LIFE DIGEST: U.S. abortions drop to lowest total in three decades
- Jan 22, 2008 - comment
Pro-life Americans received some welcome news just before Sanctity of Human Life Sunday—the number of abortions has reached its lowest level in three decades.
A study released Jan. 17 showed there were 1.21 million abortions in 2005, down from 1.31 million in 2000, when the last such research was conducted, and the smallest annual total since 1.18 million were performed in 1976, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The 2005 total was nearly 25 percent less than the 1990 figure of 1.6 million abortions, the highest yearly amount since the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in its 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion.
The abortion rate also fell, this time to its lowest level since 1974, Guttmacher reported. In 2005, there were 19.4 abortions for every 1,000 women 15 to 44 years of age. The rate dropped from 21.1 in 2001, according to the report. The all-time high rate was 29.3 in 1981.
Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, greeted the report with thanksgiving but not celebration.
“Perhaps we can offer one cheer and a prayer of gratitude to God that the tide is turning,” Land said. “It would be unseemly to do more than that until we see a far more drastic reduction in abortions in the United States. We’ll reserve three cheers for when we have succeeded in making most abortions illegal. Sadly, America is still one of the most abortive societies in the world.”
Of the Guttmacher study, as contrasted with surveys that show most Americans oppose most abortions, Land said, “Unfortunately, as these statistics show, public opinion can only marginally reduce the grotesquely high abortion rate in the United States without significant, further legislative restrictions, which the people would implement with alacrity if allowed to do so by the Supreme Court.”
The Guttmacher study, which surveyed all known abortion providers, was released just five days before the 35th anniversary of the Roe decision. The Southern Baptist Convention, as well as many evangelical Christian churches and the Roman Catholic Church, observed Jan. 20 as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. President Bush also proclaimed Jan. 20 as National Sanctity of Human Life Day.
Guttmacher offered no explanation for the decline in abortions, but various theories were offered. Some pro-life organizations pointed to educational efforts, including the use of sonograms in crisis pregnancy centers, and increased legal restrictions as reasons for the decrease. Some abortion rights advocates proposed the greater availability of contraceptives. In addition, increased access to the “morning-after” pill, or Plan B, was mentioned as a partial explanation.
Plan B, also known as emergency contraception, is basically a heavier dose of birth control pills, but it has abortifacient qualities. The drug works to restrict ovulation in a woman, but it also can act after conception, thereby causing an abortion, pro-lifers point out. This mechanism of the drug blocks implantation of a tiny embryo in the uterine wall.
New cloning technique unethical, pro-lifers say
Scientists in California have cloned human embryos from adult skin cells in an effort to produce personalized, replacement stem cells to treat diseases, but the research is unethical, pro-life bioethicists said.
Scientists at Stemagen, a stem cell research and development firm in La Jolla, Calif., reported Jan. 17 they had broken a previous barrier by creating, and carefully documenting, for the first time a human embryo clone. They did so by using skin cells from two men, in combination with eggs from women, to produce embryos, five who grew to the “blastocyst” stage, which occurs at five or six days. DNA “fingerprinting” confirmed three of the five embryos were clones, according to Stemagen.
It marked the first time cells from adults were used to produce cloned embryos, according to The Washington Post.
The Stemagen research team did not harvest stem cells from the cloned embryos, however. Extracting stem cells from an embryo destroys the tiny human being.
The new report of cloning research again shows why there should be a legal ban, said C. Ben Mitchell, a consultant for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“It’s time to draw a bold, bright line in the sand: No cloning of human embryos!” said Mitchell, director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in suburban Chicago. “To clone a human being either for the purpose of research or reproduction is morally reprehensible. If this announcement doesn’t result in federal legislation to ban the cloning of human embryos, then welcome to the ‘brave new world.’”
Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told The Post, “This study seems to confirm that human cloning . . . is technically possible. It does not show that a viable or normal embryonic stem cell line can be derived this way, or that any such cell has ‘therapeutic’ value. It does not answer the ethical or social questions about the mass production of developing human lives in order to destroy them.”
In addition to being unethical, the research also was described as unnecessary, given the recent successes reported in stem cell studies that do not require the destruction of human embryos.
Two research teams, one in Wisconsin and the other in Japan, reported Nov. 20 they had reprogrammed skin cells from adult human beings into the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells. In December, scientists at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital in Boston reported replicating the reprogramming research. The technique is known as “somatic cell reprogramming.”
There is no federal prohibition on any form of human cloning. Sens. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and Mary Landrieu, D.-La., as well as Rep. Dave Weldon, R.-Fla., have promoted in recent years legislation banning cloning for both research and reproductive purposes. The House of Representatives passed such measures in 2001 and 2003, but the Senate has yet to vote on a comprehensive ban.
Last year, Brownback, along with Landrieu, and Weldon reintroduced the Human Cloning Prohibition Act, S. 1036 and H.R. 2564, in the Senate and House, respectively.
More than 20 countries have banned the creation of cloned embryos. They include Canada, France and Germany.
Michigan again No. 1 pro-life state
Michigan is the best, and Oregon is the worst, when it comes to providing legal protection for life, according to Americans United for Life (AUL).
It marked the third consecutive year Michigan gained the top pro-life ranking among the 50 states. Following it in the top 10 were: Louisiana; Pennsylvania; Texas; Kansas; South Dakota; Mississippi; Arkansas; Oklahoma, and Virginia.
Oregon, the only state with legalized assisted suicide, finished 50th, leading these states in the bottom 10: California; Connecticut; New Jersey; Vermont; Hawaii; New Hampshire; Iowa; Alaska, and New Mexico.
Released Jan. 15, AUL’s ratings were based largely, though not exclusively, on the states’ attempts to provide meaningful restrictions on the extremely liberal abortion regime instituted by the Supreme Court in 1973.
“We are making progress, state by state and law by law,” said Denise Burke, AUL’s vice president and legal director, in a written release. “In states that have passed these types of laws, the abortion rates have declined by up to 20 [percent] over the past 10 years.”
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