in this issue:
hot button issues: PLANNED PARENTHOOD I / PLANNED PARENTHOOD II / SUPREME COURT
abortion: BREAST CANCER
down syndrome: TARGETING
euthanasia: PALLIATIVE CARE
human experimentation: PRISONERS
personhood: RIGHT TO LIFE ACT
stem cell research / ethical: BREAST CANCER / HEART THERAPY / HUMAN HAIR
stem cell research / unethical: HWANG ADMITS FRAUD / INDIA / PATENTS, NOT PATIENTS
zinger: DUH!
reflection for prayer: HUMILITY
hot button issues:
PLANNED PARENTHOOD I: The abortion chain’s Connecticut affiliate is selling condom key chains online. Each of the 28 different models comes with a slogan and a condom. One style shows a crying baby along with the slogan, “Condoms are cheaper than diapers.”
(Reading: “Planned Parenthood’s condom key chains: blasphemous, offensive, available to kids online,” American Life League news release, 1/12/06)
PLANNED PARENTHOOD II: Cecile Richards, who has no health care experience, is the new president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Jim Sedlak of American Life League’s STOPP International says this “confirms that the organization’s focus is not on health care, but rather on political advocacy. This appointment shows the Planned Parenthood board of directors has abandoned all pretenses that PPFA is a health care organization.”
(Reading: “Planned Parenthood abandons health care pretenses, lures radical political activist to lead organization,” American Life League news release, 1/11/06)
SUPREME COURT: There is still time to sign American Life League’s petition in support of Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination as Supreme Court justice. The petition is found at www.ApproveAlito.com.
abortion
BREAST CANCER: Dr. Joel Brind has written a concise, thorough article reviewing the incontrovertible evidence that abortion is linked to breast cancer.
(Reading: “Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer: a critical review of recent studies based on prospective data,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Winter 2005, pp. 105-110)
down syndrome
TARGETING: A series of research articles in the most recent edition of Obstetrics and Gynecology makes it clear that “abnormal” preborn children are unacceptable. Arguing that “if the patient desires voluntary termination of pregnancy, the procedure can be performed early in gestation,” the article focuses on educating doctors so that such choices can be made earlier. A second article affirms this by pointing out that a physician’s job is “to inform couples in a nonjudgmental manner of the available options.”
COMMENT: No wonder that columnist Julia Gorin writes, “In America we don’t leave infants with disabilities on the side of the road or bury them in the desert. We simply get rid of them before they are born.”
(Reading: “Screening for Down syndrome,” Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1/1/06; “Incorporating first-trimester down syndrome studies into prenatal testing,” Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1/1/06; “Progressives killed Corky,” Jewish World Review, 1/5/06)
euthanasia
PALLIATIVE CARE: Timothy Quill, M.D., well known as one of the first doctors to write about assisting a patient to die (“It’s over, Debbie”), writes: “For the infrequent instances in which all palliative care alternatives have been exhausted without providing adequate relief from the symptoms of advanced terminal disease, there is a growing consensus that sedation to the point of comfortable sleep is permissible.” He quotes bioethicist Bernard Lo, well known as a proponent of human embryonic stem cell research and human cloning.
(Reading: “The big chill — inserting the DEA into end-of-life care,” New England Journal of Medicine, 1/5/06)
human experimentation
PRISONERS: The U.S. government is considering changing the rules that govern research on prisoners. But a Harvard bioethicist comments, “Prisons are closed institutions and no one knows what’s going on inside, so expecting that all researchers will conduct experiments ethically behind prison walls is wishful thinking.”
COMMENT: True! There can be no truly ethical research of any kind as long as America kills thousands of preborn children daily and ignores the truth.
(Reading: “US ponders unlocking the gates to prisoner research,” Nature, 12/29/05)
personhood
RIGHT TO LIFE ACT: This bill (HR 552) states, “The terms ‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” See RightToLifeAct.org for details.
COMMENT: Is your member of Congress a co-sponsor? If not, ask!
stem cell research / ethical
BREAST CANCER: Australian scientists report isolating a stem cell from the breasts of female mice may enable them to study, and eventually devise a cure for breast cancer.
(Reading: “Australian stem cell discovery could help fight breast cancer,” Voice of America, 1/5/06)
HEART THERAPY: Doctors in Thailand injected stem cells culled from the patient’s blood into the heart in an effort to regenerate heart muscle. The therapy is experimental and not approved in the United States.
(Reading: “Stem cell therapy sparks hope in ailing hearts,” Reuters, 1/4/06; “Israeli-Thai firm uses adult stem cells in effort to heal failing hearts,” Khaleej Times, 1/4/06)
HUMAN HAIR: National Cancer Institute researchers have isolated hair follicle stem cells that may lead to treating disorders of the hair and skin.
(Reading: “Human hair follicle stem cells,” Medical News Today, 1/6/06)
stem cell research / unethical
HWANG ADMITS FRAUD: Cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk has admitted that the “embryonic stem cells documented in a Science article in February, 2004 are faked.” Time magazine’s Alice Park first indicated the real problem when she wrote: “Because the cloning process that Hwang says he used to create Snuppy involves two dogs — one for the nucleus and another for the egg — Snuppy’s mitochondrial DNA should not match Tai’s. That’s what Rhee’s scientists say they’ve found and what Hwang undoubtedly hopes the university and nature will find as well. Final, ironclad proof of Snuppy’s provenance would involve showing that the dog’s mitochondrial DNA matches that of his egg donor. It’s not clear, however, whether that test is being done.”
COMMENT: We now know Hwang fabricated the story. So just what is Snuppy the puppy’s real background? The world may never know.
(Reading: “Hwang admits 2004 research fake,” Korea Times, 1/9/06; “Is Snuppy the puppy for real?” Time, 1/3/06)
INDIA: Not to be outdone by Hwang, India’s Geeta Shroff told the world that she is treating patients with embryonic stem cells without government oversight, and without any proof that what she is doing has helped anyone.
(Reading: “Unchecked by guidelines, Indian stem cell scientists rush ahead,” Nature, 12/29/05)
PATENTS, NOT PATIENTS: Adult stem cells are not, according to a report, as volatile as human embryonic stem cells and are better suited for human medical treatments. Adult stem cells are treating more than 65 human conditions while embryonic stem cells have not yet successfully treated any. But research and industry stand to gain financially through taxpayer financed human embryonic stem cell research.
COMMENT: So why are we spending money to support the biotech industry instead of helping those who suffer?
(Reading: “Embryonic stem cells help patents, not patients,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, 1/3/05)
zinger
DUH! Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle, who says he is Catholic, vetoed a fetal pain bill saying “no evidence conclusively proves when a fetus can feel pain. The Republican-controlled legislature shouldn’t be allowed to decide what is scientific fact,” he said.
COMMENT: No, governor, the scientific fact is that a human being begins at the beginning, and such facts do not depend on politicians, though they are frequently if not exclusively manipulated, misrepresented and ignored by such people, Republican and Democrat.
(Reading: “Doyle vetoes abortion-pain bill,” Associated Press, 1/6/06)
reflection for prayer
HUMILITY: St. John Chrysostom wrote, “When anyone makes jest of you, remember Our Lord … Let us now emulate Him and so we shall be enabled even to be delivered from all insults. For it is not the insulter that gives effect to acts of insult and makes them biting but he who is little in soul and is pained by them.”