Nora Sullivan, M.P.A

Just before the New Year, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill which bans the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens.  The bill was sent to President Putin’s desk following quick and almost unanimous passage in both houses of the Russian Parliament.

National and state abortion reporting laws and policies in the United States are a patchwork that falls far short of fulfilling the potential of this information to inform and guide public policy.   The composite picture they reveal is at once impressionistic and incomplete, non-contemporaneous and of limited use in providing a true and timely rendering of the impact of public policies and attitudes on the reality of abortion in the United States.

A very disturbing story has recently come to light as it has been revealed that 491 babies were born alive during botched abortion procedures in Canada and then left to die in its immediate aftermath. These deaths took place between the years 2000 and 2009.

Earlier this week, the BBC reported on the story of Scott Routley, a Canadian man whom doctors have believed to be in a vegetative state for more than a decade.   The report revealed that due to breakthroughs in the field of brain imaging, Scott has been, remarkably, able to communicate with his doctors and convey to them that he is not in any pain.

The China Development Research Foundation, a government run Chinese think tank, has issued a recommendation calling for a change in the country’s infamous one-child policy.  This call for a “roll back” marks the first time since the policy’s institution in 1980 that any government agency has publicly pushed the state on its compulsory and oftentimes coercive family planning policy.

The American Nurses Association has released a draft statement which comes out firmly against nurses’ participation in assisted suicide and euthanasia.  The American Nurses Association is a national organization which works to advance “the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the rights of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.”

A new poll has found that 53 percent of New York City parents oppose  the controversial new CATCH program recently instated in 13 NYC public schools.  CATCH, which stands for Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Healthcare, is a pilot program established by the city’s Department of Education (DOE) and aimed at curtailing teen pregnancy by making emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B, available to students without parental consent.  Public schools already have free condoms available to students.

On October 11, 2012, the United Nations marks the first annual International Day of the Girl Child.  The observance was formally adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December 19, 2011 as an official day on which to raise awareness of the situation of girls across the globe.  The institution of this day is a decidedly positive symbol. 

Last week marked the 12th anniversary of the approval for use in the United States of the abortion drug RU- 486.  However, unlike other notable moments in medical history such as the discovery of penicillin in 1928 and the development of the polio vaccine in 1955, RU-486, or mifepristone, calls for a far more sobering memorial. 

In his book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York Times bestselling author Edwin Black paints one of the most complete pictures to date of the history of the eugenics movement in America.