The U.S. bishops adopted a statement on embryonic stem cell research this morning, the first time the conference has spoken specifically on the issue. It asserts that harvesting embryos for research amounts to “the deliberate killing of innocent human beings,” and is therefore “a gravely immoral act.”

The statement was prepared by the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, led by Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. Because Rigali wasn’t in attendance, it was presented by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas.

The bishops warn that embryonic stem cell research is potentially part of a slippery slope toward other dangerous outcomes, including:
Ӣ Human cloning
”¢ Putting women’s health at risk in order to obtain eggs for the production of embryos
Ӣ Creating human/animal hybrids that blur the boundaries between species, once again in order to get egg cells

Read it all.

FAW: Indeed, for some, like Eva Finelle, the decision to take such a test is easy.

Ms. FINNELLE: I want to know. I want to know. I don’t want my family, my children to go through what I’ve gone though. It would give me preparation time to do what I want to do, to say what I want to say, to get my affairs in order, so to speak, for when I can’t think for myself.

FAW: For others, though, like Susan Davis, almost as old now as her father was when he started showing signs of the disease, the prospect of such a test is agonizing.

Ms. DAVIS: Hit the music”¦

FAW: Now a successful producer at North Carolina Public Radio and the mother of two, Susan Davis says that learning she might develop Alzheimer’s would not be a source of comfort but alarm.

Ms. DAVIS: I could find this out, and it really means nothing. It means nothing until they know what it means or until they can do something.

FAW (to Ms. Davis): Knowing that you might get it — it wouldn’t be helpful?

Ms. DAVIS: You know what this would do? This might drive me crazy.

FAW: Most of all, says Davis, if she learned she’ll develop Alzheimer’s that would be a cruel ethical dilemma: wait for the disease or take her life?

Read it all.

A mother who decided to abort her son because he may have inherited a life-threatening kidney condition is overjoyed that he survived the procedure.

Jodie Percival of Nottinghamshire, England, said she and her fiancee made the decision to abort baby Finley when she was eight weeks pregnant.

Percival’s first son Thane died of multicystic dysplastic kidneys ”” which causes cysts to grow on the kidneys of an unborn baby ”” and her second child Lewis was born with serious kidney damage and currently has just one kidney, the Daily Mail reported.

Read it all.

The politicians may have cast their votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, but is the conscience of the nation at ease with itself? Far from settling the issues until the next Bill comes along, this week’s extraordinary debates have in fact woken us all up to the reality of what is being done in our name.

Many people are left deeply uneasy and perplexed, profoundly worried about the direction we are now taking.

And yet, for me it has been one of the most significant debates that the House of Commons has had in recent times, undertaken with a sober recognition that it was dealing with fundamental questions which transcend party politics. Although I would have much preferred other outcomes on all four of the debates, including the issue of fatherhood, I was glad at the sincerity and thoughtfulness of the discussion.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Bradford, whose granddaughter was born before 24 weeks, has said MPs made a mistake by not voting to reduce the time limit a woman can have an abortion.

MPs on Tuesday threw out the first attempts for nearly 20 years to cut the 24-week time limit for abortions after a stormy debate.

Despite fierce lobbying by church leaders, they rejected an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to cut the limit to 22 weeks by 304 votes to 233, a majority of 71.

Today Bradford’s Bishop and the Bishop of Leeds both expressed their disappointment, saying 24 weeks was too late.

Read it all.

A controversial new “right to die” card is being offered to the public that allows anyone to refuse treatment in a medical emergency. Who carries it, and why?

It’s a morbid question, but one that many of us have pondered at least once.

If I hadn’t just escaped that dreadful accident, where would I be now? Would I rather be dead than depend on others to keep me alive?

A new card seeks to address that very question. Available in pubs, banks, libraries, GP surgeries, even some churches, the Advanced Decision to Refuse Treatment (ADRT) card sits snugly in a wallet or purse and instructs a doctor to withhold treatment should the carrier lose the capacity to make decisions, because of an accident or illness.

Read it all.

David Field of Leicester University chimes in on this question on the BBC.

The Prime Minister, whose son Fraser suffers from cystic fibrosis, a condition that could benefit from the research, attacked critics of the Bill. “I have deep respect for those who do not agree with some of the provisions in the Bill because of religious conviction,” he wrote in a national newspaper . “But I believe that we owe it to ourselves and future generations to introduce these measures, and in particular, to give our unequivocal backing within the right framework of rules and standards, to stem cell research.”

