Sheer Horror

From Nicaragua:

A total ban on abortion in Nicaragua is endangering the lives of girls and women according to an Amnesty International report out today.

A new law which came into force a year ago has criminalised abortion regardless of the circumstances, leaving incest and rape victims compelled to have babies, and pregnant women with serious illnesses denied treatment.

The organisation says their report, "The total abortion ban in Nicaragua: Women's lives and health endangered, medical professionals criminalised", found a minimum of 33 girls and women have died in pregnancy this year, compared to 20 for the same period last year.

Amnesty said the new penal code, which came into force in July last year, criminalises all forms of abortion regardless of the circumstances in which it is sought, obtained or performed. The revised code stipulates prison sentences for girls and women who seek an abortion and for health professionals who provide health services associated with abortion.

It also stipulates criminal sanctions for medical workers who treat pregnant women for illnesses such as cancer and HIV/Aids, where the treatment may cause injury to the unborn baby.

The law also goes as far as to punish those who have suffered a miscarriage, as in many cases it is impossible to distinguish whether it was induced or not.

Only three per cent of the world's countries have such absolute bans on abortion in place.

Speaking at a press conference in Mexico City following her visit to Nicaragua, Amnesty International's executive deputy secretary general, Kate Gilmore, said: "Nicaragua's penal code is a callous and cynical artefact of the political wheeling and dealing that took place in the country's 2006 elections*. Today, however, it punishes women and girl children for seeking life saving medical treatment and doctors for providing it.

"There's only one way to describe what we have seen in Nicaragua: sheer horror.

"Children are being compelled to bear children. Pregnant women are being denied essential including life saving medical care.

"What alternatives is this government offering a ten-year-old pregnant as a result of rape? And to a cancer sufferer who is denied life saving treatment just because she is pregnant, while she has other children waiting at home?"

From AI's site:

"Nicaragua’s ban of therapeutic abortion is a disgrace. It is a human rights scandal that ridicules medical science and distorts the law into a weapon against the provision of essential medical care to pregnant girls and women," said Kate Gilmore.

Sheer horror is what the fetus fetishists would inflict on us.

But you knew that.

I wondered what SUZY ALL-CAPS would make of it. (Link removed because of fetal pr0n redirect.)

And amidst the horror, I laughed. This is the craziest pretzel-brained leap-spin-twist of Lame Logic I've seen this week.

Here's her title: 'Amnesty International Calls on Nicaragua to Discriminate Against its Unborn Citizens'. Then the requisite quote from LifeShite, then the intended knock-out to the nads:

Amnesty cannot be a true human rights organization and call for Nicaragua to permit the killing of its citizens.

Shame on Amnesty International.

I'm pretty sure SHE's dead serious.

* For more information on the dastardly wheeling and dealing, including Daniel Ortega's embrace of Catholicism, at least in part to evade charges of 'systematic sexual abuse' of his step-daughter, check out this old blogpost I wrote at Birth Pangs.