Saturday, January 28, 2006

Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives

guttmacher
PDF

Bio Frederica Mathewes-Green

ambassadoragency.com
Frederica Mathewes-Green's
Biography:

"Few people are welcome in as many different settings as Frederica Mathewes-Green. You might find her giving a speech at Harvard, then appearing at a pregnancy center banquet. She may speak about prayer at the Smithsonian Institution, keynote a national conference, and then lead a women's retreat. Colleges have made Frederica a regular at 'Art and Writing' conferences.

She's at home in many media. You've probably heard her commentaries on National Public Radio, talking about the pro-life issue, talking about her faith. She's been interviewed on TV from 'PrimeTime Live' to PBS, CNN, Fox, and most major news shows; by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and most major newspapers; and by Diane Rehm, Janet Parshall, and many national radio shows.

Her work as a writer is just as diverse. Frederica reviews several films each month, and also replies to readers' questions in a 'theological advice column' for the Christian Reader. A regular contributor to Christianity Today, First Things and other magazines, she has been repeatedly selected for the annual 'Best Christian Writing.' The multi-faith web magazine Beliefnet.com regularly invites her to present the classic Christian perspective, and her opinion pieces are featured at National Review Online.

And we haven't even started on her books yet. "
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Encyclical Letter - God is love

vatican

Griego: Ritter's abortion stance may signal future

Rocky Mountain News: Columnists
"Access to health care. More education. Greater availability of contraceptives. More money for family planning. Equals fewer abortions. It's common sense. Which means it'll never happen, says a pro-choice Republican friend of mine who's fed up with the Christian fundamentalist hijacking of his party. Each side refuses to give ground when both, ostensibly, want the same thing: fewer abortions.

I don't know if Ritter could lead the Democratic Party toward common ground. I think he is still wrestling with his own conflicts. But, clearly, common ground is one of his goals. At the very least, I hope he borrows one of Saletan's best lines: 'My opponent and I are both pro-life. We want to avoid as many abortions as we can. The difference is, I trust women to work with me toward that objective and he doesn't.'

One final thought about dodging moral issues: What minds religion cannot sway, science will. Technology has already given us the ability to peer into the womb at earlier stages of pregnancy and with greater clarity.

In 1998, when I was pregnant with my daughter, an ultrasound technician rubbed jelly on my belly and ran the probe over it and I turned to the screen to see - a satellite weather photo. In 2001, when I was pregnant with my son and after a suspicious blood screening, I had an ultrasound a few weeks earlier than what is typical. I turned to look. This time I saw a hand, a foot, the flutter of a heart, beating."

Sunday, January 22, 2006

States Step Up Fight on Abortion

Los Angeles Times
"Anticipating a more conservative Supreme Court, lawmakers are proposing bans in hope of forcing the justices to revisit Roe vs. Wade.
By P.J. Huffstutter and Stephanie Simon
INDIANAPOLIS — Taking direct aim at Roe vs. Wade, lawmakers from several states are proposing broad restrictions on abortion, with the goal of forcing the U.S. Supreme Court — once it has a second new justice — to revisit the landmark ruling issued 33 years ago today.

The bill under consideration in Indiana would ban all abortions, except when continuing the pregnancy would threaten the woman's life or put her physical health in danger of 'substantial permanent impairment.' Similar legislation is pending in Ohio, Georgia and Tennessee."
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Prescription for Health: Changing Primary Care Practice to Foster Healthy Behaviors -- Cifuentes et al.


Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.

"These projects confirm the feasibility of health behavior counseling in primary care practice. They also highlight the need for substantive practice redesign, and the value of models and frameworks to guide redesign and collaborative efforts."

Friday, January 20, 2006

ProLife Feminism- Yesterday and Today

Xlibris.Com Bookstore
"Is abortion on 'demand' a woman's right, or a wrong inflicted on women? Is it a mark of liberation, or a sign that women are not yet free? From Anglo-Irish writer Mary Wollstonecraft to Kenyan environmentalist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, many eighteenth- through twenty-first-century feminists have opposed it as violence against fetal lives arising from violence against female lives. This more inclusive, surprisingly old-but-new vision of reproductive choice is called prolife feminism.

This book's original edition in 1995 offered brilliant essays on abortion and related social justice issues by the likes of suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer. A decade of activism and research since has made this second, greatly expanded second edition necessary. It not only documents the continuing evolution of prolife feminism worldwide, but more accurately represents the rich diversity of past and present women--and men--who have stood up for both mother and child. It thus is a vital, unique resource for peacemaking in the increasingly globalized abortion war."

