Abortion reforms spark protest in Spain /Pregnancy drug helps heal broken hearts

March 30, 2009

Abortion reforms spark protest in Spain

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 & click_id=3 & art_id=nw20090329170624315C816764

March 29 2009 at 05:27PM

Related Articles

Four embryos found in glass jars Gay marriages get thumbs down in Portugal Pope on abortion

Madrid - Tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded central Madrid on Sunday, waving banners and chanting slogans against government plans to liberalise the country's abortion laws.Protesters massed outside the Equality Ministry, which is drafting a law, and marched through the streets with signs proclaiming: "There is no right to kill, there is the right to live" and "Women yes, abortion no"."Get out of here and let the children live," they chanted, calling on the socialist government's equality minister Bibiana Aido to resign.A spokesman for groups organising the protest, which included Right to Life and Doctors For Life, said there were 500 000 demonstrators. AFP reporters estimated the number at up to 100 000. Police did not immediately give a figure.

Elderly people marched alongside young families with toddlers in pushchairs as the protest wound its way through the city centre.Many wore red baseball caps distributed by pro-life groups as a symbol "of strength and the celebration of life.""As a Catholic, I think we should help women have children, not abort them," said one protesters, Paco Ortega, 42.In one part of the demonstration, children in red caps danced and sang: "Thank you mummy for letting me live."The protest was the first in a series of demonstrations against the abortion reform by the socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.It wants to offer greater legal protection to women who wish to have an abortion and doctors who carry out the procedure.Spain decriminalised abortion in 1985 but only for certain cases: up to 12 weeks of pregnancy after a rape; up to 22 weeks in the case of malformation of the foetus; and at any point if the pregnancy represented a threat to the physical or mental health of the woman.The government also proposes to give girls from the age of 16 the right to have an abortion without their parents' consent.Earlier this month a government-appointed panel of experts recommended that Spain ease its restrictions on abortion and allow the procedure on demand up to 14 weeks into a pregnancy."The government wants to approve a free abortion law that leaves the unborn completely unprotected," Right to Life spokeswoman Gador Joya told the crowd at the end of the march.The proposed law "will only lead to more deaths and more suffering by thousands of women," she said. "We demand that our laws protect the right to live and to be a mother."The march was backed by the right wing opposition and by Spain's Roman Catholic Church, which has clashed with the government before over the legalisation of gay marriage. There were also mass demonstrations against a 2005 law which allowed homosexuals and lesbians to marry.Last week, the church announced a new anti-abortion campaign that says threatened species of animals are better protected than the unborn.Only two percent of abortions in Spain are estimated to take place in public clinics, where many doctors refuse to perform them on ethical grounds or because they fear legal action.A Spanish feminist coalition on Friday launched a campaign to support the government plans."We are going to flood Spain with posters in response to the church's alarmist campaign," said Angeles Alvarez, spokeswoman for the State Network of Feminist Organisations, which groups over 200 associations. - AFP

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 & click_id=31 & art_id=nw20090329180537729C704138

Pregnancy drug helps heal broken hearts

March 29 2009 at 06:24PM

Related Articles

Cancer-killing virus developed - scientists

Chicago - A pregnancy hormone that relaxes blood vessels appeared to reduce symptoms of acute heart failure and improve survival, according to a preliminary study released by US researchers on Sunday.They said the hormone relaxin, which is being developed by privately held US firm Corthera, was safe, and showed signs of reducing the risk of death from heart problems during the study.The findings suggest that "early administration of this drug, in addition to standard therapy, might be associated with more rapid, sustained and complete resolution of acute heart failure, as well as with more favourable long-term outcomes," John Teerlink of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues wrote in the journal Lancet.

If established in larger studies, the benefits of relaxin might represent an important advance in the treatment of patients with acute heart failure," the researchers wrote.In pregnancy, the hormone helps relax and lengthen the cervix to prepare for childbirth, but it is also thought to be a natural vasodilator, widening blood vessels and allowing blood to flow more freely.Vasodilators are often given to people with high blood pressure, which is common in heart failure, a condition in which the heart gradually loses its ability to pump blood efficiently, leaving organs starved for oxygen.Teerlink and colleagues studied 234 elderly patients with heart failure and high blood pressure who were given either a 48-hour intravenous infusion of the drug or a placebo.They found it was safe and helped to reduce shortness of breath in 40 percent of patients who received a moderate dose of the drug, compared with 23 percent who took a placebo.It also reduced the number of patients in the study who died from heart problems or were readmitted to the hospital within two months for kidney failure compared with the placebo, according to the results, which were also presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Florida.An estimated 5.3 million Americans have heart failure, a chronic but often deadly condition that will cost $34.8 billion this year for direct and indirect US treatment costs, according to the American Heart Association. - Reuters