News, 18 April 2000
An abortion practitioner in New York has been charged with the little
known offence of abortion in the second degree after reportedly
stabbing a woman with a syringe containing an abortion drug in an
attempt to kill her unborn child. Stephen Pack, 44 and married with two
children, is said to have had an extra-marital affair with the 31
year-old nurse whom he believed to be between six and eight weeks
pregnant. She is undergoing treatment to counteract the effects of the
drug, but the effect on the unborn child is unknown. [Associated Press,
New York Times, 15th April (from Pro-Life Infonet)]
A doctor who admitted administering a lethal injection to a multiple
sclerosis victim has had his conviction for first-degree murder upheld
by the supreme court of Norway in a key test of the country's laws
against euthanasia. Dr Christian Sandsdalen, 82, carried out the act in
1996 at the request of Bodil Bjerkmann, his 45 year-old patient. He
then demanded to be tried for murder and last Friday's unanimous ruling
came after a protracted court battle involving a series of appeals. Dr
Sandsdalen's sentencing has been postponed indefinitely due to
'mitigating circumstances'. [Associated Press, 15th April (from
Pro-Life Infonet)]
The international Europe for Life congress has ended in Granada, Spain,
with condemnations of abortion and euthanasia, which it saw as bound up
with one another. Catholic Archbishop Antonio Caviares of Granada
appealed for the abolition of "capital punishment applied to the
unborn" and the congress concluded that legalisation of abortion opened
the door to "elimination of the elderly and sick". The event, which was
organised with the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, also
emphasised the importance of the family and Christian sex education.
[Zenit News Agency, 17th April]
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