Page 8A
NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Saturday, April 16, 2016
As clinic access tightens, group
touts pregnancy-ending drug
Kyodo News via AP
A cyclist looks at a shopping arcade destroyed by the earthquake in Kumamo-
to city, southern Japan Saturday. A powerful earthquake struck southern Ja-
pan early Saturday, barely 24 hours after a smaller quake hit the same region.
Quakes kill at least 16 in
south Japan; many trapped
MASHIKI, Japan (AP)
— Two powerful earth-
quakes a day apart shook
southwestern Japan, killing
at least 16 people, trapping
PDQ\ RWKHUV EHQHDWK ÀDW-
tened homes and sending
thousands of residents to
seek refuge in gymnasiums
and hotel lobbies.
The exact number of
casualties remained unclear
as rescue efforts continued
to unfold Saturday. Police
said at least six were killed
in a magnitude 7.3 quake
that shook the Kumamoto
region on the southwestern
island of Kyushu at 1:25
a.m Saturday. On Thursday
night, Kyushu was hit by a
magnitude-6.5 quake that
left 10 dead and more than
800 injured.
7KH ¿UH GHSDUWPHQW
reported at least seven dead
from the early Saturday
quake, according to Kuma-
PRWR 3UHIHFWXUDO RI¿FLDO
Tomoyuki Tanaka.
A series of aftershocks
ensued, including a magni-
tude-5.4 Saturday morning.
The Japan Meteorological
Agency said that the
quake that struck earlier
Saturday may be the main
quake, with tge earlier one
a precursor. The quakes’
epicenters have been rela-
tively shallow — about 6
miles — and close to the
surface, resulting in more
severe shaking and damage.
Japanese media reported
that nearly 200,000 homes
were without electricity.
Drinking water systems
had also failed in the area.
Hundreds of people
were reported injured,
although some of the inju-
ries were minor.
Chief Cabinet Secre-
tary Yoshihide Suga,
in an emergency news
conference early Saturday,
said more than 300 calls
came in to the Kumamoto
police and another 100
to police in nearby Oita,
seeking help and reporting
people trapped or buried
underneath debris. He said
1,600 soldiers joined rescue
efforts. Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe said damage
from the magnitude-7.3
quake could be extensive.
The Nuclear Regulation
Authority reported no
abnormalities at Kyushu’s
Sendai nuclear plant.
Public broadcaster NHK
TV showed stones tumbled
from the walls of historic
Kumamoto Castle, and a
wooden structure in the
complex was smashed. At
the Ark Hotel, east of the
castle, hotel guests woke
up to strong shaking and a
warning siren. Hotel staff
told guests, including tour-
ists and journalists covering
the quake, to evacuate their
rooms and gather in the
lobby for safety.
A bright spot, broadcast
repeatedly on television
Friday, was the overnight
rescue of an apparently
uninjured baby, wrapped in
a blanket and carried out of
the rubble of a home.
Saturday’s quake hit
residents who were still in
shock from the previous
night’s earthquake and had
suffered through more than
100 aftershocks.
Yuichiro Yoshikado said
Thursday’s quake stuck as
he was taking a bath in his
apartment in Mashiki.
“I grabbed onto the sides
of the bathtub, but the water
in the tub, it was about 70
SHUFHQW ¿OOHG ZLWK ZDWHU
was going like this,” he
said, waving his arms, “and
all the water splashed out.”
“It’s as if all control was
lost. I thought I was going
to die and I couldn’t bear it
any longer.”
Yoshikado,
whose
building was undamaged
despite the intense shaking,
checked the damage at
his aunt and uncle’s home
nearby. Kitchenware was
VFDWWHUHG RQ WKH ÀRRU DQG
a clock had stopped around
9:26 p.m., the time of
Thursday’s quake.
NEW YORK (AP) — The
tightening of restrictions
on abortion clinics in many
states has emboldened some
abortion rights advocates to
launch an outreach effort,
reminding women they have
relatively safe and effective
means of ending a pregnancy
on their own through use of a
miscarriage-inducing drug.
Anti-abortion groups are
wary of the phenomenon,
disavowing any drive to pros-
ecute women who self-abort
but favoring crackdowns on
illegal distribution of the drug.
Even in the abortion rights
community, the outreach effort
has raised some concerns.
Dr. Hal Lawrence, presi-
dent of the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecol-
ogists, says it’s always prefer-
able for a woman undergoing
abortion to be under direct
supervision of a medical
professional.
Advocates of the new
approach say they would
agree, under ideal conditions,
but they worry that many
women — out of fear, poverty
or lack of a nearby clinic
— are not getting access to
professional services and
need accurate information if
they’re considering self-in-
duced abortion. Notably, they
want to highlight the option
of using the drug misoprostol
as a generally safe method
for inducing a miscarriage
ZLWKLQ WKH ¿UVW ZHHNV RI
pregnancy.
“There will always be
people who need to do this for
themselves, and they deserve
to have the resources and
information so they can do
so safely and effectively, free
from the threat of arrest,” said
Jill Adams, executive director
of the Center on Reproduc-
tive Rights and Justice at
the University of Califor-
nia-Berkeley law school.
She is chief strategist for
the Self-Induced Abortion
Legal Team, formed this year
by women from several legal
organizations after consulta-
tions with reproductive-rights
experts and activists.
The team’s goals —
outlined in a recent online
document — include halting
prosecutions of women for
Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP
In this 2015 file photo, Purvi Patel is taken into custody
after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for feticide
and neglect of a dependent, at the St. Joseph County
Courthouse in South Bend, Ind. Lynn Paltrow, executive
director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women,
said it marked the first time a woman in the U.S. has
been convicted and sentenced for attempting to end her
pregnancy.
self-induced abortions and
expanding access to reliable
information on how abortion
medication can be obtained
and used safely outside the
formal health care system.
