Abortion : Is it Murder??

US Supreme Court approves ban on "partial birth abortion"

Janice Hopkins Tanne

New York

The nine member US Supreme Court ruled five to four last week to ban the "partial birth abortion" procedure in the United States. The court upheld a federal law banning the procedure that was passed by Congress in 2003. The law had been challenged in the courts for lacking an exception to protect women's health, not just their lives.

Many commentators called the decision the most important ruling on abortion in 30 years.

The day after the Supreme Court ruling, two Democrats, Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, introduced bills in the Senate and House of Representatives that would prevent government from interfering with a woman's right to bear a child or end a pregnancy. Nadler said, "We can no longer rely on the Supreme Court to protect a woman's constitutional right to choose."

This week the New England Journal of Medicine joined the debate. Jeffrey Drazen, the journal's editor in chief, said in an early release editorial that the Supreme Court "was practising medicine without a licence."

In another article, Michael Greene, director of obstetrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote that US doctors lacked confidence in the judicial system and might avoid carrying out surgical abortions in the second trimester even when the mother's life is in danger. The court's decision was part of government restrictions on access to contraception and for coping with dangerous or unwanted pregnancies.

Abortion will be an important topic in next year's presidential election. Potential Democratic candidates criticised the court's decision and potential Republican candidates approved it, including former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, despite the fact that he has said he supports abortion rights.

Seven years ago, the Supreme Court overturned a state law that banned "partial birth abortion" because it did not have an exception to protect women's health (BMJ 2004:328:1398, doi: 10.1136/bmj.328.7453.1398-d), and it has several times struck down abortion laws that did not have a health exception. The federal law states that the procedure is never medically necessary and the Supreme Court upheld the federal law despite its previous decisions requiring a protection for women's health.

The law defines a partial birth abortion as a procedure in which the doctor "deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a headfirst presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of a breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act (usually the puncturing of the back of the child's skull and removing the baby's brains) that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus." The number of such abortions carried out each year in the US is thought to be between 2200 and 5000. They are most often performed in the second trimester.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that the procedure might be the safest but its view had been disregarded. Dr Douglas Laube, president of the college, said that the decision "leaves no doubt that women's health in America is perceived as being of little consequence."

The college, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Abortion Federation, and many other organisations criticised the court's decision. They said it was a step toward prohibiting abortion. Pro-life, anti-abortion groups applauded the decision.

The New York Times made it lead story (www.nytimes.com, 19 Apr, "In reversal of course, justices, 5-4, back ban on abortion method") and in its lead editorial (p A26) said the decision "severely eroded the constitutional respect and protection accorded to women and the personal decisions they make about pregnancy and childbirth." Several commentators said that the court had changed from having concern for a woman's health to having concern about the fetus. They also noted a paternalistic tone in the court's ruling.

The current court is more conservative because of George Bush's appointment of Samuel Alito as an associate justice, replacing the more liberal Sandra Day O'Connor, who had been the "swing vote" in some 5-4 decisions on abortion rights.

Doctors usually refer to the procedure of partial birth abortion as intact dilatation and extraction. The alternative procedure, which is not prohibited, is to dismember the fetus within the uterus and extract it. Partial birth abortion or intact dilatation and evacuation is allowed when the fetus is dead. Killing the fetus by injection and inducing labour is not often used in the US and is thought to be less safe.

Commenting on the law as it now stands after the Supreme Court decision, David Grimes, former head of abortion surveillance for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the BMJ, "The law is crudely crafted, difficult to interpret, and hopelessly vague. It doesn't mention gestational age." It also refers to intention rather than what may happen during a procedure. Doctors who violate the law may be jailed for up to two years; women will not be punished.

Dr Grimes said that he had personally used the procedure to save a woman's life. He feared the ruling would lead to increased restrictions on abortion at a state by state level. State legislators have already begun to propose local laws.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the court, said in the dissenting opinion that the ruling does not prevent a single abortion. It merely outlaws a procedure. Antiabortion activists say that they will seek restrictions on other procedures for abortion and also seek to impose other restrictions, such as counselling before abortion, ultrasound imaging, and longer waiting times.

About 1.3 million abortions are carried out in the US each year, almost 90% in the first trimester by vacuum aspiration. The number of partial birth abortions is unclear because of problems with definitions and the collection of statistics. Estimates are less than 1%, perhaps as low as 0.2%.

The full ruling is available at www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-380.pdf.

