U.S. President Barack Obama’s lifting of restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research puts him at odds with Pope Benedict and the American Roman Catholic Church.

After Obama signed the order on Monday, the Vatican and U.S. and Italian Church leaders condemned the move. One commentator said the test of “a real democracy” was its defence of the most defenceless.

Obama’s executive order reversed and repudiated restrictions placed on the research by his predecessor, George W. Bush, freeing labs across the country to start working with the cells, which can give rise to any kind of cell in the body.

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on pro-life activities, called Obama’s decision “a sad victory of politics over science and ethics.”

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Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research, from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit, and from a government willing to support that work. From life-saving vaccines, to pioneering cancer treatments, to the sequencing of the human genome — that is the story of scientific progress in America. When government fails to make these investments, opportunities are missed. Promising avenues go unexplored. Some of our best scientists leave for other countries that will sponsor their work. And those countries may surge ahead of ours in the advances that transform our lives.

In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly.

It’s a difficult and delicate balance. And many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research. And I understand their concerns, and I believe that we must respect their point of view.

But after much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear. The majority of Americans — from across the political spectrum, and from all backgrounds and beliefs — have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research; that the potential it offers is great, and with proper guidelines and strict oversight, the perils can be avoided.

That is a conclusion with which I agree. And that is why I am signing this executive order, and why I hope Congress will act on a bipartisan basis to provide further support for this research. We are joined today by many leaders who have reached across the aisle to champion this cause, and I commend all of them who are here for that work.

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The title above is his, not mine–KSH.

Pro-life groups have come out in force against health and human services secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius over her pro-choice record. But Sebelius, the Roman Catholic governor of Kansas, has talked publicly about being a pro-choice pro-lifer. Here’s an excerpt from her 2006 address at the Kansans for Faithful Citizenship conference, in which she discussed abortion more than any other issue:

Of course, no discussion of life and dignity of the human person can be complete without discussing the important issue of abortion.

My Catholic faith teaches me that all life is sacred, and personally I believe abortion is wrong. However, I disagree with the suggestion that criminalizing women and their doctors is an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the number of abortions in our nation.

There is another way. By working in support of the common good we can better protect human life and the dignity of all people.

Read it all and make sure to read this follow up also.

Influential Georgia lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make illegal in their state some of the fertilization procedures used in the high-profile case of a California mother who recently gave birth to octuplets.

The bill appears to be the most sweeping state legislation of its kind introduced in the wake of the case of Nadya Suleman, a 33-year-old single woman who gave birth in January to eight babies through in-vitro fertilization. Ms. Suleman has said that she had six frozen embryos left from prior in-vitro treatments and asked that they all be implanted because she didn’t want them to be destroyed. Two of the embryos split, creating eight total embryos, she said.

Another bill was recently introduced in Missouri’s House of Representatives calling for less restrictive limits on the number of implanted embryos.

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Could three words change the way severely ill patients and their loved ones think about death?

Spiritual leaders and some medical staff at hospitals across the USA believe so, and they are reconsidering how they pose one of life’s toughest questions:

Do you want to sign a “Do Not Resuscitate” form?

When they ask, family members often balk. They believe they are giving up, condemning a loved one to death.

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Terminally ill patients with less than six months to live will soon be able to ask their doctors to prescribe them lethal medication in Washington state.

But even though the “Death with Dignity” law takes effect Thursday, people who might seek the life-ending prescriptions could find their doctors conflicted or not willing to write them.

Many doctors are hesitant to talk publicly about where they stand on the issue, said Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and board member of Compassion & Choices, the group that campaigned for and supports the law.

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The Denver prelate then provided his critique of President Obama.

“President Obama is a man of intelligence and some remarkable gifts. He has a great ability to inspire, as we saw from his very popular visit to Canada just this past week. But whatever his strengths, there’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change. Of course, that can change. Some things really do change when a person reaches the White House. Power ennobles some men. It diminishes others. Bad policy ideas can be improved. Good policy ideas can find a way to flourish. But as Catholics, we at least need to be honest with ourselves and each other about the political facts we start with.”

Yet this will be “very hard for Catholics in the United States,” [Charles] Chaput warned.

According to the archbishop, the political situation for Catholics is difficult to discern because a “spirit of adulation bordering on servility already exists among some of the same Democratic-friendly Catholic writers, scholars, editors and activists who once accused pro-lifers of being too cozy with Republicans. It turns out that Caesar is an equal opportunity employer.”

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Via email–the text of a resolution passed by the Diocesan Board.

Title: Disaffiliation with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Sponsors: The Rev George Conger, The Very Rev. Eric Turner, The Very Rev Tim Nunez.

