Abortion Memorial

Memorial: 50 million pennies for 50 million babies aborted

From the Clarion-Ledger, December 2:

( http://www.lifenews.com/state3676.html )

There's a half million dollars sitting on the corner of Mississippi and President streets [in Jackson, MS], but no one could possibly steal it.

That's because the cash is in the form of pennies - 50 million of them - that collectively weigh 156 tons.

The coins, which fill a glass house on the grounds of the Mississippi Baptist Convention building, provide a visual reminder of the number of abortions performed in the United States since the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973. [Photo above shows memorial with only 26 million pennies in 2007.]...

"We just needed something to memorialize and help people see the magnitude of abortion over the last several decades," said the Rev. Jimmy Porter, executive director of the Mississippi Baptist Convention's Christian Action Commission.

Called the "Memorial to the Missing," the penny-filled structure is a project of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, which set out more than two years ago to collect one penny for each child who would have been born were it not for legalized abortion.

Now that the convention reached its goal of collecting 50 million pennies, it plans to invest the money in a fund dedicated to anti-abortion causes.

"I think it's been real effective," said the Rev. Clarence Cooper, who was president of the convention when the memorial was erected on Mother's Day weekend in 2006, "especially to those who have taken the time to read the large plaque that is there."

The plaque says the coins not only represent aborted babies but "the difficult process of decision-making, fear and loneliness" involved with abortion. It asks passersby to "stop, pray, consider what we are doing as a nation, ask God to forgive us, seek ways to help those who are struggling with the decision and look to the Lord to restore each of us."

Convention spokesman William Perkins said people often stop at the container to pray and insert their own coins into the structure's penny slot.

"There are a number of stories we've heard about grandparents who walk by and saw it and read the plaque and dug in their pockets and put pennies in the memorial for grandchildren who have been aborted," he said. "It's been an interesting couple of years."

Meanwhile, continued contributions can be made to the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission.

Removing the pennies from the container will be no easy feat.

"It will be interesting to see how that's done," Perkins said. "There's no clear-cut way to do that."

The coins are piled 6 feet deep in the 13-by-7 glass house.

The structure weighs more than 300,000 pounds - or the equivalent of 100 sedans stacked on top of each other.

The container is made of steel and bullet-proof glass and is reinforced by five concrete pilings buried 14 feet into the ground.

The first batch of 20 million pennies were poured into the container when the memorial was dedicated in 2006....

Perkins said the memorial's position facing the MS State Capitol sends a message to legislators that MS Baptists support laws that oppose abortion.

"This is one of the most pro-life states in the country as far as our Legislature goes," he said.

There is only one abortion provider in MS, and the state has some of most restrictive abortion laws in the country....

8lb baby born at 8.08am on 08/08

A baby was born at exactly:

Eight minutes past eight;

On the eighth of the eighth 2008;

Weighing eight pounds.

Baby Conner Bolland,

with mum Samantha Wilson,

was born at 8.08am

Photo: ROSS PARRY AGENCY

By Daily Telegraph Reporter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2526538/8lb-baby-born-at-8.08am-on-0808.html

Conner Bolland's split second timing bodes well, as eight is considered a lucky number in many cultures.

His mother Samantha Wilson, 20, was taken to hospital on Wednesday when her waters broke, but Conner waited until the exact stroke of 8.08am on Friday to make his remarkable entrance.
Miss Wilson said: "It's just incredible.

"It wasn't until about an hour before he was born one of the midwives said 'if you can hang on for just a bit longer your baby could be born at 8am'.

"He was due on the seventh so it's almost as if he waited for the exact time to make his appearance.

"He's our first child so obviously he was always going to be special but this has made him unique."

Youth worker Samantha lives in Hull, East Yorkshire, with partner Bill Bolland, a 39-year-old car park attendant.

The pair met through work two years ago.

She said: "We will make him fully aware of how special he is when he is old enough to understand. He was smiling straight away.

"He looks a lot like his dad. I don't really have any ambitions for what I want him to do when he grows up - he can be whoever he wants to be."

The Beijing Olympics werwe deliberately timed to began at 8.08pm as the Chinese believe that the number eight is lucky, because it sounds similar to their word for 'wealth'.

