The more our culture blindly accepts killing, organ harvesting and treating other human beings as mere property, the further we slide into moral relativism, and it will be very difficult for us some day to make the argument that our own killers should respect our human dignity.
We wonder why we have the Terri Schiavo atrocity, Dr. Kevorkian, eugenics, population control, babies found dead in trash cans and the other atrocities found throughout the world.
FREE Book on Stem Cells and Cloning in understandable language
Excellent post, Coleus.
Sorry about the spate of wholly predictable replies from the Brain Trust around here.
On the up side, they'd make a perfect Exhibit "A" to a "FREE REPUBLIC DEFENSE OF HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE AND REPRODUCTION"
I mean ... after all ... homosexuals are trying to HAVE babies, right?
Given California's desire to become the world's largest manufacturer of embryos for utilitarian research, I expect to see more of the Cali crowd on board with Nancy Reagan, et al. soon enough.
Excellent post, Coleus.
Sorry about the spate of wholly predictable replies from the Brain Trust around here.
On the up side, they'd make a perfect Exhibit "A" to a "FREE REPUBLIC DEFENSE OF HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE AND REPRODUCTION"
I mean ... after all ... homosexuals are trying to HAVE babies, right?
Given California's desire to become the world's largest manufacturer of embryos for utilitarian research, I expect to see more of the Cali crowd on board with Nancy Reagan, et al. soon enough.
Keep fighting the good fight, and thanks for encouraging us to do likewise!
Your post is DEAD on. This is the sick little secret of IVF.
They have finally arrived!
Planned Parenthood is proud to offer yet another t-shirt in our new social fashion line: "I Had an Abortion" fitted T-shirts are now available. These soft and comfortable fitted tees assert a powerful message in support of women's rights.
Humanity has resorted to the buying, selling and trading of babies created in God's image and likeness to be advertised and sold as a mere commodity for profit with which is experimented, used, cloned and subsequently frozen and/or burned. Take a look at the face of the baby in the picture and then think of his siblings and fellow humans which are being harvested for body parts, frozen and incinerated.
The more our culture blindly accepts killing, organ harvesting and treating other human beings as mere property, the further we slide into moral relativism, and it will be very difficult for us some day to make the argument that our own killers should respect our human dignity.
45 Million babies have been aborted in abortion mills, how many have been aborted in fertility clinics? I bet the numbers will astound us. There are thousands of clinics such as this one all across America.
Adoption instead of Abortion
The Facts of Prenatal Development
Is it a human being?
"From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, M.D. 1967.
"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris. He discovered the Down syndrome chromosome.
"It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School.
"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic.
When does the heart begin to beat?
At 18 days [when the mother is only four days late for her first menstrual period], and by 21 days it is pumping, through a closed circulatory system, blood whose type is different from that of the mother. J.M. Tanner, G. R. Taylor, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Growth, New York: Life Science Library, 1965, p.
When is the brain functioning?
Brain waves have been recorded at 40 days on the Electroencephalogram (EEG). H. Hamlin, "Life or Death by EEG," JAMA, Oct. 12, 1964, p. 120
Brain function, as measured on the Electroencephalogram, "appears to be reliably present in the fetus at about eight weeks gestation," or six weeks after conception. J. Goldenring, "Development of the Fetal Brain," New England Jour. of Med., Aug. 26, 1982, p. 564How early do some organs form?
The eye, ear and respiratory systems begin to form four weeks after fertilization. K. Moore, Before We Were Born, 3rd ed., 1989, p. 278
And function?
Very early, e.g., glucagon, a blood sugar hormone, has been demonstrated in the fetal pancreas 6 weeks after fertilization, and insulin by 7 to 8. F. Cunningham, "Pancreas," William’s Obstet., 19th ed., 1993, p. 183-4
Thumbsucking has been photographed at 7 weeks after fertilization. W. Liley, The Fetus As Personality, Fetal Therapy, 1986, p. 8-17
When does the developing baby first move?
