"Facts of Life" Email: September 26, 2003

Facts of Life - September 26, 2003

Eighteen-year-old Holly Patterson of Livermore, CA died on September 17, four days after taking RU 486 prescribed by Planned Parenthood in Hayward on September 10. 
Holly was 7 weeks pregnant--at the 49-day limit recommended by the Federal Food and Drug Administration for use of these dangerous drugs. It is not clear whether a physician was involved in any part of the abortion process--from the assessment as to whether Holly was an appropriate patient for RU 486, to the administration and supervision of the two-drug abortion combination. (The Reproductive Privacy Act, passed last year in the California Legislature, allows non-physicians to commit drug-induced abortions. Although there is supposed to be supervision by a physician, it is specific in the law that the physician need only be available telephonically--he could be in China.) Sunday, the day after taking the first drug, Mifepristone, her boyfriend took her, in excruciating pain and unable to walk, to the Valley Care Medical Center in Pleasanton. Holly was given painkillers and released. She returned to the hospital late on the 16th. Her father, Monty Patterson, who did not know of her pregnancy until 4 hours before her death, said "The doctor told me that she hadn't aborted all of the fetus, and she had fragments left in her, and she had a massive systemic infection and went into septic shock." This is the third death in North America that we know about related to an RU 486 abortion since it's approval in September 2000. The manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, claims that 225,000 women have used RU 486 in the United States since it's approval, and Danco has reported about 400 "adverse events" to the FDA, ranging from excessive bleeding to bacterial infections to deaths. 

For more information, see:
 "Pregnant Teen's Death Under Investigation" http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/19/BA258408.DTL&type=printable <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284275&s=17983209>, 

"Woman Dies Following Use of RU 486 Abortion Drug"
http://www.lifenews.com/nat123.html <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284276&s=17983209>, 

"Family Blames RU 486 in Woman's Death" http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/6818527.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284277&s=17983209> 

Check out the Planned Parenthood Golden Gate web site to see their handling of drug-induced abortions:
http://www.ppgg.org/medical/abortion_medical.asp <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284278&s=17983209>.

 

OCTOBER 7 RECALL ELECTION
By every assessment of the September 24 debate for the recall and gubernatorial election, state senator Tom McClintock was the winner. Do your part to promote Tom, the only pro-life candidate with a chance to win, by going to www.californiaprolife.org/voter.html . There you will find information about the candidates, and campaign pieces in English and Spanish that you can download for distribution in your churches before the election.

Quote from Tom McClintock answering a question in the first gubernatorial debate regarding the Reproductive Privacy Act: 
"I would have vetoed the bill. Wherever we stand on the issue, we can agree that partial birth abortion--the process of stabbing an infant as it is being born in the back of the head--is simply barbaric and ought to be stopped." (Pasadena Star News, 9/4/03)

Quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding human cloning: 
"At the moment, they're dealing with it by putting the religious spin on it. I understand that; there are some people who are religiously fanatic, that feel uncomfortable with it. But I think that's also a mistake." (San Francisco Chronicle, 8/8/03, 

Both of Senator Deborah Ortiz's stem cell research bills have been approved by the California Legislature, and were signed by Governor Davis on September 24. 
SB 771requires the State Department of Health Services to establish and maintain the first state-sanctioned registry of human embryos (a virtual embryo plantation) available for research which will be fatal for these tiny human beings. 
SB 322 requires the State Department of Health Services to develop guidelines for destructive embryonic stem cell research and establishes a Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. We reject the premise of SB 322, that guidelines for destructive embryonic stem cell research can be developed which are "ethical." We see no benefits in encouraging this inhumane experimentation through taxpayer-funded committees, "institutional review boards" and research projects. On signing, Governor Davis "admonished opponents" of embryonic stem-cell research and described us as "religious and conservative political opportunists," and left the false impression that lives had been saved through embryonic stem-cell research. 
See: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-legis25sep25,1,5558064,print.story?coll=la-headlines-california <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284281&s=17983209>. 
Check out the legislative section at www.californiaprolife.org <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284282&s=17983209> to see the results of this year's California legislative session.

 

On September 5, U.S. Federal District Judge Garland Burrell blocked the Department of Motor Vehicles from issuing any new specialty license plates due to bias in the legislative process, which approves what plates can be issued. 
Women's Resource Network, based in San Diego, brought a suit charging that their efforts to obtain a "Choose Life" specialty plate was rejected two years in a row because it is considered a politically incorrect message by the California legislature. Burrell said that the legislature currently has "unbridled authority. . . to suppress (an applicant's) point of view," and that the process poses a potential violation of freedom of speech. 
See: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/06/BA253057.DTL&type=printable <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284283&s=17983209>, and http://www.lifenews.com/state130.html <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284284&s=17983209>

Miguel Estrada, President Bush's pick for an opening on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, finally asked for his name to be withdrawn, after 29 months of stalling by U.S. Senate Democrats, who are filibustering any appointee who does not swear allegiance to the pro-abortion lobby and agenda.

 

^{California ProLife Council (CPLC) (www.californiaprolife.org <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284286&s=17983209>.) is the largest statewide organization in California solely dedicated to pro-life issues. CPLC is a non-sectarian, non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization of pro-life groups and individuals in California dedicated to protecting and fostering the most basic value of our society-respect for LIFE itself. We seek to educate our community in regard to abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, to identify and organize the pro-life population of the state into an effective team, and to restore respect for human life to public policy. California ProLife Council is the California affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (www.nrlc.org <http://srv.ezinedirector.net/?n=284287&s=17983209>)}