Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of The Illinois Federation for Right to Life. They are presented only for your information.
Rhode Island Considers Public Cord-Blood Bank
For years, women have been able to store their babies' cord blood at a steep cost. Now, Rhode Island is working toward hosting New England's first public cord-blood bank.
Stem cells found in cord blood have been used to treat diseases and conditions such as leukemia and lymphoma.
The Rhode Island Blood Center and Women & Infants Hospital have started collecting donated umbilical-cord blood in a one-year trial program. Initially, the blood will be sent to the New Jersey Cord Blood Bank. The blood stored there and at other public blood banks is used to treat people around the world.
Click here for the full article.
Twelve Mexican states now protect right to life in their constitutions
The San Luis de Potosi State Congress in Mexico approved a measure Thursday reforming the State Constitution to protect the right to life of children from the moment of conception.
Representative Vicente Toledo Alvarez said the reform would ensure that the State's Constitution clearly recognizes the right to life as the most basic of all human rights and protects it from the moment of conception.
Before passage of the measure, Archbishop Luis Morales Reyes of San Luis Potosi said, "The Church has her principles and one of them is life. I am only stating that the Church supports life and will always support life, regardless of the politics or laws of the moment."
Click here for the full article.
Tennessee General Assembly Advances Bill To Restrict Abortion Access
The Tennessee House on Monday voted 76-22 to approve a resolution (S.J.R. 127) to amend the state constitution to allow the Legislature to impose stricter limits on abortion, the AP/Memphis Commercial Appeal reports. The resolution, which aims to void a 2000 Tennessee Supreme Court ruling, was passed by the state Senate in March, but it still has hurdles to overcome. In order to change the state constitution, the measure will have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of both houses in the next General Assembly, either in 2011 or 2012, before it could go to voters in 2014.
Click here for the full article.
CEDAW Committee Targets East Timor on Abortion
As pre-session working groups of the committee charged with overseeing compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) meet in advance of the committee's July session, the small Asian nation of East Timor has come under pressure for its continued criminalization of abortion. East Timor's new penal code, which will take effect early next month, continues to penalize the practice, including abortion in cases of rape or incest, but with the added proviso that exceptions can be made in cases where the mother's health is in jeopardy.
Click here for the full article.
Don't expect smooth sailing for Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor (2nd Circuit Court justice)The head of a group that promotes constitutionalist judicial nominees says President Obama will come to regret his choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be his first Supreme Court nominee because she is not only an extreme liberal ideologue but also an unethical jurist.
Click here for the full article.
Disappointment over abortion rise
Measures will be introduced to reduce repeated unwanted pregnancies
The Scottish Government has expressed disappointment after the number of abortions being carried out in Scotland rose to an all-time high last year.
There were 13,817 terminations in 2008, an increase of 79 on the previous year.
Almost 3,500 were carried out on teenagers and 343 were performed on girls aged under 16.
Click here for the full article.