Resolved; The Diocesan Board of the Diocese of Central Florida on Feb 19 hereby dissociates itself from the affiliation of The Episcopal Church by The Executive Council with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and directs the Secretary to forward notice of this disassociation to the next meeting of the Annual Convention of The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Central Florida with a recommendation that a resolution be made by that body endorsing dissociation.

Explanation:

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) is a political advocacy group dedicated to defending and expanding abortion rights””that is, legal rights to all abortions, whatever the circumstances, without exception””in American law.
The “RCRC was founded in 1973 to safeguard the newly won constitutional right to abortion,” according to The Rev Carlton W. Veazey, RCRC president and CEO (www.rcrc.org/about/index.cfm);

The RCRC’s founding mission remains unchanged: “The primary struggle for reproductive choice has shifted to the state level, with new legislation limiting access to reproductive health care traveling from state to state until enough momentum develops to bring it to the national arena. In such a climate, we need healthy state [RCRC] organizations so that we can stop each new threat as it arises” (www.rcrc.org/getinvolved/affiliate.cfm);
The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church, meeting in Des Moines, Iowa from January 9-12, 2006, approved The Episcopal Church’s membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

At the 74th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Tennessee introduced resolution C-048, which called upon the General Convention to rescind The Episcopal Church’s membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Resolution C-048 was withdrawn from consideration at the 74th General Convention and no action was taken affecting The Episcopal Church’s membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
While the RCRC works for abortion rights in any and all circumstances, The Episcopal Church teaches that moral discernment, on matters related to abortion, is essential. Resolution A054 adopted by the 1994 General Convention states “We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection, or any reason of mere convenience.”
Episcopalians hold varying political positions on the morality, legality and necessity of abortion, and it is therefore improper that this Diocese, by virtue of an action of The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church, be deemed a member of a political lobbying group whose goal is to promote abortion upon demand, for any reason and at any time.

Spain is on course to ease its restrictive law on abortion, setting the stage for another clash between a Socialist government that has already introduced sweeping social changes and conservatives and Catholic clergy bent on preserving traditional family values.

A parliamentary committee took the first step this week, recommending that the government legalize early stage abortions, while gradually imposing more restrictions as pregnancies progress.

Abortion is technically a crime in Spain, though it is readily available under the current system, with women needing a doctor’s certification that their health ”” either physical or mental ”” would be at risk if the pregnancy was allowed to proceed.

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When Barack Obama was campaigning for president, he promised to enact legislation to prohibit states from limiting the right to abortion. Now that Obama is in the White House and solid Democratic majorities are ensconced in Congress, opponents of abortion rights have been bracing for that and other major changes to abortion laws.

But there are indications that what those groups dread most and what some liberal voters eagerly anticipate as the rewards of victory may not come to pass””at least not yet. Democrats on Capitol Hill say that while they are committed to reversing several Bush administration policies with regard to abortion rights and family planning, they may hold off on pursuing the kind of expansive agenda feared by social conservatives.

Despite gains in the House and Senate in last year’s elections, there are still significant numbers of moderate Democrats””particularly in the House””who either oppose abortion altogether or are not in favor of sweeping changes and favor a more incremental approach. And any large-scale effort involving something as polarizing as abortion necessitates spending political capital, something the Obama White House needs in abundance to ensure the survival of its economic policies.

“We deal in reality,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “You have to be pragmatic, realistic and, in the end, strategic.”

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Rep. Greg Delleney of Chester, the General Assembly’s most outspoken abortion foe, gained initial approval Thursday to require doctors to save any fetus that survives an abortion.

The bill, which unanimously passed a House subcommittee Delleney chairs, is aimed at rewriting state law to recognize the “personhood” of the unborn.

If the bill becomes law, a person would be redefined as anyone at any stage of development who is breathing, has a heartbeat, a pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles after birth, whether that be by labor, Cesarean section or abortion.

Delleney says it has wider implications than just for abortion clinics.

“This might be a child born at home, in a hospital, in the back of a taxi or an abortion clinic,” he said. “It gives them the same rights that any other breathing person has.”

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Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that euthanasia is a “false solution” to suffering, adding his voice to a bitter debate in Italy over the fate of a comatose woman whose father wants to remove her feeding tube.

During his Sunday blessing, Benedict said that love can help confront pain and that “no tear, from those who suffer and those who are with them, is lost before God.”

Benedict didn’t mention Eluana Englaro by name, but it was clear he was referring to her case, which has made headlines in Italy for months.

Englaro has been in a vegetative state since 1992 after a car accident. She was 20 at the time.

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Women seeking an abortion in South Carolina would have to wait at least 24 hours after their ultrasound under a bill given initial approval Wednesday by a House subcommittee.

The measure would increase the waiting time from an hour to a day.

Proponents said it would bring South Carolina in line with other states that have waiting periods and give women time to reflect on the decision. Critics said requiring two trips creates a burden, especially for poor, rural women.