Adams said a short-term goal
LV ¿QGLQJ ZD\V WR LQFUHDVH
access without breaking any
laws.
“We’re not here to incite
unlawful activity, nor to
reprimand anyone if they
do step outside the law,” she
said. “We’re here to equip
our friends and allies with
the information they’ve been
asking for.”
In the United States, miso-
prostol is legally available only
through authorized medical
professionals; it is commonly
used in combination with
another drug, mifepristone, as
part of a nonsurgical abortion
procedure with a strong safety
record. In many Latin Amer-
ican and Caribbean countries,
misoprostol is widely avail-
able, even over the counter in
pharmacies in some countries,
and has been used extensively
for self-induced abortions in
countries such as Brazil that
have restrictive abortion laws.
Used alone, misoprostol
is considered to be effective
75 to 90 percent of the time,
according to the World Health
Organization. That’s lower
than the rate of more than
95 percent for the two-drug
combination, but reliable
enough that the WHO has
circulated guidelines for how
to use it alone.
“There are all kinds of
reasons why it’s better for
women to have access to
professional medical care,”
said Vicki Saporta, president
of the National Abortion
Federation. “But when that
is not available, and there is
a desperate situation, these
drugs are very effective, and
women can safely terminate a
pregnancy.”
There’s no precise data
on the extent of self-induced
abortions in the U.S.; they
are rarely reported to any
authority or statistician. An
informal barometer was
provided by economist Seth
Stephens-Davidowitz, who
calculated in a recent New
York Times article that there
were 700,000 Google searches
for information about self-in-
duced abortion in the United
States in 2015.
John Seago, legislative
director of Texas Right To
Life, says he would support
efforts by law enforcement
to crack down on any illegal
WUDI¿FNLQJ RI DERUWLRQLQ-
ducing drugs, but he opposes
prosecutions of the women
who terminate their own
pregnancies.
“By putting that type of law
in place, we’d be dissuading
her from seeking medical help
afterward,” Seago said.
BRIEFLY
U.S.: North
Korean missile
launch a failure
SEOUL, South Korea
(AP) — A North Korea
missile launch meant to
celebrate the birthday of the
country’s founder ended in
IDLOXUH86GHIHQVHRI¿FLDOV
said, an embarrassing
setback in what was
reportedly the inaugural
test of a new, powerful
mid-range missile.
³,WZDVD¿HU\
catastrophic attempt
at a launch that was
unsuccessful,” Capt.
Jeff Davis, a Pentagon
spokesman, said Friday.
86RI¿FLDOVDUHVWLOO
assessing, but it was likely a
road-mobile missile, given
that it was launched from a
location not usually used for
ballistic missile launches, on
the country’s east coast, he
said.
South Korea’s Yonhap
news agency carried an
unsourced report that a
“Musudan” missile, which
could one day be capable of
reaching far-off U.S. military
EDVHVLQ$VLDDQGWKH3DFL¿F
exploded in the air a few
seconds after liftoff.
$86RI¿FLDOVSHDNLQJ
on condition of anonymity
to discuss intelligence
matters told The Associated
Press that it appeared to be
a Musudan missile but no
GH¿QLWLYHFRQFOXVLRQKDG
been reached.
Despite the failure, the
North has another Musudan
loaded on a mobile launcher
and Pyongyang will likely
¿UHLWDFFRUGLQJWR6RXWK
Korean and U.S. authorities,
Yonhap reported.
U.S. Defense Secretary
Ash Carter, speaking to
reporters during a stop on
the USS John C. Stennis
aircraft carrier in the South
China Sea, said that while
the U.S. deemed the launch
to be unsuccessful, it
“was nonetheless another
provocation by North Korea
in a region that doesn’t need
that kind of behavior.”
The UN Security Council
issued a statement saying
its members “strongly
condemned” the North’s
¿ULQJRIDEDOOLVWLFPLVVLOH
which it said constituted
a clear violation of UN
Security Council resolutions
although the launch was a
failure.
Brazil’s lower
house begins
impeachment
debate
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP)
— The lower chamber of
Brazil’s Congress on Friday
began a raucous debate
on whether to impeach
President Dilma Rousseff,
a question that underscores
the deep polarization in
Latin America’s largest
country and most-powerful
economy.
If lawmakers approved
the measure in a vote slated
for Sunday, it gets sent
to the Senate, where an
impeachment trial could
take place, prompting the
president’s suspension from
RI¿FH
The atmosphere in
the lower Chamber of
Deputies was electric, as
Rousseff’s critics festooned
themselves with yellow
and green ribbons and
brandished placards reading
“Impeachment Now!”
Lawmakers backing
impeachment allege
Rousseff’s administration
YLRODWHG¿VFDOUXOHVXVLQJ
sleight of hand accounting
in a bid to shore up public
support.
However, many of those
pushing for impeachment
face grave accusations of
corruption themselves,
prompting Rousseff and
her supporters to decry
the whole process as a
bold-faced power grab by
her foes.
Rousseff’s defenders
insist she did nothing illegal,
pointing out that similar
accounting techniques were
used by previous presidents.
ENERGY COSTS TOO HIGH?
TRY LOOKING AT IT IN
A DIFFERENT LIGHT.
Want to lower your energy costs? When you update lighting and other equipment, you can see the
difference instantly and recoup your investment in no time. Talk to a qualified trade ally to learn about
Energy Trust of Oregon cash incentives for all kinds of energy-saving solutions.
+
Get more from your energy.
Visit www.energytrust.org/mybusiness or call us at 1.866.368.7878.
Serving customers of Portland General Electric,
Pacific Power, NW Natural and Cascade Natural Gas.