Dispel the Illusion

Young women who have an abortion or a miscarriage are more likely to develop a substance abuse problem or psychiatric disorder, a Brisbane researcher has found. Kaeleen Dingle from the University of Queensland's School of Population Health examined 280 women aged between 18 and 23 who have experienced pregnancy, and found a link between losing a baby and mental health issues.

Pro-democracy activists in Shanghai said that the police have assaulted residents who have tried to lodge complaints at official agencies. The restrictions coincide with Thursday's 30th anniversary of Gaige Kaifang, the moment when China opened up to the world under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. An increasing number of critics are pointing out, however, that China's economic success is a hollow victory without political change. The purge was launched at the end of November, after the execution of Yang Jia, a 28-year-old man convicted of killing six policemen.

The Chinese government has quietly begun preventing access again to Web sites that it had stopped blocking during the Olympic Games in China in August, Internet experts said on Tuesday. Liu Jianchao, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said at his semi-weekly news conference on Tuesday in Beijing that the Chinese government had a right to censor Web sites that violate the country's laws.

A member of the Indiana General Assembly on Tuesday asked the state attorney general and Marion County prosecutor to investigate video-taped advice given at two Planned Parenthood clinics to a woman who said she was underage and wanted an abortion. In one video, taken at a Bloomington clinic and released earlier this month, a woman who said she was a minor who was pregnant by a 31-year-old man was told by a Planned Parenthood representative to seek an abortion in Illinois.

Jonathan Gagne, a courageous teenager at the Joseph-Hermas-Leclerc secondary school in Granby, Que., has just been suspended, and will likely be expelled, for boycotting ERC (the Ethics and Religious Culture course). He is a hero to thousands of angry, mainly Catholic, Quebecers who consider compulsory submission to ERC a violation of their human rights. The ERC curricula are mandated to introduce students to Quebec's rich diversity of religious tenets and "facilitate the spiritual development of students so as to promote self-fulfilment." Since when does the state "facilitate" spiritual self-fulfilment?