News Briefs

Suicide Rates Triple Among Young Women -- Could Abortion Be a Factor?

The National Institutes of Health reports that suicide is now the third leading cause of death among American young people, and has tripled among teen girls and young women in the past 25 years -- despite a drop in the overall suicide rate across the U.S.

One contributing factor in teen suicides may be abortion. An Elliot Institute study showed that compared to women who give birth, women who abort are 2.5 times more likely to commit suicide over the next eight years. More than half of all women having abortions are under the age of 25, and more than 20 percent are teens.

 

Woman Sues Planned Parenthood Over Botched Abortion
 

A woman is suing a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic because she had to undergo a hysterectomy following a botched abortion that perforated her uterus.

According to the lawsuit, Lorraine Thul underwent an abortion at Intermountain Planned Parenthood in Billings, MT, in May 2002 because of pregnancy complications. The lawsuit stated that the abortionist, David Healow, did not speak with Thul before the procedure and never asked her about her complications. Healow admitted that he had perforated Thul's uterus but did not tell her about it because he thought the tear was superficial.

The lawsuit also states that Healow did not follow medical protocol because he failed to inform Thul of the risks, and that she would not have sought an abortion from him if she had known he was an anesthesiologist and not a surgeon. Montana passed an informed consent law in the mid-1990's, but it was stuck down as unconstitutional.

 

Detroit Teen's Death Leads to More Questions About RU-486

Tamia Russell, a 15-year-old Detroit teen, died Jan. 8, the day after she told her family that she was six months pregnant and was in the midst of undergoing what some pro-life advocates say may have been an RU-486 abortion.

Russell's family said that she was given an abortion without their knowledge at WomanCare of Southfield, despite the state's parental notification law. If a chemical abortion took place, WomanCare violated its own policies limiting the use of RU-486 to the first 49 days of pregnancy. Four other RU-486 deaths have been recently reported in the U.S., Great Britain, and Sweden. An autopsy showed Russell died of the same type of uterine infection that led to the RU-486 death of 16-year-old Holly Patterson in September.

 

Court Grants Asylum to Victims of China's Coercive Population Control Programs

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a Chinese refugee who fled to the U.S. after his wife was forcibly aborted should have been granted asylum.

Kui Rong Ma fled to the U.S. after Chinese population control officials performed a forced abortion on his wife, Lei Chiu Ma, whom he had married illegally. 1,000 U.S. asylum slots are open annually for women and their spouses fleeing coercive population control programs. The court ruled Ma couldn't be denied asylum simply because China does not recognize him as Chiu's spouse.
 

In February the court also ruled for asylum in a case where Chinese officials forcibly performed a gynecological exam on a woman and threatened to sterilize her boyfriend after learning that the couple planned to secretly marry.

Originally published in The Post-Abortion Review 12(1) Jan-March 2004.