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So is abortion murder? I believe that it most certainly is. Whether the fetus is in-utero or outside is purely semantics. It is still an act whereby a human life is terminated. That fact cannot be disputed and therefore it makes it an unlawful act. The description of the partial birth abortion should wake up those who tries to justify the act of abortion and deceive their own conscience. Whatever the circumstances of the pregnancy, it should not end with the death penalty of the fetus. What about the sanctity of human life? Society should again examine its own conscience.

Does Race define Religion?

Wednesday May 30, 2007
Crucial decision in Lina Joy case
By SHAILA KOSHY
KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Court judgment today on the Lina Joy appeal will be a historic one with legal and social repercussions, whichever way the decision goes.
This decision by the apex court will affect one’s constitutional freedom to choose one’s religion as well as who one can marry, especially for those who want to renounce Islam and for people who convert to Islam but later want to revert to their former religion.
The judgment, which was reserved on July 4 last year, will clarify whether conversion is a religious matter or a constitutional matter.
Lina Joy, 42, who was born to a Malay Muslim couple, became a Christian when she was 26.
The sales assistant has taken her case all the way to the Federal Court because unless the government recognises her conversion, she cannot get married under civil law.
While Lina managed – the second time around – to get the National Registration Department to change her name from Azlina Jailani in 1999, accepting that she had renounced Islam, it refused to remove the word “Islam” from her MyKad.
The NRD said it could not do so without a syariah court order certifying she had renounced Islam.
As long as the word “Islam” remains on her identity card, Lina cannot marry her Christian boyfriend, a cook, under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976.
In 2001, she took her case against the NRD director-general, the Government and the Federal Territory Religious Council to the High Court.
She lost – Justice Faiza Tamby Chik held that Malays could not renounce Islam because a Malay was defined in the Constitution as “a person who professes the religion of Islam,” adding it was the syariah court that had the jurisdiction in matters related to apostasy.
Lina appealed to the Court of Appeal and lost again, this time in a majority decision – Justices Abdul Aziz Mohamed and Arifin Zakaria upheld the decision of the NRD but Justice Gopal Sri Ram said it was null and void.
In 2006, she got leave to appeal to the Federal Court and asked the panel comprising Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Richard Malanjum and Federal Court Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff these questions:
WAS the NRD entitled to require a person to produce a certificate or a declaration or an order from the syariah court before deleting “Islam” from his or her identity card;
DID the NRD correctly construe its powers under the National Registration Regulations 1990 when it imposed the above requirement, which is not expressly provided for in the regulations?; and
WAS the landmark case Soon Singh vs Perkim Kedah – which held that syariah courts have the authority over the civil courts to hear cases of Muslims renouncing Islam – correctly decided?
While Datuk Cyrus Das appeared for Lina Joy, Senior Federal Counsel Datuk Umi Khaltum Jamid appeared for the NRD director-general and the Government and Sulaiman Abdullah appeared for the religious council.
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Lina Joy loses appeal
News update by The Star's newsdesk
PUTRAJAYA: Lina Joy lost her final round of appeal when the Federal Court dismissed on Wednesday her appeal against a ruling that the National Registration Department was right not to allow her to remove the word "Islam" from her identity card.
Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and Federal Court judge Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff delivered the majority decision dismissing her appeal.
Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Justice Richard Malanjum dissented.
On Sept 19, 2005, the Court of Appeal decided that the NRD director-general was right in refusing her application to drop her religious status from her IC on the grounds that the Syariah Court and other Islamic religious authorities did not confirm Linas renunciation of Islam.
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So Lina Joy (or in this case "no Joy") lost her case. Surprise, surprise? NOT. One should have expected that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. In the 21st century, I am disappointed that the thinking of the society and law in Malaysia have not come to maturity. Justice Faiza Thamby Chik said that the constitution defines "a Malay as one who professes to be a Muslim". I am not that familiar with this piece of constitution, but I am surprised to discover that religion has now got a Mendelian inheritance. It is like saying that a Chinese must be a Buddhist, or an Indian must be a Hindu, and a Caucasian must be a Christian. So, if you do a DNA fingerprinting, you can find out the religion of your great, great, great, great grandfather! Ridiculous or what?!

I thought that the Malaysian constitution ensures freedom of religion. Surely this ruling is unconstitutional. Or else, we need to change the constitution, do we not?

Please find Madeleine 3

Update : This is the last photo of Madeleine before she was kidnapped. Taken by her mum. If you have any information of her whereabouts, please contact via the website (see previous post) dedicated to find her. Thanks.