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Racism and abortion are grave moral evils. As progress is made on one front, we cannot stand idly by while protections for the unborn slip away. Catholics, along with all people of goodwill, need to remain steadfast in opposing abortion and in building respect for life. It is not a question of the church attempting to impose its will on others, as it is our determination to proclaim the value of innocent, human life. With God’s grace, our determination will enable others to see the fullness of life that exists at conception in the womb.

Regrettably, among political leaders, there are a precious few who speak up for life and against abortion.

Change is truly needed in our politics, not in our morality. Change is wonderfully manifest in Obama as our first African-American president. May change now come to our nation’s attitude toward human life so we all will increase the respect for all human life, from conception to natural death.

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Update: A letter in response is here.

As the annual March for Life drew thousands to Washington Jan. 22, the 36th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion was marked around the country.

At Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, on the eve of the Roe anniversary, students were encouraged to attend a Holy Hour for life from 10 to 11 p.m. before embarking on an overnight journey to Washington for the March for Life.

The school “is very pro-life and since the mission of the school is education, our main focus on campus is educating students about the pro-life movement and how they can be pro-life,” said Emily Espinola, Students for Life president, in a statement.

But her organization seeks to carry the pro-life message beyond campus, she said, with advocacy throughout the year such as praying outside abortion clinics four days a week, training sidewalk counselors, hosting pro-life speakers on campus, and connecting with other universities and colleges to train pro-life student leaders.

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Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, urged Obama to listen to all voices in America without “the arrogance of those who, being in power, believe they can decide of life and death.”

Fisichella said in an interview published Saturday in Corriere della Sera that “if this is one of President Obama’s first acts, I have to say, in all due respect, that we’re heading quickly toward disappointment.”

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America’s newly inaugurated president was told this week that the Catholic Church will fight his plans to make abortion more readily available, and will oppose any easing of current regulations restricting embryonic stem cell research.

The warning was contained in two letters from US bishops delivered to Barack Obama, the first dated 13 January and released on 15 January, and the second, more strongly worded, dated 16 January and released on 19 January, the eve of Mr Obama’s swearing-in. The bishops said they wanted to work constructively with the new administration, but issued a tough challenge on life issues.

“We will work to protect the lives of the most vulnerable and voiceless members of the human family, especially unborn children and those who are disabled or terminally ill,” the bishops said in the first letter signed by the president of the bishops’ conference, Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago.

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In a watershed moment for one of the most contentious areas of science and American politics, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared the way for the first-ever human trial of a medical treatment derived from embryonic stem cells.

Geron Corp., a Menlo Park, Calif., biotechnology company, is expected to announce Friday that it received a green light from the agency to mount a study of its stem-cell treatment for spinal cord injuries in up to 10 patients. The announcement caps more than a decade of advances in the company’s labs and comes on the cusp of a widely expected shift in U.S. policy toward support of embryonic stem-cell research after years of official opposition.

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Listen to it all from BBC Northern Ireland (just over 8 1/2 minutes)

Now that he knows the name of a young enslaved prostitute in Indonesia ”” it’s Eka, pronounced “Ecka” ”” Mike Mercer is all in. The human-trafficking resister from Oregon is committed not just to the reclamation of Eka’s freedom and her pre-slavery lot in life, but also to her enjoying life prospects far brighter than if she had never been trafficked and had never crossed his path.

“As a Christian, I can’t be satisfied knowing there are people living in such a condition,” says Mercer, 37, a onetime youth pastor at an evangelical church near Portland and the founder and director of a fledgling non-profit called Compassion First. “As a Christian, I’m a steward of the image of God. And every person on the face of the earth bears that image. I became responsible for Eka the day I met her.”

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The document has been strongly criticised by the Bishop of Swindon, Dr Lee Rayfield, the Church of England’s spokesman on ethics, for its lack of theological rigour. While expressing understanding of Roman Catholic hesi­tancy over some things, he described it as “very poor” on Wednesday, and expressed concern for the pastoral consequences of any future disen­gagement of the Roman Catholic hierarchy with the issues.

Dr Rayfield said: “From my perspective ”” and I would imagine a large number of other Christians ”” this new communication will come as a disappointment, but not a surprise.

“This instruction fails to engage adequately with the issues raised by assisted reproduction and its associated techniques at a number of levels. It worries me that there are assertions in it, for example about IVF and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection, which simply do not bear the weight of theological or ethical scrutiny, even from within the absolutist standpoint taken by the Roman Catholic Church.”

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Twice a week, on average, in a nondescript building by the railroad tracks, a foreigner comes to die.

Most are terminally ill. Some are young and physically healthy except for a permanent disability or severe, debilitating mental disorder.

