News,

Women from Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales have travelled to Canberra to protest against federal funding of abortion. Margaret Tighe, president of Right to Life Australia commented: "By funding abortions, successive Federal Governments are saying to women that having an abortion is of benefit to you. They are saying: 'we will pay you a subsidy to have your child killed by abortion'." [abcnews.net, 16 February]

A UK mother has described how her premature baby was left to die by doctors in the Netherlands. A recent publication in the Dutch Journal of Medicine, drawing attention to the illegal euthanasia of newborns in the country, prompted Linda Baldwin to reveal how, 26 years ago, Linda and her husband were falsely informed that their premature baby, Claire, was dead. Claire's father found her in a dirty laundry room in a kidney dish and demanded that she be placed in an incubator, in spite of resistance and ridicule from nurses. Claire recovered and now works in the Body Shop in Carmarthen. [This Is South Wales, 17 February]

Disability activists in the US have requested a suspension on the starvation and dehydration people deemed to be in a "persistent vegetative state" after a report indicated high brain activity in such patients, suggesting that those in a "minimally conscious state" are aware of what is happening around them but cannot respond. Stephen Drake, a research analyst for the national disability rights group, Not Dead Yet said: "Given the current research regarding brain activity and misdiagnosis, it's a virtual certainty that countless people have been helpless to prevent their own deaths through starvation and dehydration". Not Yet Dead state that Terri Schavio falls into this category of people. [LifeSiteNews.com, 17 February]

The director of the Free Congress has told LifeNews.com that abstinence education is effective, despite pro-abortion opposition. Paul Weyrich claims that the news media have misrepresented the success of abstinence programs, by reporting the study by Texas A&M university which said that abstinence programs have little effect on teenage sexual activity, whilst ignoring studies that highlight the effectiveness of abstinence programmes. Mr Weyrich highlighted the study conducted by Stan Weed of the Department of Health & Human Services' Institute for Research and Development, which concluded that sexual intercourse among teenagers can fall by 50-60% with the pro-abstinence curricula of "Choosing the Best". [Lifenews.com, 16 February]

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