Please Find Madeleine 2

The following is a poster prepared by her family. Please disseminate it as widely as possible. You can provide information by ringing the number. Alternatively, go to www.findmadeleine.com.

You've Been Blogged...errr...Blocked!

Internet censorship grows worldwide: study

AFP - Friday, May 18 06:50 pm

LONDON (AFP) - Internet censorship is growing worldwide, with 26 out of 40 countries blocking or filtering political or social content, a study reported Friday.

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The survey carried out by experts at four leading universities found that people in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were often denied access to information about politics, sexuality, culture or religion.

Conducting the first of what is planned to become an annual survey, the experts at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Toronto found that the approach varied according to the country.

For example, South Korea heavily censored only one topic, North Korea, while Iran, China and Saudi Arabia blocked both a wide range of topics and a great deal of content related to those topics.

The experts with the OpenNet Initiative, who carried out their research last year, listed six countries as "pervasive" filterers of political information: Myanmar, China, Iran, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam.

They categorized seven countries, all of them Muslim, as "pervasive" social filterers: Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Topics blocked are those considered antithetical to social norms, such as pornography, gay and lesbian content, and gambling.

Social filtering also was carried out by countries like France and Germany, where websites that deny the Holocaust or promote Nazism are blocked.

The survey found that Myanmar, China, Iran, Pakistan and South Korea have the "most encompassing national security filtering," targeting the websites of insurgents, extremists, and terrorists.

"The survey shows us that online censorship is growing around the world," said John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School.

"Some regulation is to be expected as the medium matures, but filtering and surveillance can seriously erode civil liberties and privacy and stifle global communications," he added in a statement.

However, the survey found that a handful of countries where Internet filtering might be expected -- such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, Nepal, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe -- were found not to filter.

The survey said that Internet filtering techniques have evolved with the growing complexity of content.

"Instead of just blocking static Web sites, such as pages online that show pornographic pictures or information about human rights, online censors are blocking entire applications, such as YouTube," it added.

Other applications that are often targeted are internet telephony service Skype and Google Maps. Still others are blogs, political parties and local non-government organisations.

"In the case of blogs, a number of countries, including Pakistan and Ethiopia, have blocked entire blogging domains," it said.

The survey said the United States and European countries did not come in for testing, as the filtering practices were better understood than in other parts of the world.

The survey marked "the first step towards a comprehensive global assessment of Internet filtering practices," said Oxford University professor Jonathan Zittrain,who expects to find more countries that filter the Internet as testing is expanded.

Just thought that this article might be of some interest to all bloggers, in view of the interesting discussion in Susan Loone's blog about the formation of All-Blogs, a National Alliance of Bloggers in Malaysia. It seems surprising that Malaysia, a country known for its tendency to control the media, is one of the few countries that does not filter its internet traffic. There has been talk of forming a register of bloggers by the government, presumably a move to control the topics discussed by the bloggers. Is that a possible task? Can a blog registered with a domain outside the country be easily blocked?

Does anyone think that internet censorship in Malaysia is imminent, and it is only when and not if? What can Malaysian bloggers do to convince the government not to do so, or are we powerless? Would it be a retrograde step or is it necessary for the security of the country?

Please find Madeleine

PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal (AFP) - The family of the missing four-year-old British girl announced Thursday they would step up the search for her as Portuguese police said they still lacked enough information to make any arrests.

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Posters bearing the face of Madeleine McCann, will soon appear across Europe, Michael Wright, a relative of the girl's parents told a news conference.

The posters have already become a common sight in Portugal, since she vanished from a hotel bedroom at a resort in Praia da Luz in the Algarve region on May 3.

"If Madeleine is not in Portugal, we want to make sure people have an image of her across Europe. This can only help," Wright told reporters.

He was speaking outside the whitewashed hotel from where Madeleine disappeared as several police stood guard nearby in bright sunshine.

"Our target is to reach the saturation that we know has been achieved in the UK and certainly in the Algarve," he added.

A fund and accompanying website, which the family launched on Wednesday to gather donations and other forms of help in the search for the little girl, has been flooded with offers, he said.

The help, from individuals, small firms and multinationals had made the European-wide campaign possible, he added.

The fund's website www.findmadeleine.com received over five million hits on Thursday, Wright said.

British television channel Sky News said an airline and a major restaurant chain were among the multinational firms that had offered to put up posters of the missing girl at their premises across the continent.