Cardinal O’Brien, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Sean Brady questioned the Government’s decision to push through legislation ahead of alternative scientific methods. In a joint statement today they said: “Not nearly enough time has been given to discussing these issues and these questions require answers before and not after legislation.

“We support scientific research that seeks to cure disease and suffering,” they continued. “The HFE Bill has focused on embryonic stem cell research. In fact, much greater progress has already been made towards clinical therapies using adult stem cells. Other emerging techniques hold potential for good, without creating and destroying human embryos.”

Dr Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, said opposition to the bill was not confined to Catholic consciences. A letter signed by bishops, clergy and the heads of national Christian organisations said: “We would like to make it plain that as people from other Christian traditions we are completely opposed to the creation of animal-human hybrids, saviour siblings and the removal of the obligation on IVF clinics to consider the child’s need for a father. This is not a narrowly Roman Catholic issue, nor is it a narrowly Christian issue nor indeed is it a narrowly religious issue. It is a human issue. We need to fight to uphold and protect our humanity.”

Read it all.

British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday.

An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regarded as a central element of the legislation.

The Government is braced for defeat today, however, on a separate clause that would scrap the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father before treating patients. MPs will also consider amendments tonight that would cut the legal limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22 or 20 weeks.

Read it all.

The House of Commons will vote this week on the government’s human embryology bill. It will also be voting on how far the state should regulate family life, how far MPs rather than government and arm’s-length agencies should decide on ethics and whether an MP’s “conscience” should override the liberties of ordinary citizens. The Commons will have a chance to stamp the medieval demand of the Catholic Church that MPs obey its edicts rather than their judgments.

In other words it is quite a week in parliamentary history – even without considering the merits of the legislation itself.

I was for five years a member of the relevant agency, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Not a day passed without some mind-crunching clash of human emotions passing its desk. The authority was set up under the original 1990 act licensing in vitro fertilisation, which offered hope of pregnancy to thousands of childless couples. I doubt if any modern act has been the architect of so much happiness.

Read it all.

Most Americans believe the choice to end one’s life is a personal decision and that physician-assisted death should be legal, according to a new survey.

More than 80 percent of adults questioned in the poll by Knowledge Networks said the right to die should not be decided by the government, church or a third party, yet only 50 percent of Americans over 60 and less than 25 percent of younger people said they have a living will.

“People put that off. They’re in denial and they have their heads in the sand,” said Dave Bunnell, editor-in-chief of ELDR magazine, which commissioned the poll.

read the whole thing.

One of the most important and disputed pieces of recent legislation is being debated in the House of Commons. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is hugely complex, reflecting the newest developments in embryology but some of the oldest questions, such as “when does human life begin?” and “does every child need a father?”. The different faith organisations in this country all have concerns about this bill, but also disagree among themselves. Dr Lee Rayfield, Anglican Bishop of Swindon and immunologist, and Dr Usama Hasan, an Imam who is also a scientist, talked to Sunday.

Listen to it all (a little over seven and one half minutes).

The brief policy statement on embryonic stem-cell research that is to come before the U.S. bishops at their June 12-14 meeting in Orlando, Fla., is designed to set the stage for a later, more pastoral document explaining why the Catholic Church opposes some reproductive technologies.

“While human life is threatened in many ways in our society, the destruction of human embryos for stem-cell research confronts us with an issue of respect for life in a stark new way,” says the statement drawn up by the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Although the topic of embryonic stem-cell research has been raised in several broader USCCB documents and has been the subject of testimony and many letters to Congress, there has never been a formal statement on the issue from the full body of bishops, said Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the pro-life committee, in an introduction to the draft document.

“The issue of stem-cell research does not force us to choose between science and ethics, much less between science and religion,” the document says. “It presents a choice as to how our society will pursue scientific and medical progress.”

Read it all.

News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it’s a step toward creating “designer babies.”

But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.

“None of us wants to make designer babies,” said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Read it all.

