Quick News Roundup 04/30/10

State Laws – The Week wrote a brief article describing the 5 States with the strictest abortion laws. The winners? Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, and South Dakota. In other Kansas related news, the state legislature came 2 votes shy of overturning the Governor’s veto of new proposed abortion legislation. If it passed, the legislation would have allowed people to sue if they felt an abortion was performed illegally and require doctors performing post-viability abortions to specifically detail the medical reason why the abortion was necessary.

International News – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently shifted to the right on foreign aid with regards to abortions. Effectively, it’s the Canadian equivalent to the American “Mexico City policy,” prohibiting the use of Canadian foreign aid in projects which perform abortions. “The Star” has an editorial discussing the potential reasons why. In Kenyan news, the nation is on the verge of passing a new Constitution…but the new Constitution explicitly lists abortion as a legal right. Not in all cases, but in the case where the mother’s life is in jeopardy. Local religious leaders fear that this could open the floodgates to 100% legal abortion under all circumstances and are planning to oppose it, despite it’s inclusion of many democratic reforms.

Two Days of Life – In Italy, a child reportedly survived for 2 days following a failed abortion attempt. The child was aborted at 22 weeks and left to die. 20 hours later, a Reverend found the still breathing child and contacted hospital personnel. I’m going to be honest here – this story just upsets me on so many levels. As a father of a premature baby, I’ve seen firsthand that children can survive after 22 weeks. My son was born around 30 weeks and there was a child in that very hospital being kept alive after 24 weeks. 22 weeks is not outside the ability for a modernized country to be able to save.

Lawsuits – A nurse working at Mount Sinai hospital was forced to perform an abortion, despite explicitly telling staff that it was contrary to her beliefs. She is filing a second law suit against the hospital over the matter.