Police meanwhile said they were still gathering evidence but did not yet have enough information to make any arrests.

"The investigation is going on. Until this moment there is not enough evidence to arrest anyone," said Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, who is heading the probe. He was speaking to reporters in the southern city of Portimao.

Ok....................I am getting pissed off. Why, you say? Because after almost 2 weeks, there is still no clue where Madeleine is. How come? Are Portuguese police that useless? Surely, all these super clever people from the intelligence community from Interpol, MI6, MI5, CIA, Mossad, KGB etc, etc should have some clue leading to her whereabouts. No, I am not pissed off...................I am super pissed off!!!!!!

So, I decided that I am not going to do nothing at all. I am appealing to all you good people who read my blog.................yes, the number may be small..........thou shall not mock...................,to write something about Madeleine and encourage all readers of your own blog to do likewise. Please paste her pictures on all your blogs and replicate it as often as possible. Let's increase the publicity in blogosphere. A very remarkable identifiable mark of Madeleine is her RIGHT EYE. If you look closely, you will see that there is a deficient IRIS mark at about 7 o'clock.

If any of you out there has any information leading to her, please don't keep it to yourselves. Inform the authorities! Have some compassion! Supply information in their official website- mentioned above . Do it for the love of the child. If not..........for Pete's sake....do it for the money! There is a large reward available.

DON'T MAKE ME ANGRY........................YOU DON'T LIKE ME WHEN I AM ANGRY!!!!

Rough Justice

Only Malays can buy reserve land

By : V. Anbalagan

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PUTRAJAYA: Non-Malays who inherited Malay reserve land can only sell the property to Malays.

The Federal Court has ruled that any such transaction involving a non-Malay is illegal.

However, the non-Malay owner can transfer his inheritance to his beneficiaries.

The court made these pronouncements in allowing an appeal by the legal representatives of Lee Keng Liat to recover about RM620,000 in compensation when the Malacca government acquired eight acres (2.6ha) of such land in Mukim Klebang Besar to build houses about 25 years ago.

Keng Liat had acquired the land at the turn of the 20th century after he received a certificate from the governor-in-council that entitled him to hold the customary land.
Under the Malacca Lands Customary Rights Ordinance, only a Malay living in the state or a person holding such certificate from the council was entitled to inherit such property.

On Keng Liat’s death, the property was transferred to a son, Chim Giang, who in 1935, sold the land to Tan Tai Lip.

In 1982, the authorities were ready to pay about RM1 million in compensation to Tan’s heirs. A total of RM420,000 was paid for loss of property and livelihood.

In 1986, Keng Liat’s personal representatives filed a suit at the Malacca High Court, claiming that the compensation for the loss of land was rightfully theirs.

Judge Datuk Abdul Hamid Mohamad said Tan should not have been allowed to purchase the land as he did not have a certificate from the council.

He said the transaction was illegal due to non-compliance of the ordinance.

He said he could not validate the original sale of land "as this would completely defeat the purpose of the creation of the Malacca customary land and Malay reserve land".

Sitting with Hamid were Datuk Arifin Zakaria and Datuk S. Augustine Paul.

Hamid said Malay reserve land came into existence after laws were enacted in the Malay states and the Straits Settlements to protect the land rights of the Malays.

He said the British saw it necessary to do so.

"If at all, it is for the legislature to repeal or amend the laws, not this court," he said of the unanimous ruling delivered on Friday.

Hamid, who wrote the 27-page judgment, said the court gave serious thought to the issue because of "what was happening on the ground".

"Customary land and Malay reserve land may be no more than a beautiful but empty package while the contents are enjoyed by people who are prohibited by law to own it," he said.







Don't you think that it is unfair? After all, Lee Keng Liat had acquired the land legally. He had a certificate from the governor-in-council to authenticate his purchase of the land. Why overturn the legality of the document after about 100 years? OK, one may need to sell it back to the Malays, but can a fair market price be gotten for it? Isn't it time that this ruling be reviewed and changed? After all, we are now in the 21st century? Should the term "bumiputera" be redefined to all that is born in Malaysia, instead of just to the Malay race? For the country to mature and come to adulthood, perhaps it is time that we should shed our xenophobic inheritance and have a real debate about integration in the country. If practices like the current Maybank fiasco where a law firm must have a 50% bumiputera ownership before it is able to do business with the bank persist, then all the interfaith dialogues (as promoted by the government) in the world will not achieve what it sets out to do.