So says Barack Obama, in the third and final presidential debate, speaking about the importance of the Supreme Court nominations to be made by the next administration.
"Pro-life pro-Obama"-ites: Are you listening?
Disaffected third-party quixotic voters: Are you listening?
How far back will an Obama administration set us? How long until we get this close again?
Despite the current UK government’s seeming desire to plunge headlong into as much babykilling as possible, there are a couple of interesting developments on the pro-life front in Britain at the moment.
First, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has reversed its earlier stance (PDF warning) that abortion’s mental health risks to the mother were outweighed (before 24 weeks) by the relief of getting an abortion when the mother found the pregnancy distressing.
Now they have announced (PDF warning), based on a review of the literature, that the possible mental health risks of abortion are significant enough that they need to be taken seriously and that the whole question of the mental health risks associated with abortion needs to be revisited, with possible changes to medical practice and public policy.
Legislation, which is not supported by the UK government, is also being introduced that would shorten from 24 to 20 weeks the time when abortions can be performed "for social reasons" (ick!). I assume, since this proposal isn’t backed by the government, that it isn’t likely to pass, but it’s at least a sign that the pro-life movement in Britain isn’t so dead that it’s unwilling to try a legislative route to protecting babies’ lives.
(NOTE: One of the mental health accounts in the story will rip your heart out.)
One other thing: It might be too much to hope for, but in the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ re-evaluation of this subject, I hope they don’t overlook the importance that a mother’s faith can have in helping her cope with post-abortion syndrome. Finding forgiveness from God is important in a situation like this, not just pharmacology and secular counseling.
In honor of those who march today…
"I doubt if anyone of any tenderness or
imagination can see the hand of a child and not be a little frightened of it.
It is awful to think of the essential human energy moving so tiny a thing; it
is like imagining that human nature could live in the wing of a butterfly or the
leaf of a tree. When we look upon lives so human and yet so small. . . we feel
the same kind of obligation to these creatures that [God] might feel. . ."
from Chesterton’s essay In Defense of Baby Worship
from The Defendant 1903.
For more, visit the Catholic Education Resource Center
(http://www.catholiceducation.org/)
What are the strange alphanumeric expressions in the title of this post?
Are they stock numbers?
Perhaps the key to cornering the market?
No. They’re human genes, but they are–potentially–the solution to a raging social issue: the embryonic stem cell debate.
Writing in The Weekly Standard, Ryan Anderson–an assistant editor at First Things–states:
The stem cell wars are over. Leading scientists are telling us that they can pursue the most promising stem cell research without using–much less killing–human embryos. This breakthrough enables researchers to create human embryonic stem cells directly from adult cells. In fact, the new method may actually prove superior to embryo-destructive alternatives. This is the biggest stem cell advance since James Thomson became the first scientist to isolate embryonic stem cells, less than a decade ago.
It is a new study by Thomson himself that has caused the present stir, but this time Thomson is not alone. Accounts of independent research by two separate teams of scientists were published on November 20–one in the journal Cell and one in the journal Science–documenting the production of pluri-potent human stem cells without using embryos or eggs or cloning or any morally questionable method at all.
The new technique is so promising that on November 16, Ian Wilmut announced that he would no longer seek to clone humans. Wilmut, you may remember, is the scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep. He recently sought and received a license from the British government to attempt to clone human embryos for research purposes. Now, citing the new technique, he has abandoned his plans.
Now, I’ve head prospective ways of creating pluripotent stem cells without embryos before–and I haven’t been convinced that they were what they were said to be. The ones I’ve heard before struck me as ways of creating, or potentially creating, severely deformed human embryos and harvesting their stem cells, so I’m skeptical of new miracle procedures that will get around the problem.
I’d like to learn more about the technique that Anderson writes about, but from the description he gives of it in his Weekly Standard article, it sounds as if we may have the genuine article here.
The idea is that you take adult cells and–rather than turning them into totipotent stem cells, which could conceivably be an embryo under another name, you reprogram only select genes in them–those in the article title–and you get a pluripotent-but-not-totipotent stem cell directly from an adult cell.
If that’s what’s really happening in this technique, we may–indeed–have a solution to the stem cell wars.
If so, we have a cause for rejoicing.
The U.S. bishops continue to hold diverse opinions about whether or not canon law requires one to withhold Communion from pro-abortion politicians.
Many, out of an apparent desire not to alienate those who hold pro-abortion views–as part of a "woo them back gently" strategy–resist the idea that Communion should be withheld from such politicians.
The replies given by some bishops involve arguments that strike one variously as (a) dodges of the real issue, (b) subversive of canon 915, or (c) simply incoherent.
