Genevieve Plaster, M.A.

Last month, an international coalition of individuals and organizations launched a campaign calling for an end to the assisted reproductive technology practice known as surrogacy. Stop Surrogacy Now (SSN) is urging national governments and the global community to end the “exploitation of women and the human trafficking of children through surrogacy.”

Beginning in 2016, Rhode Island health insurance carriers who will offer plans either on or off the exchange will be required to provide an elective abortion-free plan at each metal level at which they will offer plans. Research from the Charlotte Lozier Institute and the Family Research Council in November 2014 showed that Rhode Island was one of four states that offered only plans covering elective abortion for the 2015 enrollment period.

In March, a bill was introduced to broaden the qualifications of the eugenics compensation program and close the loophole that excluded Blackmon from receiving a portion of the $10 million set aside for victims. The number of people the extension might affect is difficult to estimate; however, by the June 2014 deadline to apply for compensation, there were 786 applications and only 220 were approved.

According to the report published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), potentially more than one thousand deaths in Belgium were “hastened [by a doctor] without an explicit request from the patient.” A similar study by the same primary author showed that in 70% of the cases in which doctors decided to hasten death without consent, the patient was comatose.

In a March 16 article appearing in AZCentral, Brandon Kutzler fact checks a statement made by Arizona state senator Nancy Barto on taxpayer-funding of abortion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Last month, Sen. Barto introduced Senate Bill 1318, which would prohibit qualified health insurance policies that are offered through any exchange operating in Arizona from providing coverage for elective abortion.

In 2010, China conducted its latest census, which revealed that the country had 13 million undocumented children. The majority were “over-quota” children born in violation of China’s one-child policy, and who were accordingly denied legal identification or “household registration” known as hukou. Without hukou, a person cannot attend school, receive healthcare or government support, travel by train or plane, or get married.