Breaking NewsAbstinence Education Backers Say CDC Report Shows Success Of Programs
Data from an analysis conducted by the CDC shows positive evidence that abstinence education is delivering an effective message for teenagers. The report is prompting abstinence education advocates to call for more funding and pro-abstinence policies because abstinence is delaying sex among teens. Birth Control Pill At 40
A few days ago, our country marked a pivotal milestone in the history of the American family. Forty years ago, on September 4, 1969, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared the new birth control pill to be “safe” for use by women to regulate births. Forty years later, the true safety of oral contraception is still in question, mostly because the issue of birth control remains mired in politics and in the control of special interest groups who have an enormous financial and ideological interest in making sure the pill is deemed safe for use. Bending The Rules Of Clinical Trials
Louise (not her real name), a scientist and avid runner in her 50s, first noticed the strange pangs under her right ribcage a few weeks before we met. Her CAT scan revealed a liver so riddled with islands of tumor that the radiologist called them “too numerous to count.” None of the standard surgical, radiologic or chemotherapy treatments would help, and her doctor told her that she had two, maybe three, months to live. Hwang Woo-suk’s Cloning Fraud Has Not Set Back Stem Cell Research
Hwang Woo-suk’s research was supposed to be the harbinger of a medical revolution. In the space of 18 extraordinary months in 2004 and 2005, his team claimed to have created the first cloned human embryo, and then to have produced cloned embryonic stem (ES) cells, apparently paving the way for a new era of regenerative therapy.
Scientists Make Cells That Form Eggs And Sperm In Lab
U.S. researchers have found a way to coax human embryonic stem cells to turn into the types of cells that make eggs and sperm, shedding light on a stage of early human development that has not been fully understood. Taking The Pill For Past 40 Years 'has Put Women Off Masculine Men'
Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago. Decades Away: The Dirty Secret Of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
The time frame for the first of those miracles seems routinely to be given as a "decade," as in "a decade away" or "a decade off." And it keeps shifting. Thus it appeared in a 1998 newswire article heralding the creation of the first human ES cell culture in James Thomson's University of Wisconsin lab. Thomson and his fellow researchers "warn that such clinical applications are perhaps as much as a decade away," said the article. Perhaps as much? Check your calendar. Addressing a 2007 Wisconsin convention nine years later, Thomson articulated that the time frame had shifted to "decades away," plural. More Headlines…
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Ethical Perspectives Judie Brown
When I first learned that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had lied about how the birth control pill worked, way back in the mid-1970s, I was incredulous. It never occurred to me that a public official or government agency would deny the facts by simply not mentioning them. Boy, was I naïve! ... There is a flurry of news regarding the possibility that reprogrammed cells, from umbilical cord blood, could be an ethical replacement for the research currently being done using human embryonic stem cells.†Since a human embryo must die in order for his or her stem cells to be used, the use of those cells is totally unethical and immoral. So could the news about the reprogrammed cord blood cells be positive or simply another sham? Jeremiah R. Grosse
The doctor-patient relationship is based upon trust. In order for a physician to properly treat a patient it is essential that the patient feel comfortable with his or her doctor so that sensitive and important information be provided. The patient, for his or her part, believes that any information provided to the physician will be kept confidential, provided that the patient has no intention of hurting herself or others. Based upon her professional training and knowledge of a given patient, the physician is in the best situation to whether that person has the capacity to be able to handle difficult or painful information and it is essential that information be provided clearly and in a way that the patient clearly understands what is being said. Lying undermines trust and once that trust is gone the doctor-patient relationship is over.
The cloning of Dolly in 1997 opened up the "cloning debate". Since then we have moved on to the "stem cell debate". Most people are mystified by the claims and the confusing terminology. But you don't need a biology degree to understand all the terms, writes Dr Amin Abboud. The fundamental ethical issues are easy enough to understand. Wesley J. Smith
The media continue to imply that embryos hold the key to the future. But increasingly, it looks as if our own body cells offer the quickest and best hope for regenerative medicine. The time has come for the public to insist that the media stop acting as if adult stem cells are the "wrong" kind of stem cells, and report to the American people fully and fairly the remarkable advances continually being made in adult regenerative medicine. Maureen L. Condic
The retrieval of cells from deceased human embryos would enable scientists to obtain genuine embryonic stem cells for use in their efforts to cure various diseases that they believe could be alleviated if wider access to these cells were made available. Most importantly, harvesting cells from deceased human embryos overcomes the central moral objection to this line of research, namely, that it requires the destruction of living human embryos. Rebecca Taylor
The point is that ASCs are much closer to providing cures than ESCs, without the need for cloning or leftover IVF embryos. So, why are so many scientists and reporters confusing the issue? Why are they pushing for the creation and destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cells? I believe that, once we no longer recognized the sanctity of human life from its beginning, we entered a culture where human embryos have become, not a precious gift, but a commodity that many researchers cannot wait to exploit, regardless of whether cures will result or not. They want to divert precious research dollars toward the manipulation of human life, not toward research that actually shows real promise. It is crucial that, as a society, we remain informed. There is a distinction between adult and embryonic stem cells. There are alternatives to the "creation and destruction of human life" to cure devastating disease. Antonio P. Pueyo
This is mission possible: to proclaim justice, to defend life in all its stages, to work for peace, to build communities, to care for the defenseless, to advocate for an ecologically sound planet, to proclaim the good news about life in Jesus Christ and membership in God's family. *Offsite Article
People of every religious persuasion, or none at all, ought to be able to see that it is wrong to kill you or me, because the things that we are, as opposed to just the properties or experiences we have, are intrinsically valuable. But the things that we are, are human physical organisms. Human physical organisms come to be at conception.... Therefore, the things that are intrinsically valuable — and so can rightly be called "persons" — come to be at conception, It is wrong it kill and dismember them — at any stage of their existence — in the hope of benefiting others.
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Sat, November 07, 2009
As far as the right to life is concerned, every innocent human being is absolutely equal to all others. This equality is the basis of all authentic social relationships which, to be truly such, can only be founded on truth and justice, recognizing and protecting every man and woman as a person and not as an object to be used.
—Gospel of Life #57
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