Battle for unborn babies also rages internationally

by Tom Strode                                                                                       Vol. XV, No. 8, September 2002

The struggle to protect unborn children remains a global one even as the United States nears the 29th anniversary of its legalization of abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court, in effect, struck down all restrictions on abortion Jan. 22, 1973. While American pro-life advocates have been focussed on rescinding abortion's status as a legal procedure at all times and for all reasons in their country, the battle over unborn children has raged internationally as well.

The global map forms a patchwork quilt regarding abortion. Ninety-seven countries constituting about 66 percent of the world's population have laws permitting, in essence, abortion on demand, according to Human Life International's website. Ninety-three countries with about 34 percent of the world's population prohibit abortion or allow such exceptions as to protect the mother's life or for reasons of rape and fetal deformity, HLI reports. About 55 million surgical abortions are performed each year worldwide, according to HLI.

In addition to surgical abortions, young human life also is at risk globally because of abortion-inducing drugs, cloning, and stem cell research.

Recent public policy developments regarding the status of unborn babies in other countries include:

-- China codified its one-child policy for the first time by a vote of its legislature.

-- The French government legalized the free distribution by pharmacies of the "morning-after pill" to girls under 18 without parental consent or a prescription, according to an Associated Press report. The pill is able to prevent implantation in the uterine wall of an embryo.

-- France's National Assembly, however, approved a bill restricting a court decision that found a handicapped child could be compensated because he was not aborted, AP reported.

-- The government of the Philippines outlawed the "morning-after pill" because of its abortifacient qualities, according to CNSNews.com.

-- Abortion has been legalized in Afghanistan through the third month of pregnancy if a woman's health is threatened. A woman must obtain certificates from three doctors and permission from the Health Ministry to have an abortion, according to the South African Press Association. Abortion was outlawed under Taliban rule for the previous five years.

In the field of embryo research, foreign entities largely have refused to move in the direction of protecting young human life. Great Britain adopted a revised law that prohibits cloning to produce a baby but permits the procedure for research purposes. The Duma, Russian's lower house of parliament, approved on first reading a five-year ban on reproductive cloning but did not prohibit research cloning, AP reported. In addition, the parliament of the European Union recently rejected a bill that would have prohibited all human cloning, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.

In contrast, the Canadian province of Quebec issued guidelines banning all destructive human embryo research, including cloning and stem cell experimentation.

The action by China's National People's Congress placed into law a population-control policy that has been in effect for more than two decades in the world's most populous country, which has 1.27 billion people. The policy limits couples in urban areas to one child and those in rural areas to two, if the first is a girl. Other exceptions have been made in some provinces, and the enforcement of the policy has varied among provinces.

The policy in the communist giant has resulted in coercive sterilization and abortion, according to many reports. Infanticide, especially of baby girls, also has been reported. Pro-lifers have criticized not only the tyrannical policy but a United Nations organization that reportedly has supported it.

As recently as September, the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) was helping in China's program, according to an investigation by the Population Research Institute, an American pro-life organization. A PRI team reported witnesses told it the family planning in a UNFPA-run program was not voluntary. Coercion, in the form of not only sterilization and abortion but imprisonment and property destruction, exists in the UNFPA program, according to the report. The UNFPA has denied the charges.

"The right of parents to decide for themselves the number and spacing of their children is internationally recognized -- and is violated every day in China," PRI President Steven Mosher told CNS News.

Legislation recently was enacted that increased the United States appropriation for the UNFPA by more than $12 million to $34 million. The measure, however, does not require President Bush to give any or all of those funds to the agency.

Mosher and other pro-lifers have called on President Bush to give no funding to the UNFPA. Aid to the agency is on hold while a decision from the White House is awaited. "In his decision on UNFPA funding, we are hopeful President Bush will remain consistent with the principle that no taxpayer dollars should go toward performing, promoting or coercing women to have abortions," Family Research Council President Ken Connor said in a written statement. [BP]