Study Finds Doctors Not Telling Women About Morning After Pills
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new study finds just three percent of doctors routinely tell women patients about the morning after pill, despite its widespread availability. The finding comes from data collected during face-to-face interviews with 7,643 women aged 15 to 44. The interviews were conducted in 2002, when the Plan B drug was available only by prescription. Yet only 3% of women said their doctors discussed the issue with them. Even when women saw a gynecologist for a Pap test or pelvic exam, only 4% received morning after pill counseling, find University of Pittsburgh researchers Megan L. Kavanaugh, DrPH, and Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, MD. "A lot of women, and the American public in general, are very misinformed about what emergency contraception is, how to use it, and how to access it," Kavanaugh told WebMD. "Yet counseling about emergency contraception really is missing from the clinical encounter, especially for young women, low-income women, and minority women." The survey also found women were more likely to have used the drug, which can cause an abortion in some cases, if their doctors had told them about it. Many women, Kavanaugh says, confuse Plan B with the abortion pill RU-486. Kavanaugh and Bimla Schwarz report their findings in the June issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

Oregon State Health Care Plan Will Pay for Assisted Suicide, Not Treatment
Salem, OR (LifeNews.com) -- Opponents of state-run medical insurance argue that government rationing would result in people being consigned to die. Opponents of assisted suicide legislation argue that it presents a slippery slope in which the state would eventually have people killed. A harmonic convergence of sorts has taken place in Oregon which proves both points. Oregon resident Barbara Wagner found out last month that her lung cancer, in remission for about two years, was back. After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn't cover it. It would cover comfort and care, including, if she chose, assisted suicide. Responding to the news, attorney and author Wesley J. Smith has this to say, "We have been warning for years that this was a possibility in Oregon. Medicaid is rationed, meaning that some treatments are not covered. But assisted suicide is always covered. And now, Barbara Wagner was faced with that very scenario." Later, a representative of the pharmaceutical company called Wagner and told her it would provide the medicine for free. Wagner said she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both. "I am just so thrilled," she said. "I am so relieved and so happy." Smith says this isn't the first time this has happened. "A few years ago a patient who needed a double organ transplant was denied the treatment but would have been eligible for state-financed assisted suicide. But not to worry. Just keep repeating the mantra: There are no abuses with Oregon's assisted suicide law. There are no abuses. There are no abuses."

More Doctors Resign From Canadian Hospital Treating Samuel Golubchuck
Winnipeg, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- Two more doctors have stopped working shifts at a Winnipeg hospital's critical care unit to avoid treating an 84-year-old man on life support. Samuel Golubchuck is a terminally ill elderly patient and his doctors want to refuse life-sustaining treatment. Earlier this month, the doctor who wanted to impose his values on Golubchuck by forcing him off respirator and feeding tube resigned rather than continue treatment. On Monday, doctors Bojan Paunovic and David Easton became the second and third doctors to stop accepting shifts at Grace Hospital's critical care unit. Now, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said Tuesday it's in negotiations with doctors at Grace Hospital to have one physician treat Golubchuck, who has been on life support since last fall. Golubchuck's doctors have recommended that he be removed from life support, but his family has fought that in court. They are Orthodox Jews, and their beliefs strictly forbid the hastening of a death. Cheryl Eckstein, the founder and president of the Compassionate Healthcare Network, responded to the story to LifeNews.com. "This is not good - since when do doctors refuse care when they think recovery is slim? I would want to know ahead of time how my doctor would feel if such happened to me - if I had a duty to kick off when they called it."

New Report Sows India Male-Female Ratio at All-Time Low
New Delhi, India (LifeNews.com) -- The number of girls to boys in India has hit a record low, British charity ActionAid said yesterday as it urged the government in New Delhi to take “sustained action” to prevent a lost generation of women. “In a country with a long history of discrimination against women, the preference for sons over daughters has led to the number of girls under the age of six hitting an all-time low,” said ActionAid in a report. Ratios of boys to girls aged 0-6 in four out of five states it studied in north and northwest India were now lower than at the time of the last nationwide census in 2001 - and the gap was widening, the report said.
Both rural and urban areas showed similar declines and the phenomenon cut across class and wealth lines, added the report, which is titled “Disappearing Daughters.” The report called on the Indian government for tougher enforcement of laws banning pre-natal sex detection and sex-selective abortion, describing their efforts to implement the legislation so far as “woefully inadequate.” Attitudes towards girls as financial burdens for families because of dowry pressures also need to be challenged, while the quality of and access to public health care and state-run schools had to improved, it added. “It is clear that without sustained action on many fronts, millions more women will go missing in India,” it said, citing figures from medical journal The Lancet that more than 500,000 female babies are victims of abortion every year.

Mexico City Mayor Legalizing Abortions Becomes Presidential Possibility
Mexico City, Mexico (LifeNews.com) -- Marcelo Ebrard, a former congressman and Mexico City police chief, eventually became the mayor of the Hispanic nation’s massive capital city. Now Ebrard is a favorite for the 2012 presidential elections. Ebrard, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party which led the battle for the law, would take on President Felipe Calderon, who is pro-life. Ebrard has already feuded with the current president, of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, by refusing to be seen with him in public. Ebrard accuses Calderon of stealing the 2006 presidential elections. The battle has also brewed over abortion. While the federal government moves ahead with a lawsuit to overturn the new law allowing all abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy in the capital, Ebrard promised that abortions will continue unfettered while the case progresses. “Our position is fixed. The health department will go on working,” he said. Meanwhile, Mexico City legislators signed off on a bill that allows terminally ill patients to refuse medical treatment. Family members could make the decision in cases of patients who are unable to make their own choice -- hearkening to the international debate about Terri Schiavo. The legislation says physicians who want to withhold food and water from patients -- which is not considered extraordinary medical care by pro-life advocates -- would be given legal protection. Ebrard has already indicated he would sign that bill as well.

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