant. She was told at the time that the tissue test had confirmed she was still pregnant, but she wasn't told about the results.

The Kensington Clinic abortion center officials told her that she was now 21 weeks pregnant and too far along to have an abortion there. They referred her to a late-term abortion facility in Quebec and said she could go to the United States as well.

A senior U.S. diplomat said she appealed to Chinese officials Thursday to release a blind activist who was jailed after recording complaints from villagers about forced abortions.

Ellen Sauerbrey, a U.S. assistant secretary of state, said Chinese officials did not make any commitments about activist Chen Guangcheng.

Chen, who lives in the eastern province of Shandong, was arrested after recording accounts by villagers who complained of such abuses. He was accused of illegal assembly and intent to damage public property - charges his supporters have said were fabricated in retaliation for his activism.

Chen was to stand trial but the trial has been postponed and no new date has been announced.

Sauerbrey, head of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said she made the appeal in a meeting with Ru Xiaomei, deputy director of China's State Family Planning Commission.

"For China's own reputation, China needs to release him from prison," Sauerbrey told reporters later. She said Chinese officials listened but that nothing "positive" came from the discussion.

A woman who had an operation to remove her unborn baby after being told that it had died in the womb found out three weeks later that she was still pregnant.

St John's Hospital in Livingston, West Lothian, has apologised to Julie Brown, 28, over the double blunder and begun an inquiry.

Following a scan at five and a half weeks, Mrs Brown, from Livingston, was told by a member of staff that no heartbeat could be detected. She had a dilation and curettage procedure to remove the foetus but when she went to her GP because she was feeling "sick and pregnant" she was told that she was still expecting.

Mrs Brown and her family were in "floods of tears" last month when she told her children - Sarah, eight, and Leon, three - and her husband Daniel, 28, that the baby had died. "To be told that your baby is dead is bad enough," she said. "But the thought of them trying to get rid of a perfectly healthy baby by mistake makes me sick to the pit of my stomach."

It's too bad you didn't feel you had any choice but to have three abortions. You should have been informed by friends or family or medical personnel that you had the option to carry your fetuses to term and then give up your babies for adoption. You should have received comprehensive education about birth control, or even been informed of the option to be abstinent, so that you didn't become pregnant in the first place. But just because you had a negative experience and post-abortion regrets does not mean that the choice to have an abortion should be made illegal - or extremely difficult - for the millions of women who still would make that choice.

Former congressman Chris Bell, the Democratic nominee for governor of the Lone Star State, said in a July 27 news release, "What would Jesus do? He would not let political objections stand in the way of healing the sick. Stem cell research isn't just a good idea; it's a moral imperative."

"When Jesus healed the lepers, he didn't consult the Pharisees," Bell said. "I believe God gives us the tools of science and technology to help our fellow man. We cannot let politics stand in the way of curing disease and healing the sick."

Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Senior Fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute, said, "It would be easy to become complacent about the good news regarding the decrease in teen sexual activity, but the United States still has too many sexually active teens with 47% of teens reporting that they have engaged in sexual intercourse. The left tends to give lip service to the benefits of abstinence and then strongly promotes condoms and hormonal contraceptives."

"How sad is it that the United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the industrialized world? That is hardly the way to provide world leadership or to promote democracy and freedom. We should be able to nurture our own young people to high standards of personal conduct and we ought to build a culture that will protect our young people and empower them for productive lives."

Crouse said, "This factual evidence seems to shout at public officials that it is unrealistic and cruel to promote condoms and contraception as protection for teens against either pregnancy or STDs. Over and over again the data supports the validity of an abstinence-based approach for teens."

Liberals go on and on about how conservatives want to take away a woman's right to choose. However, in the Plan B debate, they say that conservatives are just being silly. Plan B isn't even an abortion pill! They say. One user on the liberal blog "The Daily Kos" elegantly stated, "...this fundamentalist bulls--t over Plan B ( which does not even cause an abortion) is of no surprise to me." Another said, "It needs to be screamed to the heavens that Plan B is not the abortion pill. It kills nothing. It harms nothing. No life is lost. It stops abortions. "

This seems to be the predominant line of thinking among most liberals, that Plan B is not and abortion pill. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The FDA, in describing how Plan B works, noted that, "Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation). If a fertilized egg is implanted prior to taking Plan B, Plan B will not work." (again, emphasis added).

It makes all the difference here that Plan B can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. Abortion opponents believe that life begins at conception (when the sperm fertilizes the egg) not implantation. Therefore, stating that a fertilized egg is safe once it has implanted is pointless. What matters is the safety of that newly formed life, formed at fertilization, a life that can be ended by Plan B through the prevention of implantation.

If anything, a fetus is merely a parasitical creature that uses the mother as its host... Tapeworms are parasites that house themselves in the intestinal tracts of humans, feeding off the food the host consumes. Comparatively, a fetus is little more than a tapeworm. It is quite common for humans to annihilate parasites with medications or toxins, so why not allow for fetuses to suffer the same fate?

Kansas late-term abortion partitioner George Tiller has escaped prosecution as second time in the abortion death of a mentally disabled Texas girl he killed in a botched abortion in January 2005. Members of a grand jury convened after more than 6,000 local residents filed a petition calling on them to do so, but they found no criminal wrongdoing.

The Sedgwick County grand jury found Tiller should not be held accountable for the death of Christin Gilbert.

District Attorney Nola Foulston, who has come under fire from pro-life advocates for her position in favor of abortion and refusal to press charges against Tiller, a personal friend, said the grand jury had been dismissed without returning an indictment.

The Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates doctors in the state, also refused to indict Tiller in the botched abortion.

The AICA news agency in Argentina reported this weekend that the Catholic University of La Plata has offered to help take care of the unborn child of a handicapped woman whose parents are seeking court approval for an abortion.

In a letter to the Supreme Court of the Buenos Aires province, the university's rector, Ricardo De la Torre, offered, "to help the young woman in all her needs and to assume responsibility for the child after his birth if the family of the young woman should decide they don't want him or cannot raise him."

"I also offer her counseling from our Department of Legal Medicine free of charge, as well as free medical care from health professionals at the University which I represent," he added.

"It is also the will of our Institution," the letter continues, "to provide the necessary means for collaborating as well in the adoption of the baby by another family if that be the decision of the young woman's parents."

The 19 year-old woman became pregnant through rape, and her parents have asked the court to allow her to obtain an abortion. Anti-life feminists and local officials are pressuring the court to grant the family's request.

A prayer campaign has been launched for a mother in Argentina who was stricken with cancer but refused to have an abortion to spare her life. Laura Figeroa is in the terminal stage of her illness, a brain metastasis that is considered irreversible.

Figeroa could have had an abortion so she could obtain chemotherapy to address her cancer, but she refused to take the life of her unborn child to save her own.

Two weeks ago, Figeroa gave birth to her son, Pedro, who was born early at 27 weeks into the pregnancy. Pedro weighed just 2.4 pounds and was immediately placed in intensive care and struggles with kidney and heart problems.[..]

"I want my child to know that I love him and that I will always love him, that I will give my life for him if necessary," she said.

"Of course I don't intend to neglect my health, as I have the responsibility to protect my own life and that of my baby, but nevertheless, I avoid everything that, while helpful to my own health, might be detrimental to that of my child," she explained.