"In the sixth to seventh weeks. . . . If the area of the lips is gently stroked, the child responds by bending the upper body to one side and making a quick backward motion with his arms. This is called a ‘total pattern response’ because it involves most of the body, rather than a local part." L. B. Arey, Developmental Anatomy (6th ed.), Philadelphia: W. B. Sanders Co., 1954
At eight weeks, "if we tickle the baby’s nose, he will flex his head backwards away from the stimulus." A. Hellgers, M.D., "Fetal Development, 31," Theological Studies, vol. 3, no. 7, 1970, p. 26
Another example is from a surgical technician whose letter said, "When we opened her abdomen (for a tubal pregnancy), the tube had expelled an inch-long fetus, about 4-6 weeks old. It was still alive in the sack. "That tiny baby was waving its little arms and kicking its little legs and even turned its whole body over." J. Dobson, Focus on the Family Mag., Aug. ’91, pg. 16
When are all her body systems present?
By eight weeks (two months). Hooker & Davenport, The Prenatal Origin of Behavior, University of Kansas Press, 1952
When do teeth form?
All 20 milk-teeth buds are present at six and a half weeks."Life Before Birth," Life Magazine, Apr. 30, 1965, p. 10
And include dental lamina at 8 weeks. Med. Embryology, Longman, 3rd Ed., 1975, p. 406
At nine to ten weeks, he squints, swallows, moves his tongue, and if you stroke his palm, will make a tight fist.
By nine weeks he will "bend his fingers round an object in the palm of his hand." Valman & Pearson, "What the Fetus Feels," British Med. Jour., Jan. 26, 1980
When does he start to breathe?
"By 11 to 12 weeks (3 months), he is breathing fluid steadily and continues so until birth. At birth, he will breathe air. He does not drown by breathing fluid with-in his mother, because he obtains his oxygen from his umbilical cord. This breathing develops the organs of respiration." "Life Before Birth," Life Magazine, Apr. 30, 1965, p. 13
"Maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy decreases the frequency of fetal breathing by 20%. The ‘well documented’ higher incidence of prematurity, stillbirth, and slower development of reading skill may be related to this decrease." 80 F. Manning, "Meeting of Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons," Family Practice News, March 15, 1976
"In the 11th week of gestation fetal breathing is irregular and episodic. As gestation continues, the breathing movements become more vigorous and rapid." C. Dawes, "Fetal Breathing: Indication of Well Being," Family Practice News, Mar. 16, 1976, p. 6
Episodic spontaneous breathing movement have been observed in the healthy human fetus as early as ten weeks gestational age. Conners et al., "Control of Fetal Breathing in the Human Fetus," Am J. OB-GYN, April ‘89, p. 932
When can she swallow?
At 11 weeks. Valman & Pearson, British Med. Jour., "What the Fetus Feels," 26 Jan. 1980, p. 233
What of detailed development, like fingernails and eyelashes?
Fingernails are present by 11 to 12 weeks; eyelashes by 16 weeks. Fingerprints are completely established during the fourth month of gestation. Hamilton et al., Human Embryology, Fourth Ed., 1972, p. 567
At what point are all her body systems working?
By 11 weeks. "Life Before Birth," Life Magazine, Apr. 30, 1965, p. 13
How does the size of the baby increase in weight?
At 12 weeks (three months) she weighs about 30 gm (1.0 ounce); at 16 weeks about 170 gm (6 ounces); and at 20 weeks (four months), approximately 454 gm (one pound).
When is taste present?
"Taste buds are working between 13 and 15 weeks gestation" (11 to 13 weeks after conception). Mistretta & Bradley, Taste in Utero, 1977, p. 62 Bradley et al., "Dev. Taste Buds . . . ," J. Anat. 101 (4) 1967, p. 743-752
"Auditory sense is present in the infant 24 weeks before birth [14 weeks after conception]. This involves brain functioning and memory patterns." M. Clemens, "5th International Congress Psychosomatic," OB & GYN, Rome: Medical Tribune, Mar. 22, 1978, p. 7
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Introduction | |
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Respect for Human Embryos | |
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Interventions upon Human Procreation | |
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Moral and Civil Law | |
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Conclusion |
Thank you posting this! So much information to keep handy. I appreciate you taking the abuse so others would have this info. God bless you!!
