Conference on Abortion in Ireland

DUBLIN - A conference on abortion has heard that negative images of adoption must be changed to stem the flow of Irish women travelling out of the country for abortions. The 5,000 Too Many conference - whose title refers to the number of women going abroad each year for abortions - was told that adoption has fallen out of favour with child-care professionals, the media, and feminists.

"Our images of adoption, the images that fill the minds of young women, are drawn from the tragedies of the past," said Patricia Casey, a professor of psychiatry. Casey criticized Ireland's Abortion Information Act for leaving to the discretion of a counsellor the issue of whether to explain to women the possible physical and emotional consequences of abortion.

The conference drew together people on opposite sides of the abortion issue to address the question of how to reduce the abortion rate.

Abortion okayed for 10 year old

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A Brazilian court of appeal has upheld the right of a 10-year-old girl to have an abortion. The girl, who was four months pregnant after being raped by her neighbours in a rural town northwest of Sao Paulo, was the centre of a public debate over whether she should have been allowed to have the abortion in a country that allows the procedure only in cases of rape or danger to the mother's health.

Catholic Church officials and pro-life activists had urged the girl's parents not to allow the abortion, but the parents were reported to be in favour of going ahead if it did not endanger the girl. Fr. Luis Carlos Lodi da Cruz, of the Brazilian pro-life group Provida Familia, said he had briefed the girl's father on the physical, psychological and spiritual consequences an abortion would have.

Russian pro-lifers picket parliament

MOSCOW - Pro-life demonstrators from the Russian Orthodox Church organization Word and Deed held a five-day picket outside the Duma recently to protest against a rise in the number of abortions apparently caused by Russia's economic crisis. The Russian Ministry of Health says there are about two abortions for every live birth in the country.

Although the number of abortions fell to 2.3 million last year from three million in 1993, the figures are expected to rise again with hard economic times. The director of a commercial Moscow abortuary said the cost of an abortion has fallen from about $120 (Cdn) to $50 (Cdn) as a result of the economic crisis.

Abortuary raided

BANGKOK - Police arrested a 52-year-old woman and charged her with illegally providing abortions after raiding a clinic in the South Pattaya region of Thailand. Police say she was carrying out an abortion on a 16-year-old girl in a room behind the clinic at the time of the raid. Medical kits and the body of a five-month-old pre-born child were found in the room.

The woman later told police that the clinic, owned by a Dr. Poonsak Polpaha, provided abortions and charged women according to the gestational ages of their unborn children. Polpaha was not at the abortuary at the time of the raid.

The girl who was undergoing the abortion suffered severe bleeding during the operation and was admitted to a local hospital for treatment.

Spain escapes abortion on demand

MADRID - The Spanish parliament has narrowly defeated a motion aimed at allowing abortion on demand through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. By a 173-172 vote, legislators decided to stick with a slightly more restrictive law introduced in 1985 by the country's former Socialist government. That law allows for abortions in cases of rape, "deformation of the fetus," and threats to the mother's physical or mental health.

The Socialists were the prime movers behind the attempt to further liberalize the abortion law this time around. They were opposed by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and his Popular Party. Three thousand people, backed by Spain's Roman Catholic Church, marched in Madrid the day before the vote, chanting "Life yes. Abortion no" and demanding a "no" vote from the legislators.

Observers said the Church's intervention in the issue was unprecedented since the days of the Spanish civil war.

Doctor acquitted in euthanasia case

PARIS - Bernard Kouchner, France's secretary of health, has agreed to acquit a doctor charged with violating medical ethics in the killing of one of his patients. Dr. Jean-Paul Duffaut, director of a geriatric service at Severac-le-Chateau hospital in Aveyron, had admitted to killing a 92-year-old patient with an injection of potassium chloride.

Kouchner based his decision on a report from the regional branch of the French college of physicians, which concluded that Duffaut did not violate the college's code of ethics. "I know this decision has not been unanimous, and we have a long way to go before uprooting the word ‘euthanasia' from our vocabulary and substituting it with the phrase, ‘Support in death,'" Kouchner said.

At least one dissenting voice came from the National Council of the College of Physicians, which condemned Kouchner's decision, adding, "We cannot support the option that would allow a doctor to become the notary public of death."

Euthanasia clinic planned

MELBOURNE, Australia - Euthanasia campaigner Dr. Philip Nitschke says he plans to set up a euthanasia clinic in Melbourne that would provide information to people on how to obtain illegal drugs to end their lives. "I can provide direct advice about how to acquire the diminishing sources of the necessary drugs, including barbiturates, from black-market sources," he says.

Nitschke helped four people die under the Australian Northern Territory's voluntary euthanasia law, before it was overturned last year. Australian Medical Association Victorian president Dr. Gerald Segal says the proposed clinic is unethical, while Health Minister Rob Knowles says any directing of people to illegal drug sources is a matter for the police to investigate.

However, Premier Jeff Kennett, who supports euthanasia, says he sees nothing wrong if Nitschke's clinic only dispenses advice. On the other hand, Margaret Tighe of Right to Life Australia condemned Nitschke's plans and called on the state government to take action.

Open-womb operation saves boy

STOCKHOLM - A team of seven Swedish doctors has carried out the first open-womb surgery to save the life of a baby boy. Doctors opened a woman's womb and, for 19 minutes, operated on the boy's throat, which had grown together one month before he was due to be born.

"As far as I know, it was the first (such surgery) in Europe," said surgeon Bjorn Frenckner. "It was the umbilical cord that kept the boy alive while we operated." Frenckner added that the boy would have died trying to breathe on his own. Doctors first discovered something wrong during an ultrasound.

China signs human rights treaty

BEIJING - The Chinese government has signed the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which defines the right of self-determination, prohibits torture, and provides for freedom of movement, religion, expression and association. However, the agreement has yet to be ratified by China's legislature, which has the power to disregard provisions it doesn't agree with.

The Chinese government gave no indication as to when ratification might be forthcoming. "It depends on the deliberation of the National People's Congress," said a foreign ministry spokesman. "It takes time for the ratification of these covenants." Human rights groups remain doubtful that the Chinese government will implement the treaty.

Dutch doctors oppose euthanasia

THE HAGUE - Dutch doctors opposed to euthanasia have launched a campaign against the relaxation of laws that govern medical treatment. They warn that thousands of people would be at risk if doctors were allowed to legally hasten death by administering or withholding drugs.

Dr. Denis Daley, of the First Do No Harm group, said a change in the law would take Dutch society down a slippery slope. He added it would be no exaggeration to draw parallels with Nazi Germany. "We won't have gas chambers. We won't have industrial killing. Everybody will be very sad about all this, but my guess is that many thousands of people will be put to death."

Daley said he was frightened by the attitudes of younger doctors, many of whom have lost a sense of the sanctity of human life. Peggy Norris, a fellow First Do No Harm committee member, said patients must be fully protected by the state, and assured that their doctors will honour a Hippocratic ethic.

Court overturns law limiting abortions

KARLSRUHE, Germany - Germany's highest court has tossed out a Bavarian law, passed in 1996, that sought to severely restrict access to abortions in the state by limiting how much a doctor could earn from them. The German Constitutional Court said the law breached doctors' freedom to exercise a profession of their choice. Two doctors who perform about 6,000 abortions a year argued the law would have ruined them financially.