Aborted, Abandoned — Alive

THE STAR, March 10 — A South African baby boy has survived his mother's attempt to abort him by inducing labor four months early, reports the Johannesburg daily.

Doctors caring for the baby think the 34-year-old mother drank something to start labor. Once she delivered, the mother and an accomplice wrapped the boy in newspaper and a plastic bag and left him in a car at an auto-body shop. An employee there recovered the baby and called police.

The baby, who weighs less than 2.5 pounds, remains in the neonatal intensive care unit of a local hospital. The mother and a woman who provided the abortion-inducing substance have been arrested and charged with attempted murder.

No Board Post for Pro-Abort

THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE , March 12 — Encouraged by the voices of West Virginians for Life, the West Virginia state Senate has rejected the appointment of Pat Hussey, a former nun, to the state medical board. Hussey quit the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1988, stating that she could not accept the Church's teaching on abortion.

The newspaper also reported that, under the state's new informed-consent law, doctors who fail to follow the 24-hour waiting period for abortions, or fail to provide women with materials outlining abortion risks and alternatives, will be disciplined by the medical board.

Aware at 24 Weeks

THE TELEGRAPH, March 10 — A prominent British researcher has presented evidence suggesting that the human mind develops consciousness before 24 weeks’ gestation — an age at which abortions are permitted in that country.

Although Baroness Susan Greenfield, a professor of neurology at Oxford University, fell short of calling for changes in the abortion laws, she urged doctors and society to be cautious when assuming unborn babies lacked consciousness.

The London daily reported that Lady Greenfield is skeptical of philosophers and doctors who argue that consciousness is “switched on” at some point during the brain's development. She believes instead that there is a sliding scale of consciousness and that it develops gradually as neurons, or brain cells, make more and more connections with each other.

Gov. Gray Davis Apologizes

SAN FRANCISCO CHROICLE, March 12 — Gov. Gray Davis has apologized for a 1909 state law that resulted in the involuntary sterilization of about 19,000 Californians. According to the newspaper, Davis’ announcement places California among a handful of states that have issued formal regrets regarding eugenics, a movement that sterilized 60,000 mentally ill people in 32 states.