What makes the governor’s rhetoric and actions even more troubling has been her acceptance of campaign contributions from Wichita’s Dr. George Tiller, perhaps the most notorious late-term abortionist in the nation. In addition to Dr. Tiller’s direct donations to her campaign, the governor has benefited from the Political Action Committees funded by Dr. Tiller to support pro-abortion candidates in Kansas.
In her veto message, the governor took credit for lower abortion rates in Kansas, citing her support for “adoption incentives, extended health services for pregnant women, providing sex education and offering a variety of support services for families.” Indeed, the governor and her administration should be commended for supporting adoption incentives and health services for pregnant women.

However, the governor overreaches by assuming credit for declining abortion rates in Kansas. Actually, lower abortion rates are part of a national trend. Our neighboring state of Missouri has actually had a steeper and longer decline in its abortion rate.

Governor Sebelius’ inclusion of public school sex education programs as a factor in the abortion rate decline is absurd. Actually, valueless sex education programs in public schools have been around for years, coinciding with increased sexual activity among adolescents, as well as increases in teen pregnancy and abortion. On the other hand, the governor does not acknowledge the significant impact of mass media education programs, such as those sponsored by the Vitae Caring Foundation, or the remarkable practical assistance provided by Crisis Pregnancy Centers which are funded through the generosity of pro-life Kansans.

What makes the governor’s actions and advocacy for legalized abortion, throughout her public career, even more painful for me is that she is Catholic.

Read it all.

Monstrous to some, but representing a ray of hope in the fight against debilitating diseases to others, stem cell research has been steeped in controversy for over a decade.

While scientists, doctors, patient groups and medical charities welcome the ground-breaking advances it could bring, the Roman Catholic Church and several other faiths are vehemently opposed to stem cell research on the grounds that it compromises the sanctity of human life. Central to the religious objectors’ argument is that using stem cells amounts to deriving benefit from the destruction of human embryos – fertilized eggs in the early stages of development – and is therefore tantamount to murder, and certainly little better than abortion.

Yet supporters of the revolutionary research techniques are thrilled that stem cells taken from embryos can be made to grow into any cell in the human body, providing an extraordinary resource in the fight against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Motor Neurone Disease, diabetes and other conditions.

Read it all.

A new form of cloning has been developed that is easier to carry out than the technique used to create Dolly the sheep, raising fears that it may one day be used on human embryos to produce “designer” babies.

Scientists who used the procedure to create baby mice from the skin cells of adult animals have found it to be far more efficient than the Dolly technique, with fewer side effects, which makes it more acceptable for human use.

The mice were made by inserting skin cells of an adult animal into early embryos produced by in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Some of the resulting offspring were partial clones but some were full clones ”“ just like Dolly.

Read it all.

Stem cell research using material taken from human embryos continues to be hotly debated. Advocates of using embryos maintain that at such early stages, the cells cannot be considered a human person. However, a recent book by two philosophers argues the contrary.

Robert P. George, who is also a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, and Christopher Tollefsen, avoid religious-based arguments and lay out a series of scientific and philosophical principles in favor of the human status of the embryo. In “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life” (Doubleday), they maintain that the status of a human being commences at the moment of conception.

The book starts by recounting the history of a boy named Noah, born in January 2007. He was rescued, along with other frozen embryos, from the disaster that struck New Orleans in 2005. It was Noah’s life — a human life — that was saved, George and Tollefsen point out, the same life that was later implanted in a womb and was subsequently born.

A human embryo, they continue, is a living member of the human species even at the earliest stage of development. It is not some type of other animal organism, or some kind of a clump of cells that later undergoes a radical transformation. Barring some kind of tragic accident, a being in the embryonic stage will proceed to the fetal stage and continue to progress in this development.

The point at issue, according to the authors, is at what stage we can identify a single biological system that has started on the process to being a mature human being. This decisive moment, they argue, comes with conception.

Read it all.

Teenagers should be given the right to medically assisted suicide and the parents of terminally ill younger children should be able to choose euthanasia under proposals from members of Belgium’s coalition government.

The plans to extend rules allowing doctors to perform euthanasia on terminally ill people suffering “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain” comes amid heated Belgian debate on the issue.

Under existing Belgian laws, in place since 2002, patients, other than newborn babies, must be over 18 to qualify for assisted suicide, a situation that Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium Liberals, wants changed.

Read it all.

