Roundup: Disputes About White House Abortion Plan

Jun 30, 2009, 12:05pm

Disputes About White House Abortion Plan; Lack of Sex Education in New York City; Irish Pro-life Group Challenges Guidelines

Disputes About White House Abortion Plan
Preventing unwanted
pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion are the two major
components of the White House’s attempt at finding common ground on
reproductive health issues, according to Dan Gilgoff of US News.

In
order to reduce unplanned pregnancies, the bill would provide
comprehensive sex education and contraception, and to reduce the need
for abortion, it would increase federal support for pregnant women.
Senators and Congress members on both sides of the abortion debate
would have to compromise, letting them reach a true common ground. But
of course, conservatives don’t want to budge. Although they support
reducing the need for abortion, they do not support comprehensive sex
education or contraception, Gilgoff said.

In this article,
Deirdre McQuade, a spokesperson for the U.S. Council of Catholic
Bishops, said:

"We welcome the opportunity to seek common ground with
this
administration . . . and to work on behalf of pregnant women and unborn
children…But issues of pregnancy prevention are
much more divisive and would only slow down much-needed assistance to
pregnant women."

The group requested the White House separate pregnancy
prevention and supporting pregnant women.

Gilgoff wrote:

"Supporters of the all-in-one approach, meanwhile, say that decoupling
the prevention of unwanted pregnancies from supporting pregnant women
poses a bigger threat to common ground because a support-only bill
would trigger strong opposition from abortion rights groups, which the
White House would be unlikely to defy."

Lack of Sex Education in New York City
The Daily Kos
said that Chlamydia is 51 times more prevalent than Swine Flu, but if
kids knew as much about sexually transmitted infections as they do
about Swine Flu, Chlamydia may not be so common.

As said in the article,
parents are much less likely to teach their children about sexual
health than they are about washing their hands, wearing seat belts and
not talking to strangers. Lee Che Leong, Director of the Teen Health
Initiative of the New York Civil Liberties Union made an official statement on the dire state of New York City’s health education system in 2007:

"In
our work… we hear countless tales from students who are not receiving
the basic knowledge necessary to understand, much less protect, their
health. The questions we field from teens reveal the sad state of
sexuality education in New York City public schools. We’ve heard
sexually active teens ask what penetration is, if emergency
contraception is abortion, and whether douching with Coke prevents pregnancy."

Not only is sexuality education necessary, the article says people support it.

"A 1999 nationally representative survey of 7th-12th grade teachers in
the five specialties most often responsible for sex education found
that a strong majority believed that sexuality education courses should
cover birth control methods (93.4%), factual information about abortion
(89%), where to go for birth control (88.8%), the correct way to use a
condom."

Irish Pro-life Group Challenges Guidelines

In Northern Ireland, where abortion is illegal except when a woman’s mental or physical health is at risk, the pro-life group Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has challenged the government’s abortion guidelines, according to the BBC.

The guidelines on abortion were published in
March, "five years after the Court of Appeal ruled the government
should inquire into provision of termination services…The SPUC is seeking a declaration that what guidance has been produced, does not properly set out the law,’" the article said.

SPUC says the law fails to take into consideration the rights of the unborn child.

OTHER NEWS TO NOTE:

June 29: Choice USA: Teen Pregnancy on MTV

June 29: Kansas CW: Operation Rescue Starts Research Project About Abortion Provider

June 29: Cross-Eyed Blog: What Are The Choices?

June 29: Salt Lake Tribune:(Letter) Anti-abortion moderate

June 29: Christian NewsWire:Pro-Life Youth to Picket Office of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

June 29: NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland: More Hateful Rhetoric on O’Reilly – This Time, From Ann Coulter

June 29: Illinois Federation for Right to Life:Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?

June 28: BBC News: Court challenge to abortion guide

June 29: Americans United for Life: New Study Confirms Abortion Doubles Premature-Birth Risk

June 29: U.S. News & World Report: As White House Readies Abortion Plan, Packaging Emerges as Major Issue