Breaking NewsHuman-pig Hybrid Embryos Given Go Ahead
This marks the third animal-human hybrid embryo licence to be issued by Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the first since the Commons voted in favour of this controversial research last month. Egg Shortage Hits Race To Clone Human Stem Cells
Researchers back bid to pay donors. Pfizer Eyes New Use For Stem Cells
Big drug companies have largely stayed away from testing exotic stem-cell treatments. But now Pfizer is betting that a radical new adult stem-cell treatment may be able to stave off diabetes-induced retina damage, a leading cause of blindness. European Patent Office Hears Dispute On Human Stem Cells
A European Patent Office (EPO) tribunal in Munich heard a dispute Tuesday on whether a method of growing embryonal human stem cells can be patented, but gave no date for its decision on the controversial case. US scientist James Thomson, who in 1998 was the first in the world to cultivate such stem cells, is appealing to EPO’s highest board over the refusal to grant a patent in the European Union for the so-called WARF stem cell. India: Proxy Womb Law Set For Birth
The government is thinking of enacting a law to regulate surrogacy in a bid to make the deal struck between the prospective parents and the woman lending her womb legally binding on both sides. Adult Stem Cells Reprogrammed In Their Natural Environment
In recent years, stem cell researchers have become very adept at manipulating the fate of adult stem cells cultured in the lab. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies achieved the same feat with adult neural stem cells still in place in the brain. They successfully coaxed mouse brain stem cells bound to join the neuronal network to differentiate into support cells instead. Korean Team Clones US Woman’s Dog
Spending tens of thousands of dollars in producing clones of a dead dog does sound silly to some people. But if the dog was your best friend, partner and a lifesaver, then things may feel a little different.
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Ethical Perspectives Judie Brown
Since my first days in the pro-life movement, more than 35 years ago, I have learned a great deal about rhetoric and how it can deceive even the most well meaning of people. I have also learned that there are people, especially on the pro-death side of the debate, who will go to great lengths to use words in specific ways in order to mislead the listener. Paul A. Byrne
It appears as though Professor Dianne Irving did not read my entire article. Words, like conception, have definition and meaning. The roots of words never change, no matter how distorted. A true physician always is defined in relationship to the patient. A veterinarian is defined by beast and brutes. The embryologist is defined by a time period from the zygote to the fetus (8 weeks). The patient is a person. The person is an individual substance of a nature rational. Human life on earth is the substantial fact of the unity of soul and body. The formation of the body at the instant of conception manifests the person created by God.
Irving News Comments
[Note: How soon we forget! My thesis as a biochemistry major involved the infamous "twin" experiments of Nazi "scientist" Mengele, where one twin was used as the "control", and the other twin was experimented on. Thus it is startling to me to see that only 60 years later, the research community seems to have forgotten those massive and horrific abuses of human subjects, and is now "confused" as to the "ethics" involved in research involving children as "controls" (see article below). The extraordinarily harsh ethical lessons learned back then that resulted in the Nuremberg Code are now merely snickered at by many researchers, but perhaps that Code should be revisited -- especially given the immense number of human subjects that will be statistically required to participate internationally in the nano/bio/info/cogno "Future" looming before us. Paul A. Byrne
Life for every person begins with creation by the Creator. (Cf. CCC, 327; 296.) The reference to creation is prior to time. Life is the substantial fact of the existence in time. Human time begins with Adam and Eve. The living person is visible. The soul is the life of the person. It cannot be seen because it is spiritual.
John B. Shea
The Church teaches that medical research must refrain from operations on live embryos, unless there is moral certainty of not causing harm to the life or integrity of the unborn child and mother, and on condition that the parents have given free and informed consent to the procedure. Since stem cell research on human embryos, in practice, invariably causes the death of those embryos, it too stands condemned. Thomas J. Davis, Jr.
On October 1, 2007, new legislation went into effect in Connecticut mandating that licensed health care facilities treating victims of sexual assault also provide them with medically, factually accurate, and objective information relating to emergency contraception (EC), inform them of its availability, use and efficacy, and dispense it to them on request. The legislation was strenuously opposed by the Catholic bishops of Connecticut because it would compel Catholic hospitals to provide EC to rape victims even if noninvasive testing suggested an increased possibility that its use would impede implantation of a fertilized ovum in the endometrium. On September 27, 2007, just days before the effective date of the law, the bishops announced that they would reluctantly comply with the legislative mandate and forgo such testing. Steven Mosher
With receding interest in living individual lives of metaphysical and moral goodness has come increased interest in living physically healthy lives. An endless stream of scientific reports provide bases for an even larger stream of media reports about what is healthy and what is not. Many observers have commented on the obsession with health risks that seems pervasive in contemporary media and society. Philomene Joshua
Disorganising the embryo in attempts to find stem cells, defeats the aims of replacement, and underlines the futility of such research.
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Fri, July 04, 2008
“Every human being, even the infant in the mother’s womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic , social, economic or moral “indication” that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life - which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit in itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit...”
—(Pope Pius XII, Allocution to Italian Midwives, 10/29/51
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