Montana lawmaker Roger Koopman is sponsoring a bill that would provide death certificates for aborted babies. He said it as "a small way for our society to acknowledge that a life did exist, even if they didn't get to see a sunrise or blow out a birthday candle." The Billings Gazette reports that pro-abortion critics are calling the measure "mean-spirited" … The U.S. Justice Department has begun an appeal against a ruling by a Nebraska judge that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional. The appeal describes partial-birth abortion as "gruesome, inhumane (and) never necessary to preserve the health of women and less safe than other readily available abortion methods" … A Kentucky man, Eric Adam Trask, has become the first person charged under the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which was passed earlier this year. Trask beat his pregnant wife and caused her to miscarry … NARAL Pro-Choice America has chosen Nancy Keenan, a "pro-abortion" Catholic, as its new president … The Michigan Parole Board has denied a request from euthanasia crusader Jack Kevokrian for an early release. Kevorkian's lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, hoped Canadian-born Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) would intervene on Kevorkian's behalf.

International
The U.S. State Department says China's one-child policy remains a source of various abuses, including forced abortions and infanticide … Human Rights China reports that Mao Hengfeng is serving 18 months in a labour camp, where she has been beaten and tortured, for campaigning against the country's one-child policy and where she is being tortured. She lost her job after giving birth to a second child and later aborted her third child under duress, an experience that led her to begin a campaign in defence of her human rights … Also in China, Ma Weihua was forced to undergo an abortion so that she could be executed for drug smuggling. However, international press criticism of the incident spared her life … The Israeli Knesset is considering a bill that will legalize euthanasia by omission, by permitting legally binding living wills and the use of respirators that can be set to turn themselves off automatically after a given time … The Jerusalem Post reports that an Israeli victim of a terror attack awoke from a coma and asked to live after his parents had asked doctors to turn off his respirator … Marcello Pera, the president of the Italian Senate, who describes himself as a non-believer, said publicly that "the embryo is a person from conception." Pera also appealed to fellow non-believers "not to be in a hurry to convert desires into rights and rights into sacrosanct principles'" … Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes has ruled out suspending prosecutions related to breaches of the country's abortion laws, stating that it "would amount to changing the law." A 1998 referendum was not successful in liberalizing the current law, which permits abortion on grounds of rape or a perceived serious threat to the life of the mother … A working group of Britian's Medical Research Council has recommended closer monitoring of the health of IVF babies and their mothers, saying that 26 years after the first birth of a test tube baby, Louise Brown, there is "relatively weak"' evidence supporting the safety of IVF procedures … Asahikawa Medical College says that 10 per cent of Japanese teenagers have chlamydia, including 23.5 per cent of 16-year-old girls … The British Medical Journal has found that women who suffer migraines and take the pill are up to eight times more likely to have a stroke than female migraine sufferers who do not. The finding is endorsed by the British Stroke Association.