The Point of Pre-born Pain Treatment

MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE, July 19 — Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has signed a bill requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation that the unborn children might feel pain during the procedure, and offer them the option of fetal anesthesia.

Supporters say they hope the legislation raises awareness of the humanity of the unborn child much the way partial-birth-abortion bans have done.

They said it also strengthens Minnesota's Woman's Right to Know bill, which requires that women be given accurate information about abortion and fetal development before abortion.

Pride Parades Fall from Favor

SSONET.COM, July 21 — The homosexually oriented website reported on opposition to a “gay pride” parade in Latvia's capital city of Riga as one in a series of “recent bans” on such events in a number of countries.

While the Riga event did go off on an informal basis, support for it was withdrawn by the city council. Meanwhile it was denounced by Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis, who described plans to hold the parade near the 13th-century cathedral as a sacrilege.

In June, the mayors of Warsaw, Poland, and Jerusalem banned similar marches in their cities.

Acknowledging Abstinence

THE WASHINGTON POST, July 19 — Despite the reluctance in certain quarters to acknowledge that abstinence education is effective, deriding such programs is increasingly harder to do in light of the fact that the number of abortions is at its lowest level since 1976.

In a story headlined, “Abortion: Just the Data,” the reliably “pro-choice” Post was careful to cite a variety of factors for the decade-long drop while carefully maintaining that “scientists say it is difficult to determine why.”

In the year 2002, about 1.29 million women in the United States had abortions, according to statistics recently announced. In 1990, that number was 1.61 million.

In a sign that such programs can no longer be dismissed, the Post quoted experts who said abstinence-education programs and lower rates of sexual activity by young people are possible causes for the abortion decline.