Pro-Life News: Massachusetts Abortion Protest, Kansas Probe, Italy Drugs 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 12, 2007
Massachusetts Governor Patrick Will Sign Bill for Abortion Protest Zone
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick plans to sign a bill by abortion advocates in the state legislature to institute an abortion protest buffer zone. Pro-abortion lawmakers approved a new law expanding the protest buffer zone around abortion centers claiming the current flexible buffer zone is allowing harassment and intimidation of abortion facility staff and patients. The pending bill would replace the 18-foot bubble around abortion centers, which some say has been difficult to enforce. The new zone would be a 35-foot one that would make it more difficult for pro-life people who want to persuade women not to have an abortion to make contact with them. Patrick is expected to sign the bill Tuesday and it will take effect immediately. Pro-life advocates oppose the measure but it has also draw opposition from the ACLU of Massachusetts. Ann Lambert, an attorney with the pro-abortion group, worries the bill would limit free speech rights and said, “The reasoning behind this bill is the same which is all too often used to justify broad restrictions on political protest, such as confining those with dissenting viewpoints to ‘protest zones.’"
Kansas Lawmakers Say Supreme Court Wrong to Stop Abortion Probe
Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) — Several legislators say the Kansas Supreme Court was wrong to issue a decision last month ruling that a grand jury probe into potentially illegal abortions Wichita late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller may have done will be delayed. The high court said the investigation, which over 7,000 citizens of Sedgwick County signed petitions for, will be delayed at least until the end of the week. At a news conference on Friday, the lawmakers said the state’s high court should allow Sedgwick County to move forward with empaneling a grand jury to investigate Tiller. Rep. Steve Brunk, a Republican, said it appeared the court had a political agenda. “The highest court in Kansas should be interpreting the laws of Kansas and not trying to … legislate from the bench,” Brunk said. But Tiller’s lawyer, Dan Monnat, told AP that politics is driving the grand jury effort. “I seriously doubt the court will be bullied by these politicians into acting more quickly or acting at all,” he said. Attorney General Paul Morrison has filed charges accusing Tiller of breaking the state’s late-term abortion laws but pro-life advocates say there are many more violations. The Kansas Supreme Court granted an indefinite stay in the proceedings so it can respond to legal papers Tiller’s attorneys recently filed. Chief Justice Kay McFarland said the high court issued its decision "by virtue of the unique circumstances of this case and to allow full consideration of the petition."
Italy Pro-Life Group Concerned About Introduction of RU 486 Abortion Drug
Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) — A leading pro-life group in Italy is concerned about the potential for the introduction of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug there. The abortion pill has already killed more than a dozen women worldwide and injured more than 1,200 in the United States alone. The group Scienza & Vita warned in a statement that the “introduction of the abortion pill RU-486 into Italy represents the last stage of the process of the banalization of abortion, which has been occurring for some time in Italian culture.” The group added: “With this drug the choice of abortion has been banalized to the point of being reduced to a ‘pill’ without considering its ethical implications and the psychological relapses it produces. It is a pill that, as is known, carries with it serious risks for the health of women." The press release also said: “With RU-486, women are again left alone: first they are not helped to overcome the causes that lead them to abort; and second, we ‘wash’ our consciences by proposing to them an ‘easy’ form of abortion. In the end, let us not forget the use of RU-486 can be fatal for the woman: 10 times more so than in the case of surgical abortion."
