Free Republic

An 18-year-old Dominican immigrant charged two months ago with illegally inducing an abortion by taking anti-ulcer pills will not face homicide charges, prosecutors said yesterday. Prosecutors had been considering the more serious charge after Amber Abreu prematurely delivered a 1-pound girl named Ashley at Lawrence General Hospital on Jan. 6. She died four days later. Abreu, a Lawrence resident, allegedly admitted that she had taken three Cytotec pills before giving birth, an abortion method that is common in some Latin American communities, authorities said. Abortion is illegal in Massachusetts after 24 weeks of pregnancy, and any action to cause a...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, examines the best usage of the drug misoprostol in causing abortions. However, a leading pro-life researcher says that the ulcer pill, even at its most effective rates, destroys the life of an unborn child and causes medical problems for women. Abortion advocates have repeatedly come under fire in various places around the world for misusing the misoprostol drug, which is intended to treat ulcers, to cause abortions when the standard RU 486 abortion pill is unavailable. In addition to killing an unborn child, the misoprostol...

A Massachusetts woman who was arrested after she used an anti-ulcer drug to kill her unborn child talked about her decisions. Amber Abreu, 18, used the drug to cause an abortion even though its maker warns it shouldn't be utilized for that purpose. She now regrets her decision. "If I could turn back the clock, I would do things differently," Abreu told the Eagle Tribune newspaper in an interview. "Those people who judge me don't know what I'm feeling inside." After using the drug, which failed to kill the child immediately, Abreu gave birth to a baby girl January 6...

WITH the confirmation last week of John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States, eyes turned to President Bush's next judicial nominee, who, on a closely divided court, may determine the fate of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that recognized a woman's right to an abortion. But such speculation overlooks a paradox in the abortion wars: while combatants focus on the law, technology is already changing the future of abortion, with or without the Supreme Court. Even if the court restricts or eliminates the right to an abortion, the often-raised specter of a return to back-alley...

FDA Issues Health Advisory for Mifepristone Citing Four Sepsis-Related Deaths Among Users; Drug Labeling To Be Updated 21 Jul 2005 FDA on Tuesday issued a... public health advisory warning physicians to watch for any signs of sepsis or other infection among women who have taken Danco Laboratories' Mifeprex -- known generically as mifepristone -- which when taken with misoprostol can cause a medical abortion, the AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The agency is investigating four sepsis-related deaths among women who took the drug, including two cases reported to FDA in April and June (Neergaard, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7/20). Physicians have identified the bacterium...

The death of a young person produces a terrible void. Who can be indifferent...