Labour ward manager Sue Proctor said: "There's been a real buzz on the ward. We were joking in the morning that maybe one of our new arrivals would be at 8.08am but we never dreamed it would happen. It has to be highly unusual that it all fell into place, it's a real fluke.

Premature Birth Can Lead To Life-Long Problems

Premature Birth Can Lead To Life-Long Problems

Most babies are born after 40 weeks of pregnancy. However, a significant number of children come into the world early.

There are many reasons why babies are born 'pre-term'. In developing countries, poor maternal care, poor nutrition for mothers, infections and disease can contribute to preterm birth. But some children in the industrialized world are also born early - and the numbers of preterm births are slowly rising. The reason for the increase is unclear.




Duke University obstetrics professor Geeta Swamy was interested in the long-term effects of being born prematurely. She says, "We don't know a lot about what happens to those children [over the] long term, particularly as they grow up into adolescence and into adulthood and what implications does this have on their long-term health."

Swami was able to analyze the lifetime medical records of more than a million children born in Norway. She collected information about when they were born, what kinds of health problems they had and when they died.


Swamy focused on preterm children born before 37 weeks gestation, and also on children born before 28 weeks gestation? that's considered extremely preterm. She found children who were born early were also more likely to die early.

For girls, the increased risk of mortality was about 10 times higher than those born at term. And that's particularly true for those girls who were born extremely preterm. For boys who were born extremely preterm, they had about a five times increased risk of death during the early childhood age, up to about age 6, but they also had an increased risk mortality, up to about age 13.


Swamy says she also found long-term effects of being born early. Preterm children ended up completing fewer years of education. And they were less likely to have children of their own.



Among women who are born at term, roughly 70% of those women went on to reproduce or have a child. Among those women who were born extremely preterm, say, before 28 weeks, only 25% of those women actually went on to reproduce or have a child? We saw similar implications for men who are born preterm and term. For those who were born at term, about 50% of them went on to reproduce, compared to only about 14% of men who were born extremely preterm.


Swamy says scientists don't know for sure why prematurity confers such risk over the lifetime, and other studies are looking for those answers.

Her research is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

By Vannasone Keodara (05/04/2008)

Health in Lao Language, 3.05 MB - Download (MP3)

Health in Lao Language, 3.05 MB - Listen to (MP3)

Baby With 2 Faces Born in North India

Mother Sushma holds her daughter Lali at their residence in Saini Sunpura, 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of New Delhi, India, Tuesday, April 8, 2008. The baby with two faces, two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes was born on March 11 in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday. Credit: AP Photo/Gurinder Osan

SAINI SUNPURA, India (AP) — A baby with two faces was born in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday.

The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. Except for her ears, all of Lali's facial features are duplicated — she has two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes.

"My daughter is fine — like any other child,'' said Vinod Singh, 23, a poor farm worker.

Lali has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini Sunpura, 25 miles east of New Delhi. When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery on March 11, she was swarmed by villagers, said Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital.

"She drinks milk from her two mouths and opens and shuts all the four eyes at one time,'' Ali said.

Rural India is deeply superstitious and the little girl is being hailed as a return of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, a fiery deity traditionally depicted with three eyes and many arms.

Up to 100 people have been visiting Lali at her home every day to touch her feet out of respect, offer money and receive blessings, Singh told The Associated Press.

"Lali is God's gift to us,'' said Jaipal Singh, a member of the local village council. "She has brought fame to our village.''

Village chief Daulat Ram said he planned to build a temple to Durga in the village.

"I am writing to the state government to provide money to build the temple and help the parents look after their daughter,'' Ram said.

Lali's condition is often linked to serious health complications, but the doctor said she was doing well.

"She is leading a normal life with no breathing difficulties,'' said Ali, adding that he saw no need for surgery.

Lali's parents were married in February 2007. Lali is their first child.

Singh said he took his daughter to a hospital in New Delhi where doctors suggested a CT scan to determine whether her internal organs were normal, but Singh said he felt it was unnecessary.

"I don't feel the need of that at this stage as my daughter is behaving like a normal child, posing no problems,'' he said.




By Gurindar Osan, Associated Press