Assorted news

1) Abortionist Rapin Osathanondh took a plea deal in his trial for the 2007 botched-abortion death of Laura Hope Smith. His guilty plea for involuntary manslaughter came on the third anniversary of Smith's death. Sentencing will take place later today and is expected to be fairly light: the 67-year-old, who has already agreed to stop practicing "medicine," will spend a short time in jail followed by home confinement and probation.

Osathanondh, an obstetrician and a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, was accused of failing to monitor Smith while she was under anesthesia and failing to call 911 in a timely fashion when he could not rouse her after the procedure.

Additionally, following their own investigation, the state board of medicine found Osathanondh lied repeatedly to his staff about the incident, telling them he gave Smith oxygen, monitored her pulse and claimed he and his assistant were certified in advanced cardiac life support.

2) A dead infant was discovered in a storage bin at a Planned Parenthood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It's unclear how the baby girl ended up there and an investigation is ongoing. Although the article doesn't mention it, the facility in question does abortions. (Update: Jill Stanek reports that the abortion workers who saw the dead baby-- only a few weeks older than the babies killed inside-- are apparently going to receive counseling.)

3) Registration has opened for the 2011 Students for Life of America national conference. SecularProLife.org founder Kelsey Hazzard will speak, along with many other pro-life leaders and experts. Here's her speech from last year:



In our continuing effort to reach out to pro-life young people (who are less likely to be religious than older pro-lifers), we would like to have a booth at the conference this year. The cost is $600. Please help us make that happen by donating!