Drawn by Switzerland’s reputation as a trouble-free place for foreigners to end their lives, more than 100 Germans, Britons, French, Americans and others come to this small commuter town each year to lie down on a bed in an industrial park building and drink a lethal dose of barbiturates.

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The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.

The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life ”” even an embryo ”” is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple.

The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or “The Dignity of the Person,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI.

Under discussion for six years, it is a moral response to bioethical questions raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issued instructions.

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Read it carefully and read it all (23 page pdf).

A British pro-life group has expressed concern after it was revealed that a TV documentary is to show a man dying in front of the cameras.

The TV show, on the Sky 1 satellite channel follows the assisted suicide of a man at the Dignitas suicide centre in Switzerland.

Anthony Ozimic, political secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), commented: “We are concerned that focusing upon one particular case will have a disproportionate effect upon the debate on assisted suicide, skewing viewer’s perceptions.

“Many people, including patients themselves, often don’t know that palliative care is highly successful in alleviating the symptoms of motor neurone disease….”

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Here’s another sign of the tough economic times: Some clinics are reporting a surge in the number of women applying to donate eggs or serve as surrogate mothers for infertile couples.

The going rate for a surrogate is about $25,000. Egg donors generally receive $3,000 to $8,000. But a few agencies advertise that they’ll pay much more for specific characteristics. One ad running in campus newspapers promises $25,000 for a donor who is “100% Jewish with … High SAT Scores… Attractive, at Healthy Body Weight and Free of Genetic Diseases.”

“Whenever the employment rate is down, we get more calls,” says Robin von Halle, president of Alternative Reproductive Resources, an agency in Chicago where inquiries from would-be egg donors are up 30% in recent weeks — to about 60 calls a day. “We’re even getting men offering up their wives. It’s pretty scary.”

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Britain and the United States are likely to be among the countries that will be implicitly criticised in a soon-to-be-released Vatican document on bioethics. The document will address such controversial bioethical issues as embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) said it would unveil its new instruction – “Dignitatis Personae: on some bioethical questions” – at a press conference on Friday. It is anticipated that the new text will unequivocally oppose principles such as those contained in Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFE) and those that lie behind undertakings by US President-elect Barack Obama to fund federally embryonic stem-cell research.

The new CDF text, which has been under elaboration for a number of years, will be the first Vatican document to address bioethical issues since Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. Archbishop Angelo Amato, who served as CDF secretary until July, had already indicated nearly two years ago that the new document was being prepared and was intended to update a similar CDF instruction on bioethical themes, “Donum Vitae”, published in 1987.

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A Montana judge has ruled that doctor-assisted suicides are legal in the state, a decision likely to be appealed as the state argues that the Legislature, not the court, should decide whether terminally ill patients have the right to take their own life.

Judge Dorothy McCarter issued the ruling late Friday in the case of a Billings man with terminal cancer, who had sued the state with four physicians that treat terminally ill patients and a nonprofit patients’ rights group.

“The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity,” McCarter said in the ruling.

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The Pope’s top aides may have already informed Benedict about a campaign promise Obama made on July 17, 2007, to Planned Parenthood, stating that his first act as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo legislation that put restrictions on access to abortions. Some Catholics have warned that such a decree, which would essentially codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, could force doctors in Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their conscience. “There’s more fear here than wrath,” a senior Vatican official told TIME with regard to the Catholic hierarchy’s attitude toward Obama. However, if Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act in his first months in office, “it would be the equivalent of a war,” says the same official. “It would be like saying, ‘We’ve heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns.’ ” U.S. Catholic bishops at a meeting in Baltimore last week vowed to take on Obama for his support of abortion rights; they are also skeptical about his assurances to try to reduce the number of abortions while supporting the right to choose.

Even before the election, Democrats were warned not to risk becoming the “party of death,” according to former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke. It was Burke who famously pledged in 2004 to deny communion to the pro-choice Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry. The archbishop has since been promoted to Rome as head of the Holy See’s equivalent of a Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in response to a question last week on Obama’s pledge to reverse Washington’s policy on stem-cell research, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health, made it clear that the church will not shy away from the debate. “What builds up man is good, what destroys him is bad,” he told reporters, arguing that one human being should never become a material resource for the betterment of another.

Nevertheless, 54% of U.S. Catholic voters supported Obama, who is Protestant. That may give him the cover to move ahead with his pledges.

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Paralysed after being attacked by neo-Nazis, Noel Martin is planning a trip to Switzerland to commit suicide. Here, disabled broadcaster Liz Carr, who met Noel for a BBC Radio 5 Live report, writes an open letter urging him to think again.

Dear Noel,

Having met you last week, I felt the need to write and continue our discussion about your decision to end your life soon. I don’t write this as someone with strong religious or pro-life views but as another disabled person, who like you uses a wheelchair, who became disabled and who needs round-the-clock assistance in their life.

Noel, is your life really not worth living?

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