in this issue:
hot button issues: PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION
abortion: NOT SAFE
bioethics: PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL
birth control and health insurance: CALIFORNIA
catholic bishops: KEELER / SHERIDAN / VASA
cloning humans: ADVANCED CELL TECHNOLOGY
lifelines: A THOUGHT
population facts: BABY BUST / HLI
preimplantation genetic diagnosis: REVIEW
stem cell research: BRITAIN / PIONEERS
zinger: GOOD AND BAD
reflection for prayer: IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD
commentary: WHO CARES?
hot button issues
PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION: “While American Life League did not support the so-called partial-birth abortion bill because it contained exceptions that effectively neutered the ban and therefore would not prevent a single abortion, we cannot ignore the blatant contempt for life Judge Hamilton’s decision expressed.”
(Reading: “Response to decision in partial-birth abortion trial,”American Life League news release, 6/1/04)
abortion
NOT SAFE: An official from the World Health Organization has admitted that there is a question about whether or not abortion is safe for women.
(Reading: “WHO official admits abortion not ‘safe’ for women,” Catholic World News, 5/21/04)
bioethics
PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL: The Bush bioethics council is calling for a long-term study and close monitoring of in vitro fertilization and related technologies. The council is also requesting that human embryo research be limited to only those human embryos who are ten days old or younger.
COMMENT: In other words, killing can continue as usual.
(Reading: “Group calls for stricter rules for assisted reproduction, ban of ‘extreme’ technologies,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 5/19/04)
birth control and health insurance
CALIFORNIA: Bishop William Weigand will appeal a California Supreme Court decision that claimed Catholic Charities of Sacramento is not a religious organization and cannot be exempted from a contraceptive mandate passed by the California legislature in 1999.
(Reading: “Catholic charities case appealed to US Supreme Court,” California Catholic Conference, 6/1/04)
catholic bishops
KEELER: Cardinal William Keeler of the Archdiocese of Baltimore said in an interview that “it was not the business of bishops to choose who receives Communion.”
(Reading: “Cardinal Keeler calls for keeping politics out of communion,” Baltimore Sun, 5/28/04)
SHERIDAN: Due to the fact that some Catholics in his diocese are refusing contributions to the diocese of Colorado Springs, we suggest sending a thank you note to Bishop Michael Sheridan, assuring him of prayers and thanking him for standing up to defend Christ in Holy Eucharist, even though it may cost the diocese money. Write , Diocese of Colorado Springs, 228 N. Cascade Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO 80903.
VASA: Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon: “I do believe that abortion supporters and especially pro-abortion public officials (even those euphemistically referred to as pro-choice) should refrain from approaching the table of the Lord’s Body and Blood and that they should be refused Communion if they do approach provided they have made their support for abortion very clear in a public forum. The ‘I am personally opposed but I will work ardently to protect another’s right to kill a pre-born child’ ploy is hardly the manifestation of an appropriate interior Catholic conviction about the inviolability of human life.”
(Reading: “The mind and heart of Bishop Vasa,” Diocese of Baker, 4/28/04)
cloning humans
ADVANCED CELL TECHNOLOGY: An inside look at how macabre “creating” a clone can be is now available online.
(Reading: “Seven days of creation,” Wired News, 12/01)
lifelines
A THOUGHT: Don’t wait for six strong men to take you to church.
population facts
BABY BUST: An insightful article by Phillip Longman debunks overpopulation scare tactics.
(Reading: “The global baby bust,” Foreign Affairs, 5-6/04)
HLI: Human Life International has several articles of interest for those attempting to debunk population control scare tactics.
preimplantation genetic diagnosis
REVIEW: A review of current technologies aimed at killing “defective” human embryos prior to implantation is published by The Lancet, 363:1633-41.
stem cell research
BRITAIN: The United Kingdom has announced the first national facility of its kind in the world; the stem cell bank was started with two cell lines.
(Reading: “UK opens embryonic stem cell bank,” The Lancet, 5/29/04)
PIONEERS: German scientists are claiming they developed a method of extracting stem cells from the human body that could render obsolete the practice of taking stem cells from human embryos.
(Reading: “German doctors say they create new stem-cell method,” Reuters, 5/28/04)
zinger
GOOD AND BAD: Commenting on the current debate among Catholic bishops regarding the withholding of Holy Eucharist from publicly pro-abortion “Catholics,” one priest said, “Their failure to exercise this discipline suggests that either abortion is not all that bad, or the Eucharist is not all that good.”
(Reading: “A believing and practicing Catholic,” Boston Rescuer, 5/04)
reflection for prayer
IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD: If the fruits are long in coming and we are tempted to judge the worth of our efforts by their immediate results, we ought not to forget that at times we will not see the grain ripen, that others will harvest it.
(Reading: “In conversation with God,” Vol. 4, p. 527)
commentary
WHO CARES? By Dianne Nutwell Irving, M.A., Ph.D.
“Also, there is a current legal challenge arguing that actually the [British] licensing Authority, the HFEA, has no authority over cloned embryos, because the existing law defines an embryo as the result of fertilisation, and with cloning — or cell nuclear transfer, the Dolly process — no fertilisation has taken place.” (Sarah Sexton, “New Reproductive and Genetic Technologies …” 5/01, http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/document/medcon.html)
[The following short paragraphs are taken from a section of a new article that I am just finishing. — DNI]
For those who are weary of or uninterested in the abortion or human embryo research debates, perhaps they might reconsider their monumental apathy when they understand clearly that the issues surrounding human cloning and human genetic engineering affect us all. A great deal more than just the killing of irrelevant “little embryos” is involved. It also involves the cells dissected from those bioengineered embryos being transplanted or injected into sick patients in order to “cure their diseases” — cells that could well end up growing into all sorts of dangerous tumors, etc., instead. We are talking about desperate infertile women and men who line up at the doors of IVF clinics — who could so easily be used as guinea pigs for some artificial reproductive technology researchers’ curiosities and grant monies as well, and the women who could likely suffer horrific physical and psychological damage when these experimental embryos are implanted in them and start to go haywire. How does a woman really know what is being implanted inside her? We are talking about the purposeful creation of disabled and diseased human embryos just in order to study, and then kill or implant, them. We are talking about the impossibility of any of these “participants” in research being able to give truly ethically or legally valid informed consent because of the scientific misrepresentation of what research is really taking place.
We are talking about mutant and aberrant viruses and bacteria (and who knows what else) that escape labs where sloppy and ignorant technicians work, and infect whole geographical areas including people and food supplies, etc. We are talking about pharmaceutical drugs and products — even make-up — pressed on an unsuspecting public for endless ailments, conditions and “health” aids, with no serious studies performed as to their damaging side effects. No studies, no evidence. And we are talking about health care and insurance industries — indeed, entire state and federal budgets — that could literally fold under the excessive economic burden of eventually caring for all of these human casualties.
These examples are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. No wonder so much of the legislation and “informed consent” forms concerning such research include “exclusions of liability” clauses for any harms or injuries that result. Everyone has a stake in these controversial issues, yet these are the human genetic engineering research activities that are being allowed to slip through giant loopholes in cloning and stem cell legislation. None of them are covered by our current laws.