Pro-Life Purchase Power

CHILDREN OF GOD FOR LIFE, April 24 — Two pro-life organizations have lodged a complaint with the chief executive officer of pharmaceutical giant Merck, which has used fetal stem-cell lines to produce vaccines. And the company head had to listen: The organizations are stockholders.

Children of God for Life and Human Life International combined to purchase enough Merck stock to file a formal resolution at a Merck company meeting April 22. The pro-life resolution passed and Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, said the stage is set for further action.

Charge Upgraded

CHANNELOKLAHOMA.COM, April 28 — Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols will be charged with first-degree murder in the death of an unborn child whose mother was killed in the 1995 bombing, reported the Web site of Oklahoma's Channel 5 News.

Nichols already faces 160 counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors initially planned to charge him with manslaughter in the death of the unborn baby of bombing victim Robin Ann Huff. Assistant District Attorney Lou Keel said Huff's child, due in June 1995, had been in gestation for 32 weeks.

An Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruling last year said the killing of an unborn child can be a homicide if the fetus could have lived outside the mother's womb.

Michigan's Moment of Birth

KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION, May 1 — The Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would define legal birth as the first moment any part of a fetus is outside a woman's body.

The bill, known as the Legal Birth Definition Act, would also declare a fetus alive when there is a detectable heartbeat or evidence of spontaneous movement or breathing. Although the committee amended the measure to make sure it does not abolish any part of Roe v. Wade, opponents of the legislation said that it could ban so-called “partial-birth" abortion.

Not So Fast in Texas AMERICAN-STATESMAN, April 29 — The Texas House has voted to require a 24-hour waiting period for women who seek abortions — time they would have to weigh their decision and study state-provided information about risks and alternatives, reported the American-Statesman, a newspaper based in Austin.

Under the pending proposal, the Texas Department of Health would provide descriptions of the medical risks of abortion, adoption alternatives and the financial responsibilities of fathers. The package would also include color photographs of unborn children at two-week intervals of development.