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Family Functioning of Children with Hyperactivity

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Lianne Woodward, Eric Taylor & Linda Dowdney
This study examined the parenting and family life correlates of childhood hyperactivity in a community sample of London school children. Twenty-eight boys with pervasive hyperactivity were compared to 30 classroom control children on a range of parenting and family functioning measures. Results showed that poor parent coping and the use of aggressive discipline methods were significantly associated with hyperactivity after adjusting for the effects of conduct disorder and parent mental health. The best parenting predictor of hyperactivity was disciplinary aggression. Findings suggest that the quality of parenting provided for hyperactive children may contribute to their behavioural difficulties, and highlights the need to examine more closely the role of parenting attitudes and behaviour in shaping the course, prognosis, and treatment outcomes for children with hyperactivity."

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

On abortion, court finds middle ground

csmonitor.com
"In a surprising compromise move supported by all nine justices, the high court on Wednesday avoided ruling on the merits of upholding or striking down a New Hampshire law that requires a teen to inform a parent before obtaining an abortion.

Instead, the justices sent the case back to the lower court to reconsider whether it was appropriate for it to strike down as unconstitutional the entire parental notification law, or whether only part of the law should be enjoined.

The 10-page decision was announced by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been the high-court architect of the constitutional provisions at the center of the case."
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Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Methods for identifying pregnancy-associated deaths: population-based data from Finland 1987–2000

Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol

To find maternal and pregnancy-related deaths, it is important that all pregnancy-associated deaths are identified. This article examines the effect of data linkages between national health care registers and complete death certificate data on pregnancy-associated deaths. All deaths among women of reproductive age (15–49 years) in Finland during the period 1987–2000 (n = 15 823) were identified from the Cause-of-Death Register and linked to the Medical Birth Register (n = 865 988 births), the Register on Induced Abortions (n = 156 789 induced abortions), and the Hospital Discharge Register (n = 118 490 spontaneous abortions) to determine whether women had been pregnant within 1 year before death. The death certificates of the 419 women thus identified were reviewed to find whether the pregnancy or its termination was coded or mentioned. In total, 405 deaths (96.7%) were identified in registers other than the Cause-of-Death Register. Without data linkages, 73% of all pregnancy-associated deaths would have been missed; the percentage after induced and spontaneous abortions was even higher. Data linkages to national health care registers provide better information on maternal deaths and pregnancy-associated deaths than death certificates alone. If possible, pregnancies not ending in a live birth should be included in the data linkages.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

India's 'girl deficit' deepest among educated

csmonitor.com
By Scott Baldauf
Study: Selective-sex abortion claims 500,000 girls a year.
NEW DELHI - Banned by Indian law for more than a decade, the practice of prenatal selection and selective abortion remains a common practice in India, claiming up to half a million female children each year, according to a recent study by the British medical journal, The Lancet.

The use of ultrasound equipment to determine the sex of an unborn child - introduced to India in 1979 - has now spread to every district in the country. The study found it played a crucial role in thetermination of an estimated 10 million female fetuses in the two decades leading up to 1998, and 5 million since 1994, the year the practice was banned. Few doctors in regular clinics offer the service openly, but activists estimate that sex-selection is a $100 million business in India, largely through mobile sex-selection clinics that can drive into almost any village or neighborhood.

The practice is common among all religious groups - Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Muslims, and Christians - but appears to be most common among educated women, a fact that befuddles public health officials and women's rights activists alike.

"More educated women have more access to technology, they are more privileged, and most educated families have the least number of children," says Sabu George, a researcher with the Center for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi, who did not participate in the study. "This is not just India. Everywhere in the world, smaller families come at the expense of girls."

Like China, India has encouraged smaller families through a mixture of financial incentives and campaigns calling for two children at most. Faced with such pressure, many families, rich and poor alike, are turning to prenatal selection to ensure that they receive a son. It's a problem with many potential causes - from social traditions to the economic burden of dowries - but one that could have strong social repercussions for generations to come.

The Lancet survey, conducted by Prabhat Jha of St. Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto and Rajesh Kumar of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Research in Chandigarh, India, looked at government data collected from a 1998 sample of Indian families in all the districts of the country. From this data, they concluded that 1 out of every 25 female fetuses is aborted, roughly 500,000 per year.

Many doctors, including the Indian Medical Association, dispute the findings of the report, saying that the number of female feticides is closer to 250,000 per year. They note that the data sample used by The Lancet study precedes a 2001 Supreme Court decision outlawing the use of ultrasounds to check for girls. But activists note that the law is largely unenforced.

"If there were half a million feticides a year," S.C. Gulati of the Delhi Institute of Economic Growth told the Indian news channel IBN, "the sex ratio would have been very skewed indeed."

Yet the sex ratio is skewed. According to the official Indian Census of 2001, there were 927 girl babies for every 1,000 boy babies, nationwide. The problem is worst in the northwestern states of Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, and Gujarat, where the ratio is less than 900 girls for every 1,000 boys.
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