PRO-LIFE WEEK NEWS & HEADLINES

January 22, 1999

      SAN JUAN (CWNews.com) - Anticipating the January 22 anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, pro-life activists in Puerto Rico staged a demonstration outside the capitol in San Juan on Wednesday, calling for an end to the killing of unborn children.

      "Some 8,500 babies are dying each year in the new abortion clinics of our land," said Carlos Sanchez, the president of Asociacion Pro-Vida de Puerto Rico. His group had united with the Knights of Columbus and other local Catholic organizations to stage the demonstration on the steps of the capitol building. Before their public protest, the pro-lifers assembled for a Mass at the San Juan cathedral, with Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez as the principal celebrant.

      Sanchez promised that pro-life lobbyists would intensify their efforts to secure passage of two pieces of legislation in Puerto Rico. One measure would mandate a 24-hour waiting period before a woman could obtain an abortion; the other would require informing the parents of a teenage girl 48 hours before she procured an abortion.

      QUITO (CWNews.com) - Although abortion is illegal in Ecuador, local media reports indicate that public hospitals have been routinely dispensing the Emergency Contraceptive Pill, which causes early abortions.

      Theoretically the use of the new "morning-after" pill is also restricted by law. However, women who report that they have been raped, or that they have engaged in "unsafe sex," can obtain a prescription at public hospitals and health clinics. Health-care officials argue that the pill is "a new medical method of family planning."

      The government's Ministry of Health has ruled that the Emergency Contraceptive Pill is not banned by the national legislation that protects human life beginning at the moment of conception. That finding was based on testimony from family-planning advocates that the pill eliminates "the product of conception" before the fertilized ovum is implanted in the mother's womb. The health ministry did not explain why the legal protection had been rolled back from the moment of conception to the time of implantation.

      WASHINGTON, DC (CWNews.com) - A think tank connected with Planned Parenthood issued a report on Thursday that said half of all "unplanned pregnancies" in the world end in abortion.

      The Alan Guttmacher Institute claimed that 38 percent of all pregnancies are unplanned and said 22 percent of the 210 million unborn children in the world each year are aborted. The report said 26 million women, or 35 of every 1,000 women, have an abortion every year. Eastern Europe is the region with the highest abortion rate, while Vietnam is the country with the rate. More than 80 out of every 1,000 women have an abortion each year. Spain and Ireland have the lowest abortions rates -- less than 10 per 1,000 women.

      "It is clear that women the world over go to great lengths to terminate an unplanned pregnancy," Jeannie Rosoff, president of the institute, said in a statement. "It is not only our responsibility but our duty to respect that decision. We must do our best to ensure that abortion takes place only under safe conditions and to see that women have the means to prevent pregnancy in the first place."