Pro-Life Today | 29 August 2008
Your National Daily News Wrap from American Life League! American Life League is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or media inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at kwalker@all.org.
HEADLINES
Philippines Court Rejects Claims of New York Based Pro-Abortion Group
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082811.html
Life Site News
The Philippine Court of Appeals recently rejected claims made by a radical pro-abortion group based in New York. The court dismissed an effort seeking to overturn an executive order promoting natural family planning. The petition was filed earlier this year by a group of Manila residents who relied heavily on legal advice and material from the international pro-abortion litigation group, the Center for Reproductive Rights. Executive Order No. 003 was instituted in February 2000 by then-mayor of Manila, Jose Atienza. The executive order "upholds natural family planning not just as a method but as a way of self-awareness in promoting the culture of life while discouraging the use of artificial methods of contraception."
Mexican Supreme Court upholds legalized abortion law
http://www.latimes.com:80/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-mexabortion29-2008aug29,0,5105041.story
LA Times
In a lopsided ruling, Mexico's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a year-old law in Mexico City legalizing abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The court rejected arguments by abortion opponents that the law violated the Mexican Constitution, whose protections they said covered embryos. A majority of justices said overturning the law would block the right of women to end pregnancies in the early weeks.
Florida Mother Fights to Keep Daughter's Feeding Tube in Place
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000008067.cfm
Citizen Link
In a case similar to the Terri Schiavo story, a brain-injured Florida woman has been placed in temporary custody of her husband who wants to remove her feeding tube. Karen Weber, 57, was hospitalized on a feeding tube after suffering a stroke in December. Weber's mother is fighting to keep her alive and says she doesn't want to die. Her husband, Raymond, sought to have the feeding tube removed earlier this year and claims his wife would not want to lives this way. Another guardianship hearing is scheduled next week.
PRO-LIFE MEMORIAL DAY: OCTOBER 6, 2008
49,640,766 preborn children have been murdered by abortion since Roe v. Wade. Join us in remembering these lost children by holding a vigil and spread the word in your community.
Visit www.prolifememorialday.com to find out what you can do.
FEATURE STORY
STEM CELL RESEARCH: MORE INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS
By Judie Brown
I was totally impressed by a few news reports that crossed my "e-mail desk" this week. I guess that's how you have to view e-mail these days – few write you a real letter anymore, and everyone who does send e-mail wants a response immediately. Well, in my case, they have to wait because this granny is going to take her time. But when so much good news is sent my way, I just have to share it.
You may remember that in February, a group of scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles did a surprising thing:
Led by scientists Kathrin Plath and William Lowry, UCLA researchers used genetic alteration to turn back the clock on human skin cells and create cells that are nearly identical to human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to become every cell type found in the human body. Four regulator genes were used to create the cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells… The UCLA study confirms the work first reported in late November of researcher Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University and James Thompson [sic] at the University of Wisconsin.
In June, Professor Dianne Irving raised a red flag regarding the Yamanaka and Thomson studies, and her concerns are based on the absence of all the facts needed to make a proper judgment with regard to ethics:
Considering the enormous stakes involved, it would seem that it is incumbent upon scientists involved in especially ethically sensitive research to be as open and detailed in their publications as possible. The trend, however, seems to be to camouflage and dilute the scientific details as much as possible -- not only in order to evade professionally appropriate questions from their scientific peers, but also to evade the very questions that society and ethics have traditionally required of all scientists. Rather than use and report the accurate scientific facts, it would seem that scientists prefer to secure their successes by using false and misleading manufactured "scientific" terms, verbal hype, and empty promises. Even the most basic requirements of research ethics appear to have been abandoned, including the required use of the most accurate and reliable scientific facts, as well as the "denial" of the age-old dictum that it is simply wrong to purposefully kill innocent human beings - regardless of their stage of development, ethnicity, culture, degree of illness, etc., and regardless of whether or not their destruction could be of benefit to other human beings. Needless to say, even the most desperate of sick patients should not be exposed to "therapeutic" research or clinical trials when such participation unwittingly puts them into serious danger of harm and even death. One even wonders how such patients could give legally valid "informed consent".
We would all obviously welcome a viable scientific and ethical resolution to the divisive politics of human embryo and fetal research that has consumed us for so many years. These iPS studies, however, do not appear to be that solution.
Indeed, this statement by William Lowry, one of the UCLA study's lead scientists, clearly illustrates the need for caution about the ethics involved in this research: "It is important to remember that our research does not eliminate the need for embryo-based human embryonic stem cell research, but rather provides another avenue of worthwhile investigation."
Because of Dr. Irving's concerns about similar research and statements such as this, I always approach supposedly good news these days with hesitancy, but it does appear, at least, that in the next two cases I am sharing with you today, the good news is that new findings are based on ethical approaches to treating disease.
The first of these studies touts the use of stem cells from a baby's amniotic fluid and placenta to literally create liver, pancreatic, nerve and kidney tissue. The stem cells used are readily available at birth.
The lead researcher in this study, Dr. Anthony Atala, once told an interviewer regarding amniotic fluid stem cells, "Actually, the fluid is chockfull of cells, because the embryo is constantly shedding cells. But we were looking for a stem cell population, a cell that we could derive to become other things that would be nimble. And that particular cell makes up about 1 percent of the cells in the fluid and the placenta."
Because the stem cells found in the placenta and the amniotic fluid are so "nimble," Dr. Atala says that the cells are easily driven to become different tissues. He may have come upon a real solution to the ethical quagmire created by scientists (such as those described by Dr. Irving) who are less than fully forthcoming about their studies.
The next bit of good news I discovered is that some scientists who were formerly wedded to the idea of using human embryonic stem cells for their research are changing their minds and moving on to more ethical approaches. For example, Harvard Stem Cell Institute's George Daley, who once warned that reprogramming stem cells was "extremely high-risk" is now saying that he and his fellow researchers have used reprogrammed stem cells to produce cell lines for 10 diseases, including muscular dystrophy, juvenile diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
While keeping in mind the same concerns Dr. Irving has raised about previous studies involving reprogrammed cells, we can always hope that, this time, the scientists have paid attention to the ethics behind the headlines. Only time will tell.
But the encouraging news is that some are aware of the despicable nature of research that kills one set of human beings to possibly benefit another, and they are at least searching for different ways to get to the same end. Let us pray that their work continues to progress, that one day soon scientists are focused on the full truth of their work and that we stop talking about ways to bend the truth.
Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
____________________________
Katie Walker
Director of Communication
American Life League
1179 Courthouse Road
Stafford, Virginia 22554
540.659.4942
kwalker@all.org
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