NEWS SHORTS FOR THURSDAY
DHS Coerced Teenage Mom to Get Late-Term Abortion
A Department of Human Services caseworker pressured a pregnant Mayfair teenager to undergo a late-term abortion by threatening to take away either her toddler or her unborn baby if she had the child, according to the teen's foster mother. The alleged strong-arm tactic happened one day after DHS learned of the pregnancy, when the girl was about 22 weeks pregnant, according to her foster mother and the girl's social worker, Marisol Rivera. The foster mother did not want to be identified in order to protect the girl's identity. The Daily News also learned that: * DHS got a Family Court judge's order allowing it to take the girl for an abortion, after the girl's birth mother refused to approve the procedure.
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Whitehead Institute Scientists Kill More Human Beings By Destroying Embryos to make Embryonic Stem Cells
Whitehead Institute researchers have converted established human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and human embryonic stem (ES) cells to a base state of greater pluripotency. “This is a previously unknown pluripotent state in human cells,” says Jacob Hanna, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch. “It’s the first time these cell types have approached the flexibility found in mouse ES cells.”
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Tennessee Law to Ban Taxpayer-Funded Abortions in State-Run Health Insurance Now In Effect
Legislation went into effect barring coverage of abortion in health plans offered through the state-run health insurance exchange to be created under the health reform bill. Two weeks after the General Assembly easily passed the legislation, Gov. Phil Bredesen declined to either sign or veto the bill. So the measure -- SB 2686 -- still goes into effect. The move makes Tennessee the second state, after Arizona, to enact legislation prohibiting abortion coverage in the state-run health exchanges. Legislation is pending in eight other states. Legislative Democrat leaders have questioned whether the law was needed since the federal law already includes anti-abortion language.
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UGA Scientists Discover How to Use Stem Cells from Pigs In Treating Human Diseases
Two University of Georgia scientists have accomplished what others have failed to do for 20 years. Steven Stice and Dr. Franklin West have been able to figure out a way to potentially help people with diabetes using stem cells from adult pigs. Stice and West used adult pigs to develop pluri-potent stems cells that can turn into any cell in the body. These cells, in the case of treating diabetes, can work in the body as insulin to fight the disease. "We were really surprised that it worked. It touches so many facets. It's going to help domestic livestock species. It's going to help human disease modeling. It's going to help stem cell therapies and endangered species. It's such a wide topic that touches on so many subjects. I'm so excited on what's going on here," Dr. Franklin West tells WNEG News.
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Abortion Concentrated Among Poor Women
Abortion patterns in the United States remain broad; women from their teens through 40s seek abortion, and they represent a spectrum of ethnic, educational, religious and economic groups. The rate of abortion among poor women, however, has risen in the last decade, according to a report Tuesday from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights organization. The overall proportion of women who were poor increased by 25% in the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report. The proportion of abortion patients who were poor increased from 27% in 2000 to 42% in 2008.
49% of U.S. pregnancies are unintended, and 22% end in abortion. Increasingly, the role of poverty is becoming more apparent in the incidence of both unintended pregnancy and abortion.
The report also notes:
•58% of abortions were among women in their 20s
•85% of abortion were among unmarried women
•61% of women having abortions already had at least one child
•33% of women having abortions lacked health insurance
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Pro-Abort Group Lost Funding Over Performance Issues, Not Policy
The Canadian government has explained that a feminist and pro-abortion group working in the Third World lost federal funding due to questions about their ability to deliver their programs - an explanation that contradicts claims by the Liberal Party that the funding cut is evidence of the government's effort to silence critics of its decision not to include abortion in the G8 maternal and child health initiative.
Kim Bulger, executive director of MATCH International, claimed Tuesday that her group and ten other feminist groups have been defunded as part of the government's “ideologically driven” agenda against those who have pushed for abortion in the maternal and child health initiative.
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Illinois Federation for Right to Life
2600 State Street, Ste E
Alton, IL 62002
Phone: 618.466.4122
Web: www.ifrl.org
E-mail: mail@ifrl.org