For the record, canon 915 states:
Can. 915 Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy Communion.
This is the Church’s law. Yet some quotes from bishops in the media give the appearance that the respective bishops have never heard of this canon, which is difficult to believe after the "Can John Kerry receive Communion?" controversy of the 2004 election.
Part of the problem we are encountering at present is that bishops do not like to be pitted against each other in the press and, since there is not a consensus among them about whether canon 915 should be applied to the case of pro-abortion politicians, many are engaging in diplomatic contortions to avoid bringing the disagreement among them into sharp public focus on the eve of an election season.
So we have a significant disagreement among Church leaders on how the Church’s law is to be applied.
Well, that’s why God created the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts.
We need an authentic interpretation on this point–one way or the other.
For myself, I am strongly of the opinion that both canon and moral law require the withholding of Communion from a politician with a pro-abortion voting record (even if it’s with an "I’m personally opposed, but" dodge).
But Rome needs to sort this out for the good of the Church–both here in American and wherever in the world abortion is being promoted, which includes Rome’s own back yard: Europe.
It’s time for the Church to take a stand on this, for as canonist Ed Peters writes:
We are living through a terrible, perhaps unprecedented, unraveling of respect for Jesus in the Eucharist. Such a crisis compels all of us, I think, to examine our consciences for how our sins might have contributed to this disaster.
You may have seen press stories recently about UK scientists pleading for the use of hybrid human-animal embryos in stem cell research.
Now the British press is reporting that it looks like the plan will be given the go-ahead.
If this were a matter of just splicing a few human genes into a clearly non-human organism, matters would be different, but it appears that the plan involves the creation of an organism that is 99.9% human (see diagram, left).
Basically, they’re talking about eliminating the nuclear genetic information in an animal (most likely cow) cell and shoving in the nucleus of a human cell, then stimulating the result to develop into an embryo.
It’s true that there is non-nuclear genetic material that is found in cells–in organelles besides the nucleus. For example, you may have heard of mitochondrial DNA (DNA found in the mitochondria, which are not part of the nucleus). The process as described would appear to leave that genetic material intact from the animal providing the ovum.
But I’m sorry, this really looks like creating a human being that has a slight admixture of cow genes, not creating a cow that has a slight admixture of human genes.
As a result, one must err on the side of caution and conclude that such embryos are human beings with the right to life and the British government is planning on murdering them or funding their murder.
The stories in the British press cite polling done of people suggesting that the British public favors the use of embryos in trying to find cures for Parkinson’s and Altzheimer’s.
I bet the pollsters didn’t ask, "Are you in favor of research that involves killing something that might be a human being and that in fact has 99.9% human genetic material."
I’ve been writing a (much) longer post dealing with the story I’m about to link, but I realized that I’m just not going to get it finished tonight and–after a few days of being unable to blog–I didn’t want to go with nothing again today.
So let the discussion begin.
Keep it polite.
GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)
It’s this kind of performance that will make pro-lifers wonder just how pro-life Romney really is.
(NOTE: The most revealing exchanges are in the off-the-air portion of the interview)
CNS reports:
Staten Island, Aug 2, 2007 / 11:06 am (CNA).- Abortion clinics nationwide should be required to post a sign stating that women cannot be forced into having an abortion, say the founders of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, the nation’s largest network of women hurt by abortion.
Co-founders Georgette Forney and Janet Morana, believe the law should be based on a newly adopted measure in Arkansas, which requires abortion businesses to post a sign stating that women cannot be forced to have an abortion.
"I can’t tell you how many women I know who’ve been pressured into aborting by a boyfriend, husband, or parent," said Forney.
"This Arkansas statute is really just a gentle reminder to women that no one has the right to threaten or intimidate us into terminating our children,” she continued. “Everyone in every state should support this type of legislation. After all, how could someone who says he’s pro-choice oppose a law that tells a woman she has a choice?"
Janet Morana said the law is needed because abortion clinics have a financial interest in women having abortions and would not post such a sign on their own.
Missouri has just passed a law banning Planned Parenthood and other pro-abort groups from participating in classroom sex ed programs.
The law also re-classifies abortion clinics as ambulatory surgery centers.
EXCERPT:
Planned Parenthood of Missouri complained that the new law will
require them to spend up to $2 million to refit their abortion centers
to meet the new standards.Paula Gianino, president of Planned Parenthood for the St. Louis
Region, said the new law could leave only one abortion facility in the
state.
And Missouri’s governor, who signed the bill, lived up to his last name:
"I say if they can’t meet the same basic requirements that other
(medical) providers do, then they should shut down," [Matt] Blunt stated.
Go Missouri!