Abortion

Massachusetts judge ordered forced abortion and sterilization of mentally ill woman

Michael Cook | 21 January 2012

It is difficult to imagine a case better scripted for a discussion of informed consent than Mary Moe’s Massachusetts abortion.

Canadian journal calls for curbs on aborting girls

Michael Cook | 18 January 2012

After a long legal and political debate leading up to a decision by its Supreme Court in 1988, Canada has ended up as one of the few nations in the world without an abortion law. About 100,000 abortion are performed each year. But now the Canadian Medical Association Journal is calling for strict limits on abortion – if the mother wants to abortion a child simply because it is a girl.

Are 98% of UK abortions “technically illegal”?

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

The keenness of British journalists to score exclusives and to run down the last details of stories are legendary – or at least they are now, after the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Which is what makes the ho-hum coverage of this week’s report on mental health and abortion in the UK so puzzling.

New Jersey nurses allege religious discrimination over abortion

Jared Yee | 03 December 2011

Twelve New Jersey nurses have charged a hospital with religious discrimination after it announced it would introduce a policy that would require them to help patients before and after abortions. In a lawsuit filed at the end of October, the nurses charge that the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey breached state and federal law with its new abortion policy. This removed an exemption on moral or religious grounds.

Wrong twin aborted in Australian mix-up

Michael Cook | 25 November 2011

Australia has been rocked this week by a “selective reduction” gone wrong at a leading Melbourne hospital. A woman was pregnant with twins whom she had already named. At 32 weeks doctors detected significant heart abnormalities in one of the twins and advised her to abort the child. He would have had to have years of operations if he survived at all.

Personhood amendment in Mississippi fails

Jared Yee | 12 November 2011

Voters in Mississippi have decided that a fertilised egg should not be granted the legal rights and privileges of a child or adult human.

Top British hospital “tricked” into giving Italian woman abortion

Jared Yee | 12 November 2011

In a troubling offshoot of medical tourism, an Italian woman flew to Britain to terminate her 28-week-old pregnancy and then flew home to Rimini in north-eastern Italy to expel the dead foetus.

Mississippi debates personhood in abortion battle

Michael Cook | 29 October 2011

A ballot initiative in Mississippi could raise the stakes in the acrimonious American abortion debate. Proposition 26 affirms that personhood begins at conception. It seeks to add the following sentence to the state constitution: “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof”

Mississippi voters can decide on personhood of the unborn: ruling

Jared Yee | 16 September 2011

Voters in Mississippi will have the chance to decide on the personhood of the unborn in November.

Meta-analysis challenges abortion policies

Michael Cook | 08 September 2011

The media seems to have ignored a significant study on the effects of abortion which has appeared in latest issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Chinese abortion story: urban myth or gruesome scandal?

Michael Cook | 20 August 2011

China’s Health Ministry is taking the gruesome story of aborted babies ground into powder and used as aphrodisiacs seriously enough to launch an official investigation. SBS, one of the three major national television networks in South Korea, broadcast a documentary earlier this month about capsules from China containing dead baby flesh.

The gut-wrenching dilemmas of “foetal reduction”

Jared Yee | 20 August 2011

Foetal reduction is the dark side of the moon of fertility treatment. All too often women who become pregnant have twins or triplets. Since this involves medical and social risks, one or more of the foetuses are “reduced”, ie, aborted. It is a procedure which few outside the industry are aware of. Freelance journalist Ruth Padawer has just written a feature in the New York Times Magazine shedding light on its bioethical dilemmas.

NY Times columnist attacks “liberal bioethics”

Michael Cook | 20 August 2011

Progressive bioethics came under attack this week in the New York Times. Columnist Ross Douthat complained that the growing acceptance of “foetal reduction”, or the abortion of one or more foetuses in a multiple birth, illustrated the failure of “liberal” thinkers to say No to anything. The column has been whizzing around the blogosphere, creating much comment.

China pledges crackdown on sex-selective abortions

Jared Yee | 12 August 2011

China has vowed to strengthen measures to prevent sex-selective abortions and close a widening gender gap in a country that already has tens of millions more boys than girls.

Russia says abortion ads must contain health warning

Jared Yee | 08 July 2011

Russian lawmakers, worried about a shrinking birth rate, passed a law last week that abortion advertisements must carry a health warning.

IVF babies aborted

Jared Yee | 30 June 2011

Over 700 women have had abortions while pregnant through IVF, according to Britain’s fertility watchdog.

Rights court sanctions Poland in abortion case

Jared Yee | 12 June 2011

The Polish government may have to revise its abortion legislation after an exceptionally tragic case in which a woman carrying a foetus with genetic abnormalities was refused an abortion multiple times.

Girls increasingly aborted in India: study

Jared Yee | 27 May 2011

Indian families with one girl are increasingly aborting subsequent pregnancies when prenatal tests show another female will be born, according to a new study published this week.india

Woman who attempted suicide while pregnant is charged with murder

Jared Yee | 23 April 2011

After her boyfriend betrayed her, Bei Bei Shuai, a 34-year-old pregnant Chinese immigrant living in Indianapolis, ate rat poison to end her misery. She survived, but her baby died of seizures in January, four days after birth

Abortion is safer than having a baby, doctors say

Jared Yee | 04 March 2011

Abortion advice raises concerns