News,

The UK's Family Planning Association (FPA) is calling for women to be allowed to stock up on morning-after pills. The FPA says a survey it has conducted suggests support for advance prescribing. It claims that such availability does not mean that women regularly use morning-after pills as contraception. SPUC's Paul Danon pointed out how morning-after pills can cause abortion and called for their complete withdrawal. [BBC, 9 February ] There are claims that 11 male patients in a Derby, England, hospital were starved to death and the city's coroner has called for a judicial enquiry. It is asserted that families secretly fed their relatives who were being starved. The patients, aged 65 to 93, died in the Rowsley ward at Kingsway hospital. At least two deaths took place in 1997. After a police investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service said that there was not enough evidence for a prosecution. Families of the alleged victims have rejected proposals for a confidential enquiry. Similar cases in Hampshire and West Yorkshire are also being investigated by police. [Sunday Times, 8 February ] A 15-year-old girl who had an abortion without her mother's prior knowledge has reportedly said that she may have decided differently if she had consulted her mother. The girl was referred to a Manchester, England, hospital after a 15-minute consultation. The Brook sexual health centre is quoted as saying that parental involvement in such cases is rare. The mother, who wants the law changed, says that her daughter now regretted the abortion. [Manchester Online, 9 February ] Women who have had a baby by caesarian section have a less than one percent chance of uterine rupture during a subsequent conventional delivery, according to Ohio state university research on 46,000 women. The study found that, if a woman had had a caesarian delivery, subsequent children had a higher risk of brain injury if delivered conventionally than if also delivered by caesarian. A quarter of births in the USA are by caesarian section. [AP on ABC, 6 February ]