“THE US is backing away from

what was once a core principle –

that a woman’s health matters.”

So says Alta Charo, professor of

law at the University of

Wisconsin, Madison, on the

banning on 18 April of a form of

late-term abortion dubbed

“partial-birth” abortion. There is

no exception for the health of the

mother, unless her life is in

danger. Many women seeking

late-term abortions are those who

have had amniocentesis and have

discovered genetic abnormalities.

The procedure involves

partially delivering the fetus,

before collapsing its skull and

then removing the fetus entirely.

In 2000, only 2200 of the

1.3 million abortions performed

in the US used this method.

A more widely used late-term

method, which involves

dismembering the fetus inside

the womb, is still legal.

The US Supreme Court

voted 5 to 4 to uphold the ban,

which was proposed by President

Bush in 2003 after a similar

law was struck down in 2000

as unconstitutional. Doctors

who perform the abortion

procedure could now face

criminal prosecution, fines and

up to two years in prison.

IN THE US the death penalty

coexists with the hope that there

is a “humane” way to kill someone.

So 37 of the 38 states that sanction

it use the supposedly painless

lethal injection. But new evidence

suggests that people may still be

suffering during such executions.

In most states, the lethal

injection is a three-drug cocktail:

sodium thiopental to make the

person unconscious; followed by

pancuronium bromide to

paralyse muscles and stop

breathing; and finally potassium

chloride to stop the heart.

Researchers led by Teresa

Zimmers at the University of

Miami in Florida have shown that

this protocol is flawed. First, they

found that the quantity of sodium

thiopental administered varied

enormously, from 10 to 75

milligrams per kilogram of body

weight. The lower levels are barely

above the dosage recommended

for surgical anaesthesia. The

researchers speculate that people

may be conscious even as they are

being suffocated from paralysis.

What’s more, execution logs

showed that people’s hearts kept

beating between 2 and 9 minutes

“The US is backing away from a core principle – that a woman’s health matters“

“People may be conscious even as they are being suffocated from paralysis”

SOUNDS like the perfect holiday

spot: a place with spectacular

scarlet sunsets and a balmy

climate. Just one problem: it’s

20.5 light years away, on the first

habitable alien Earth ever found.

“It’s the smallest, lightest

planet known at this time,” says

Stéphane Udry of the Geneva

Observatory, Switzerland. “And

it’s at the right distance from its

star for liquid water to possibly

exist on its surface.”

Udry’s team found the planet

around a red dwarf star called

Gliese 581, using the European

Southern Observatory’s 3.6-metre

telescope in Chile. They say the

planet is five times as massive as

Earth and 50 per cent wider, with

temperatures of about 0 to 40 °C

at its rocky surface. Such a planet

could have water and be habitable.

Its red star would loom 10

times as wide in the sky as the sun

does here.

AFP

after they were given potassium

chloride. “[It] usually causes

instantaneous cardiac arrest,” says

Jonathan Groner of Ohio State

University. He thinks the other

drugs may be delaying its effect.

Despite the results, Zimmers

refuses to offer any advice on

making lethal injections painless.

“I think it’s unethical,” she says.

“It’s a perversion of everything we

as physicians try to do.”

OWEN

FRAN

KEN/

CORB

IS

–Lethal, eventually–

–Unwelcome passengers? –

60 SECONDS

Fresh angle on the sun

The first 3D images of the sun were

released by NASA on Monday. They

were created using pictures taken

simultaneously by the satellite duo

called Stereo, launched in October

2006. Stereo captured holes in the

sun’s corona and magnetic loops rising

from particularly turbulent parts.

Gorillas on the up

The number of mountain gorillas living

in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable

Forest has increased by 6 per cent since

2002. For the first time, the survey by

conservation agencies used genetic

sampling to avoid counting the same

individual twice. Bwindi’s gorillas

now number 340, up from 320 in 2002,

and 300 in 1997.

The billionth seed

The UK’s Millennium Seed Bank, part

of the Royal Botanic Gardens and home

to the world’s largest collection of

wild seeds, has banked its billionth

seed. It is from an African bamboo,

Oxytenanthera abyssinica, collected in

Mali, and will be banked in a ceremony

next month.

Evolving for climate change

A study of mosquito chromosomes,

to be published in Genetics, has

highlighted regions that are apparently

evolving in response to climate change.

University of Oregon biologists

identified areas on three chromosomes

that respond to day length. Other

researchers are looking at the same

regions in other organisms to better

understand the genetic response to

rapid climate change.

To her daughter, a sister

A Canadian woman is freezing her eggs

for possible future use by her 7-year-old

daughter. The procedure could make it

possible for the daughter, who has

Turner’s syndrome, to give birth to her

own half-sister. While there have been

several cases of daughters donating

fresh eggs to their ageing mothers, this

is the first in which a mother has

offered to bank eggs for her daughter.

www.newscientist.com 28 April 2007 | NewScientist | 5

US abortion ban

Death in torment

Home from home

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