British Woman Files Post-Abortion Syndrome Suit
News Briefs
Man Gets Life Sentence in Abortion/Murder Case
A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to life in prison for setting a bomb that killed his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her children because she refused to have an abortion.
Police said Joseph Mienerd, 48, had threatened to kill his girlfriend, Deena Mitts, and that on New Year’s Day 1999, he planted a pipe bomb in Mitts’s home, killing Mitts, her 7-month-old unborn child, and her 3-year-old daughter Kayla. Mienerd could have received the death penalty under the same federal law used to prosecute Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
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Abortion Clinic Warns Patients of PAS, ABC Link
An abortion clinic in San Antonio, Texas, is warning patients of a link between abortion and breast cancer.
A Woman’s Choice Quality Health Center requires its patients to sign a medical consent form that lists eleven “risks and hazards [which] may occur in connection with this particular procedure.” Two of the risks are listed as “post abortion stress syndrome” and “possible increased lifetime risk of breast cancer.” The Coalition on Abortion-Breast Cancer, a research group, said that such a move proves that “it’s becoming more and more difficult for the profiteers in the abortion industry to dismiss 45 years” of research showing a causal link between breast cancer and abortion.
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British Woman Files Post-Abortion Syndrome Suit
For the first time in the UK, a woman is suing Britain’s state-run National Health Service (NHS) for emotional distress after abortion.
The woman, who had the abortion four years ago at age 24, said she began drinking heavily after her abortion and eventually sought counseling after giving birth to a subsequent son. She accused NHS of failing to warn her of the increased risk for emotional problems and breast cancer after abortion. The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which formulates counseling guidelines for NHS, defended their guidelines and suggested that prior emotional problems could account for the woman’s subsequent distress.
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Australia Could Make Coerced Abortion a Crime
New legislation has been proposed in Australia that would make it a crime to coerce someone into abortion, carrying with it a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Assembly member Vicki Dunne proposes to amend the Crimes Act to create a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for husbands, boyfriends, parents, or anyone else who coerces a woman to choose abortion.
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North Korea Accused of Forced Abortions, Infanticide
An increasing number of defectors from North Korea are accusing the prison system there of forcing pregnant women to abort or kill their children, the New York Times has reported.
Forced abortions have been part of the North Korean prison policy since the 1980s, but defectors report that the number of forced abortions and infanticides has risen sharply since China recently began deporting thousands of refugees back to North Korea. They say pregnant women–especially those suspected of being pregnant by Chinese men–are given injections to cause abortion, or forced to smother their children at birth. About 200,000 deportees are currently imprisoned in North Korea.
Originally published in The Post-Abortion Review 10 (3) July-Sept. 2002. Copyright 2002 Elliot Institute.
