High Court to Study Drug Tests on Pregnant Women

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 28 — The Supreme Court said it will decide sometime in 2001 whether public hospitals can test pregnant mothers for drug use and identify for police those who tested positive, reported the wire service.

The court will determine whether a South Carolina hospital's policy aimed at detecting pregnant women who use crack cocaine violates the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search.

The hospital discontinued its policy after a 1993 lawsuit was filed by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy on behalf of 10 women who had been tested. A total of 30 maternity patients were arrested for child-endangerment while the policy was in place.

South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon said the case will not deter the state's efforts. “South Carolina's policy of protecting unborn children from their moth-er's cocaine abuse will continue even at public hospitals,” he told the AP. “Search warrants can be used as well as consents to search.”

Effort to Reduce Kosovar Birthrate Alleged

ZENIT, Feb. 24 — A new series of documents was released yesterday by the Population Research Institute on the United Nations Population Fund's collaboration with the regime of Yugoslavian President Slobodon Milosevic to reduce the birthrate of Kosovar Albanians, raising concerns about violations of the U.N. Convention against Genocide, reported the Rome-based news service.

ZENIT also reported that a senior U.S. State Department official, Elaine Jones, criticized the U.N. population fund for its work “to promote abortion and outdated contraceptives to Kosovars at the request of the Milosevic government.”

Jones said that UNFPA “reproductive health kits sent to the region include ‘manual vacuum aspirators’ for first trimester abortions, ‘morning after’ pills, and various methods of birth control including the Pill, Depo-Provera, condoms and IUDs.”

According to Jones, citing Population Research Institute reports on the United Nations Population Fund's Kosovo campaign, the effort was administered in a haphazard way which threatened the health of Kosovar women.

Senate Hearings on Unborn Victims of Violence Act

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 23 — A pro-life bill that would make killing an unborn child during a violent act a federal crime is a “flawed federal response” to assaults against women, the Clinton administration told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a public hearing, reported the news wire.

Eleanor Acheson, an assistant attorney general, said the Justice Department would recommend President Clinton veto the legislation if it reaches his desk. The bill “may be perceived as gratuitously plunging the federal government into one of the most difficult and complex issues of religious and scientific consideration,” Acheson said.

The legislation, passed by the House last September, would make it a separate offense to injure or kill an unborn child in the commission of a crime of violence against a pregnant woman.

Sonja Inge, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the bill's effect would be “legally separating a woman from her fetus, which is like the beginning step of eroding her right to choose [an abortion],” reported the AP.

Nicaragua Establishes ‘Day of the Unborn’

PRO-LIFE INFONET, Feb. 24 — Nicaragua has officially declared March 25 as the “National Day of the Unborn,” according to pro-life sources at Pro-Life Infonet.

A decree published in the official Nicaraguan Gazette explains the decision was taken because “Article 23 of the Political Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua declares that the right to life is inviolable and inherent to every human person.”

The document also recalls that the defense of life of the unborn is a commitment adopted by all countries that adhere to the “International American Accord sovereign-ly recognized and ratified,” reported Pro-Life Infonet.

After mentioning that “the right to life, inherent in each of the inhabitants of the nation and the world, is the principal axis of human rights and, therefore, merits the determined attention of the government,” the decree declares “March 25 of every year as the ‘National Day of the Unborn.’”