Pregnant Possibilities

THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE, Feb. 20 — Several studies dating back more than a decade have shown that fetal cells are present within a woman’s body for years after she has been pregnant.

It was earlier theorized that fetal cells could be the culprits for the autoimmune diseases that women who have been pregnant are likelier to develop.

But a recent study by researchers at Tufts-New England Medical Center, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offers an alternate hypothesis: The fetal cells may be acting like stem cells, and may be responding to injury.

The cells resembled those in the organs where they were found — the liver, spleen and thyroid — and they appeared disproportionately in diseased organs, suggesting that they were performing some therapeutic function.

Abortion Doesn’t Save

UNITED NATIONS POPULATION DIVISION, Feb. 11 — A new report from the division that registers maternal and infant mortality for every nation contradicts the position of abortion advocates that abortion restrictions increase women’s deaths in childbirth.

According to the “World Mortality Report: 2005,” nations with laws permitting abortion have not produced a corresponding drop in the rate of maternal deaths, and their rates of maternal mortality are not lower than those for nation’s that have made abortions illegal.

The report reveals that Russia, where abortion has long been legal, has a maternal mortality rate of 67 deaths for every 100,000 births. The rate is 17 deaths for every 100,000 births in the United States. 

Protecting Both

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 21 — Backers of various proposals to protect unborn children as well as their pregnant mothers from acts of violence have agreed to support a law that protects mother and child throughout pregnancy.

The Alabama District Attorneys Association switched its allegiance from a competing measure that would protect unborn children after 19 weeks of pregnancy.

The law will allow the state to charge criminals with a second crime when they kill or injure an unborn child in an assault against a pregnant woman.               

Alabama Attorney General Troy King said similar laws in other states have never been declared unconstitutional in any legal challenges to them filed by abortion advocates.