The press review index from 16 to 20 July 2007

Portuguese doctors and abortion

Since the law legalising abortion came into force in Portugal, its application has provoked strong opposition, with many doctors refusing to practise abortions. Of the 46 public hospitals in the country, at least 7 have already announced that they will no longer carry out these operations.

It should be noted that the Portuguese president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, had asked that doctors should be given the choice of declining to practise abortions.

EuroNews 16/07/07 - - TSR.ch 16/07/07

The Korean Supreme Court and the unborn child

According to the Korean Supreme Court, an unborn child is only considered as human if its mother is in the phase of labour immediately prior to childbirth.

This verdict follows the decision of the Court to acquit a midwife accused of involuntary manslaughter. The affair began in 2001 when the midwife refused to accept a pregnant woman who, despite being within several days of the expected date of birth, was experiencing no contractions. The midwife told her to wait two weeks, during which time the baby died of brain damage. A Caesarean was then practised to extract the 5-kilo still-born baby.

At a time when it is possible to save babies of 21 weeks, this decision not to consider a baby of 42 weeks as a human being is causing intense debate. Father Lee Dong-ik, Professor of Medicine at the Catholic University and a member of the Bioethics Committee of the Korean Bishops’ Conference, has spoken of a "social defeat".

Zenit 17/07/07 - Asia News (Joseph Yun Li-Sun) 12/07/07

The World Bank and Family Planning

The World Bank has just published a report promoting the need for family planning. The report is addressed to poor countries, aid agencies and sponsors, and expresses regret at their lack of interest in contraception and the health programmes related to reproduction.

For the World Bank, these programmes permit considerable control over the fertility rate "which is strongly linked to endemic poverty, bad education and to the high number of deaths of mothers and children".

Paul Wolfowitz, ex-president of the World Bank and politically close to the American conservative right, had not wished the report to be circulated.

Joy Phumaphi, Vice-President of the World Bank in charge of Human Development, has declared, "The Bank, along with the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organisation and the health agencies are committed to helping these women to take their own, informed decisions regarding fertility".

The report notes that 35 countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have fertility rates in excess of 5 children per woman, and that, of the 210 million women who are pregnant every year, 500,000 die during their pregnancy or in childbirth.

Romandie.com 19/07/07

The CRN, the Italian National Institute of Biostructures and Biosystems (INBB) and the Hospital of San Orsola of Bologna worked together in the discovery of a new molecule, HBR, capable of determining “piloted” differentiation in the stem cells of the placenta. These cells are naturally capable of becoming any type of human cell. The results have been published in the American Journal of Biological Chemistry.

For Carlo Ventura, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Bio-engineering of Stem Cells at the INBB, these are promising results : "Until now, the stem cells introduced to affected tissue tended, due to their great imitative capacity, to copy cells that surrounded them (for example in inflammatory situations) making them useless for recovery to good health”.

The treatment of placental stem cells with the HBR molecule revealed that "the transplanted cells made new coronary vessels which developed as cardiac cells, among others, without provoking any rejection".

According to Carlo Ventura, "These results could lead to heterotransplants, that is to say, transplants between different donors and recipient, of stem cells".

BE Italie 20/07/07

According to Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, everyone must be an organ donor.

In his annual report, Sir Donaldson, recommended moving to a system of presumed consent, in an attempt to increase the number of organs for donation : unless individuals opted out, their organs could be used.

Three years ago, MPs voted againts such proposals.

Times online (Nigel Hawkes) 18/07/07 – Bio Edge 18/07/07 – Financial Times.com (Andrew Jack) 18/07/07

Limits on birth ?

According to a report published by the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), a population control group, governements should be forced to introduce compulsory limits to family size.

In his report, Youthquake, Prof. John Guillebaud, a leading authority on family planning, recommended to the Governement to introduce a "stop at two children" guideline for couples in the UK, backed by school, the media and environmental groups.

He said families would help Britain send a message to the world that it is a leader in combating supposed dangers to the world's environment by having  fewer children.

According to the report it is "no longer responsible, or environmentally friendly, to bring three, four or more into the world".

Life News 16/07/07 – www.optimumpopulation.org 11/07/07