Now comes further evidence of this effect. Two days ago, economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund published an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examining the ratio of male to female births in “U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents.” Among whites, the boy-girl ratio was essentially constant, regardless of the number of kids in a family or how many of them were girls. In the Asian-American sample, the boy-girl ratio started out at the same norm: 1.05 to 1. But among families whose first child was a girl, the boy-girl ratio among second kids went up to 1.17 to 1. And if the first two kids were girls, the boy-girl ratio among third kids went up to 1.5 to 1. This 50 percent increase in male probability is directly contrary to the trend among whites, who tend to produce a child of the same sex as the previous child.

Read it all.

HUMAN-cow embryos have been created in a world first at Newcastle University in England, hailed by the scientific community, but labelled “monstrous” by opponents.

A team has grown hybrid embryos after injecting human DNA into eggs taken from cows’ ovaries, which had most of their genetic material removed.

The embryos survived for three days and are intended to provide a limitless supply of stem cells to develop therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries, overcoming a worldwide shortfall in human embryos.

Dr Teija Peura, director of human embryonic stem cell laboratories at the Australian Stem Cell Centre, said somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) had been done between animal species, but the “99 per cent human” embryos could boost research.

Read it all.

Watch it all and the Newsweek cover story is here for your perusal.

Policy on embryo research continues to zig-zag. Having first said it would outlaw the creation of animal-human hybrids for medical experimentation, the Government then decided to allow it. That position was endorsed last week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

I hope that the Government will change tack yet again. I am deeply uncomfortable with the use of human embryos for research. The HFEA recognised the revulsion many feel at such use of human cells, but insisted that the benefits outweighed such feelings. The recent go-ahead for the creation of ‘cybrid’ embryos – created by the use of a human cell or its nucleus to fertilise an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed – brings more dilemmas.

If the embryos are human enough to be of use in research, are they not human enough for it to be wrong to experiment on them – whatever the possible benefits?

Read it all. Many more links to related material may be found there.

Scientists believe they have made a breakthrough in IVF treatment by creating a human embryo with three separate parents. The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.

The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.

It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.

Read it all.

Shockingly, even today, it appears that the British courts can get it right. Their record in dealing with “mercy killings” provides evidence that we do not need the blunt instrument of a new law legalising euthanasia/assisted suicide.

Robert Cook, 60, suffocated his wife of 29 years with a plastic bag after she took an overdose. Vanessa Cook had worsening multiple sclerosis and had written of her wish to die. On Friday her husband received a 12-month suspended sentence, after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. The judge called it an exceptional case. Last November Stephen Jobling, 52, was also given a 12-month suspended sentence after a bungled suicide pact with his ailing 72-year-old wife. Both survived taking a drug overdose.

Not all “mercy killings” are seen in the same way. Last May a jury found Frank Lund, 52, guilty of murder for smothering his wife. Patricia Lund, 62, suffered from depression and irritable bowel syndrome, but was not terminally ill. The judge called the case “highly unusual, if not unique” and imposed a tariff of only three years.

Read it all.

The South Dakota House and Senate passed similar bills Tuesday requiring doctors to offer pregnant women the chance to see sonograms before they decide to get abortions

If a woman didn’t want to see the sonogram, she would have to sign a statement that the offer had been made.

The Senate version of the bill passed 21 to 13. A slightly different House version passed 38 to 31 later Tuesday afternoon.

Sen. Dennis Schmidt, R-Rapid City, who sponsored the Senate bill, SB88, argued the sonogram requirement would simply improve “informed consent” for women.

Schmidt said sonograms are performed for a variety of procedures, not just abortions, and he said patients are routinely invited to watch. “I watched the procedure done on my wife for hip surgery and I thought, ‘This is phenomenal,'” he said. “This was great information.”

Read it all.

Taking a significant step toward the creation of man-made forms of life, researchers reported Thursday that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components.

While scientists had previously synthesized the complete DNA of viruses, this is the first time it has been done for bacteria, which are much more complex. The genome is more than 10 times as long as the longest piece of DNA ever previously synthesized.

The feat is a watershed for the emerging field called synthetic biology, which involves the design of organisms to perform particular tasks, such as making biofuels. Synthetic biologists envision being able one day to design an organism on a computer, press the “print” button to have the necessary DNA made, and then put that DNA into a cell to produce a custom-made creature.

“What we are doing with the synthetic chromosome is going to be the design process of the future,” said Dr. J. Craig Venter, the boundary-pushing gene scientist. He assembled the team that made the bacterial genome as part of his well publicized quest to create the first synthetic organism. The work was published online Thursday by the journal Science.

Read it all.