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NYT Opinion Piece Calls For 'Reasonable Distinction-Making' Between Abortions At Various Stages Of Pregnancy
The case of George Tiller, the Kansas abortion provider who was recently murdered, "helps explain why so many people believe that abortion should be available at any stage of pregnancy," New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes. Because Tiller provided abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy, he "inevitably ... handled the hardest of hard cases," according to Douthat. He continues that since Tiller"s murder, "there"s been an outpouring of testimonials, across the Internet, from women (and some men) who lived through these hard cases." Douthat adds that these patients" experiences "help explain why so many Americans defend [Tiller"s] right" to perform abortions later in pregnancy. However, "such narratives are not the only story about George Tiller"s clinic," as he "was a target of protests -- and, tragically, of terrorist violence -- because he performed late-term abortions, period," Douthat writes. According to Douthat, Tiller"s critics claim that he performed abortions later in pregnancy "not only in truly desperate situations, but in many other cases as well." Although a final determination about "how many of George Tiller"s abortions were performed on healthy mothers and healthy fetuses" might never be made, "most abortions in the United States bear no resemblance whatsoever to the hardest third-trimester cases," according to Douthat. He continues, "Yes, many pregnancies are terminated in dire medical circumstances," but "these represent a tiny fraction of the million-plus abortions that take place in this country every year," and the "same is true of the more than 100,000 abortions that are performed after the first trimester: Very few involve medical complications of any kind." Douthat writes, "The argument for unregulated abortion rests on the idea that where there are exceptions, there cannot be a rule." He adds, "As a matter of moral philosophy, this makes a certain sense," as a fetus either "has a claim to life or it doesn"t," and the "circumstances of its conception and the state of its health shouldn"t enter into the equation." However, he continues, "the law is not a philosophy seminar. It"s the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense," and "it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons." Douthat also writes that the "argument that some abortions take place in particularly awful, particularly understandable circumstances is not a case against regulating abortion." He adds, "It"s the beginning of precisely the kind of reasonable distinction-making that would produce a saner, stricter legal regime."According to Douthat, "If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically," and "[a]rguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester -- as many advanced democracies already do -- would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions." Douthat concludes, "The result would be laws with more respect for human life, a culture less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases -- and a political debate, God willing, unmarred by crimes like George Tiller"s murder" (Douthat, New York Times, 6/9).
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Aberrant ERG Expression Cooperates With Loss Of PTEN To Promote Cancer Progression In The Prostate
UroToday.com - Two papers in the May 5, 2009 edition of Nature Genetics link ERG chromosomal gene translocations with loss of PTEN in the early stages of prostate cancer (CaP) progression. Both are reviewed in Urotoday.
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Successful Initial Safety Tests For Genetically-modified Rice That Fights Allergy - Journal Of Agricultural And Food Chemistry
In a first-of-its-kind advance toward the next generation of genetically modified foods - intended to improve consumers" health - researchers in Japan are reporting that a new transgenic rice designed to fight a common pollen allergy appears safe in animal studies. Their report is in the current issue of ACS" Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.
Sexual Health

Editorial Calls Supreme Court's Pregnancy Leave Decision 'Not Just'

"The Supreme Court keeps finding ways to deny women equal pay and benefits," a New York Times editorial states in response to the court"s 7-2 ruling on Monday that employers are not required to award women credit toward pension benefits for pregnancy leave taken before Congress passed the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act. According to the Times, the ruling reflects reasoning similar to the court"s 2007 decision in which it denied former Goodyear employee Lilly Ledbetter"s "claim for equal pay because it thought she waited too long to file it." In Monday"s decision, the majority "reasoned mainly that the pregnancy leaves predated the 1978 law, and since the law was not retroactive, the discrepancy in benefits was the product of "past completed events that were entirely lawful at the time they occurred,"" the editorial states. It notes that the majority included "two generally reliable votes for equality, Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter." The editorial continues, "This may sound logical, but it is not just." The editorial says that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in writing the dissent, "quite correctly" recognized a company"s "ongoing denial of equal benefits not as past discriminatory behavior that started and ended decades ago, but as a current violation of the act." In a similar way, "Goodyear discriminated against Lilly Ledbetter by maintaining her unequal pay for years, not merely the first time the company underpaid her." The Times calls on Congress to "write corrective legislation" on pregnancy leave (New York Times, 5/21). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women"s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women"s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company. © 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.


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