In September, Right to Life of Jackson released a report documenting cases where Medicaid has covered the bills for abortion-related injuries such as hemorrhaging and reproductive damages caused by incomplete abortions. Lawmakers are also looking at a bill requiring abortionists to screen women for known risk factors before an abortion.

Predictably, the report has come under attack from pro-abortion groups. Gail Chadwick of Pro-Choice Mississippi dismissed concerns about abortion safety and countered with the claim that the state "would save a great deal of money by funding abortions for poor women." Mississippi prohibits Medicaid payments for abortion.
 

Genetics Testing Firm Sued After Test Led to Abortion
A New York woman is suing Lenox Hill Hospital and Gynetrix, a genetics testing firm, after she found that the child she aborted because of a genetic test was "normal."

Janet Sheikhan said she had an abortion in 1996 on the advice of her obstetrician after the results of an amniocentesis test showed her unborn child had Edwards syndrome, which can result in mental retardation, physical defects and a poor survival rate.

She filed suit after reading the pathology report from her abortion, which listed the aborted baby as a "normal" male. The genetics test results had said the child was female. Sheikhan said she does not blame her doctor but believes that her test results were mislabeled or mixed up with someone else's results.
 

Doctor Charged in Forced Abortion on Girlfriend
A New York doctor has been charged with assault and unauthorized practice of medicine in an incident that led to his girlfriend's miscarriage. Police say 32-year-old Mark Redeker, a second-year-ob/gyn resident, blindfolded his girlfriend, tied her up, and injected her four times with a drug that left her unconscious and bleeding. She later suffered a miscarriage.
 

Woman Settles With Homeless Shelter in Forced Abortion Case
A Virginia woman has received a settlement of $25,000 after filing a lawsuit against a homeless shelter that she says pressured her into having an abortion. Shontrese Otey had filed suit against Emergency Shelter, Inc., in Richmond, saying that "employees of [the] local shelter for homeless women and children forced her to have an abortion at the threat of being evicted."

According to The Richmond Times Dispatch, Otey said that when she informed staff members that she was pregnant while participating in the shelter's transitional program last October, she was told that "it was against the center's policy to provide services to pregnant homeless women." She said that two staff members pressured her to submit to an abortion so she could remain in the program.
 

Western Australia May Allow Involuntary Abortions
Legislators in Western Australia have passed a bill allowing doctors to perform abortions without the woman's consent when "it is impracticable" to obtain consent and the pregnancy "causes serious danger to her physical or mental health."

Despite protests from pro-life and post-abortion groups who say the bill is clearly aimed at women with mental disorders and those "deemed unfit for motherhood," the sponsors of the bill refused to include a clause protecting women from being coerced into abortion for the convenience of others.