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Meanwhile, Muslims in Jibla, Yemen, mourned the deaths of the three missionaries. "Every day [Martha Myers] looked after me, she used to come to my house, until I was able to stand and walk without endangering my pregnancy," said Samira Abdullah about her troubled pregnancy two years ago. "Without her, I wouldn't have Ali," Abdullah said. "She was a friend more than a doctor."

"All Jibla weeps for them," said Malka al-Hadhrami, who worked as a clerk in the hospital.

Other follow-up press reports say that missionaries remain undeterred in ministering in Yemen and other Islamic countries.

Life ethics:

• Foes of abortion push for major bills in Congress | Galvanized by the Republican takeover of the Senate, opponents of abortion are preparing a major push for new abortion restrictions in the next Congress (The New York Times)
  
  
• Texas Supreme Court backs restriction on abortions | State can withhold funding from poor women who need the procedure for medical reasons (Houston Chronicle)
  
  
• Also: Texas court upholds abortion fund limits | The state is not constitutionally obligated to pay for abortions for poor women who may have health complications from their pregnancy, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Tuesday (Associated Press)
  
  
• Also: Text of decision: Charles E. Bell v. Low Income Women of Texas (Texas Supreme Court)
  
  
• Anti-abortion plates 'unconstitutional' | Senior U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman said last week that the specialty plates, approved by the Legislature in 2001, violate the First Amendment because they provide a forum for abortion foes that abortion rights supporters do not have (Associated Press)
  
  
• Also: New try urged for abortion plate bill | Ohio State Senator Jack Westwood has proposed a bill that would create a vehicular license plate that says "Choose Life" (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
  
  
• Judge rules against abortion clinic | Montgomery County judges uphold zoning decision that bars a women's health services clinic from performing abortions at its site in a multi-story office building. (Times Herald, Philadelphia)
  
  
• Assembly to mull abortion curbs | Abortion issues will likely take center stage when the Virginia General Assembly reconvenes next week (The Washington Times)

• Bad eggs in the cloning lab | But the Dec. 26 birth, real or not, presents us with a dilemma because cloning is also an ongoing goal by scientists who do not believe in space aliens (Dennis Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  
  
• Cloning protocols pressing | Sensible, worldwide protocols are badly needed because even if "Eve" is a hoax, some maverick scientist will some time produce a human clone (Editorial, The New Zealand Herald)

Church and state:

• When God needs a joke, He just has to look at us | It's been a funny year along America's border between church and state. Funny strange and funny ha-ha (David Waters)
  
  
• Students face discipline for offering Bible message | Several Westfield High School students who handed out candy canes with religious note to their classmates the week before Christmas are bracing for possible suspension from school after they return from winter break tomorrow (The Boston Globe)
  
  
• Monument sale ends controversy | The City of Frederick received what could be considered a Christmas present last week, when it sold the property on which the Ten Commandments monument stands and ended one of the biggest controversies of 2002 (The Gazette, Gaithersburg, Md.)
  
  
• Elgin searches for balance with public prayer | Baptist school's involvement is latest incarnation of a 2-year-old saga in Elgin over the invocation that traditionally begins, with the Pledge of Allegiance, all of the city's council meetings (The Daily Herald, Chicago suburbs)

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46