by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• FactCheck.org finds that the Obama campaign is twisting Romney’s position on abortion in their latest ad.
• In Colorado, a five-time DUI offender is responsible for a crash which injured a pregnant woman, her five-year-old son and killed her near-term unborn child.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• NPR has a long story on forced abortion, the One-Child Policy, and future population problems in China.
• Fifteen Chinese scholars have issued a public letter calling for the Chinese government to rethink their One-Child Policy:
  

  “The birth approval system built on the idea of controlling population size as emphasized in the current ‘Population and Family Planning Law‘ does not accord with provisions on the protection of human rights contained in the nation’s constitution,” the authors of Thursday’s letter wrote, adding that a rewriting of the law was “imperative.” …

  Researchers with the Research Development Center, a prominent government-affiliated think tank, added their voices to the chorus on Tuesday with an open call for Beijing to consider revising the policy, though they made no mention of Ms. Feng. Instead, the researchers focused on China’s rapidly aging population and a predicted dearth of young workers that some have said could bring about a demographic crisis.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Deng Jiyuan, the husband of the Chinese woman who was forced into a 7-month abortion has resurfaced in Beijing after leaving his hometown and is seeking help to get his wife released from the local hospital:
  

  Despite her requests to leave, Ms. Feng has been held in Shanxi Zhenping County Hospital watched over by local government officials, since being forced to abort her seven-month-old fetus on June 2.

  In a sign that local officials may be bending to public pressure, Ms. Feng’s sister-in-law, Deng Jicai, said by phone Friday evening that doctors had told her Ms. Feng would be released from the hospital following a final check up on Saturday. “Right now there is no one blocking us from leaving,” Ms. Deng said. “Those government people have been gone since yesterday.”

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Two local Maryland laws regulating crisis pregnancy centers have been struck down:
  

  In a 2-1 ruling Wednesday, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled that the Baltimore and Montgomery County ordinances violated the pregnancy centers’ free-speech rights.

• In China, the husband of a woman forcibly aborted at 7 months has gone missing:
  

  Deng Jiyuan traveled to Beijing last week to meet with lawyers and journalists to discuss the incident. But, according to his sister, Mr. Deng was met with fierce resistance. “More than 100 people and a dozen of cars showed up to stop him, and a man suddenly appeared and kicked my brother in the stomach,” Deng Jicai said.

  On Sunday, government officials purportedly urged local townspeople to unfold a banner near the hospital where Feng was located, which called the family “traitors” and ordered that they be excommunicated from the town. Meanwhile, photos were posted online displaying a red banner that reads, “severely beat the traitors and expel them.”

On Saturday came the surprising and welcome news that Chinese pro-life dissident Chen Guangcheng, his wife, and their two children had arrived in the U.S., after a “daylong and hastily arranged flight from Beijing,” according to the New York Times. Next steps, according to NYT:

Mr. Chen will be allowed to attend law school on a fellowship rather than seek asylum, which the authorities in Beijing would have considered an affront. [New York University]… officials said they had already stocked a faculty apartment with Chinese food and new furniture for him.

Pro-life Republican Congressman Chris Smith was one of a throng of supporters and reporters who met Chen at Newark Airport….

Read my previous posts here and here.

News reports today are relaying contradictory yet alarming information about the well-being of Chinese pro-life dissident Chen Guangcheng and his family.

Previous reports indicated Chen wanted to remain in China after having escaped to the U.S. Embassy on April 22.

But after Chen was reunited with his wife – only after being returned by the U.S. to the Chinese – and learning how she was treated in his absence, he apparently changed his mind and wants to leave the country – on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plane, no less. Here is audio of a taped interview with The Guardian wherein Chen where he says he now wants out.

This entire Time piece is well worth reading and appears to give the most accurate account of events to date. Following are key excerpts:

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat The Detroit Free Press has an AP story on China’s one-child policy and those who defy it: It’s impossible to know how many children have been born in violation of the one-child policy, but Zhai Zhenwu, director of Renmin University’s School of Sociology and Population in Beijing, estimates […]

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat The Telegraph-Herald has a story on the possibility of telemed abortions coming to Dubuque, IA, after the merger of Planned Parenthood affiliates. While a PP spokeswoman says no decision has been made, the T-H got its hands on a letter to PP donors which seems to indicate otherwise. […]