IVF would be morally acceptable if they'd only fertilize one egg at a time.
The more our culture blindly accepts killing, organ harvesting and treating other human beings as mere property, the further we slide into moral relativism, and it will be very difficult for us some day to make the argument that our own killers should respect our human dignity.
Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer's
Adult Stem Cell Research More Effective Than Embryonic Cells
Embryo Vivisection and Elusive Promises Act--California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative
Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer's
The Stem Cell Cover-Up By Michael Fumento
Lies About Fetal Stem Cell Research [Free Republic]
Stem cells without benefit of embryos
Michael Foment Interview [DDT, Global Warming, Fuel Cells, Stem Cells, AIDS, Biotech, AD/HD, Etc.]
SELLING LIES (Stem Cell Myths exposed by Michael Foment)
FREE Book on Stem Cells and Cloning in understandable language
Unborn Children May "Cure" Mothers' Diseases Via Fetal Stem Cells
| Alzheimer's gene therapy trial shows early promise | Drug slows advanced Alzheimer's disease |
*In 2000, Israeli scientists implanted Melissa Holley's white blood cells into her spinal cord to treat the paraplegia caused when her spinal cord was severed in an auto accident. Melissa, who is 18, has since regained control over her bladder and recovered significant motor function in her limbs - she can now move her legs and toes, although she cannot yet walk.
This is exactly the kind of therapy that embryonic-stem-cell proponents promise - years down the road. Yet Melissa's breakthrough was met with collective yawns in the press with the exception of Canada's The Globe and Mail. Non-embryonic stem cells may be as common as beach sand.
They have been successfully extracted from umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat, cadaver brains, bone marrow, and tissues of the spleen, pancreas, and other organs. Even more astounding, the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep successfully created cow heart tissue using stem cells from cow skin. And just this week, Singapore scientists announced that they have transformed bone-marrow cells into heart muscle.
Research with these cells also has a distinct moral advantage: It doesn't require the destruction of a human embryo. You don't have to be pro-life to be more comfortable with that.
*In another Parkinson's case, a patient treated with his own brain stem cells appears to have experienced a substantial remission with no adverse side effects. Dennis Turner was expected by this time to require a wheelchair and extensive medication. Instead, he has substantially reduced his medication and rarely reports any noticeable symptoms of his Parkinson's. Human trials in this technique are due to begin soon.
*Bone marrow stem cells, blood stem cells, and immature thigh muscle cells have been used to grow new heart tissue in both animal subjects and human patients. Indeed, while it was once scientific dogma that damaged heart muscle could not regenerate, it now appears that cells taken from a patient's own body may be able to restore cardiac function. Human trials using adult stem cells have commenced in Europe and other nations. (The FDA is requiring American researchers to stick with animal studies for now to test the safety of the adult stem cell approach.)
*Harvard Medical School researchers reversed juvenile onset diabetes (type-1) in mice using "precursor cells" taken from spleens of healthy mice and injecting them into diabetic animals. The cells transformed into pancreatic islet cells. The technique will begin human trials as soon as sufficient funding is made available.
*In the United States and Canada, more than 250 human patients with type-1 diabetes were treated with pancreatic tissue (islet) transplantations taken from human cadavers. Eighty percent of those who completed the treatment protocol have achieved insulin independence for over a year. (Good results have been previously achieved with pancreas transplantation, but the new approach may be much safer than a whole organ transplant.)
*Blindness is one symptom of diabetes. Now, human umbilical cord blood stem cells have been injected into the eyes of mice and led to the growth of new human blood vessels. Researchers hope that the technique will eventually provide an efficacious treatment for diabetes-related blindness. Scientists also are experimenting with using cord blood stem cells to inhibit the growth of blood vessels in cancer, which could potentially lead to a viable treatment.
*Bone marrow stem cells have partially helped regenerate muscle tissue in mice with muscular dystrophy. Much more research is needed before final conclusions can be drawn and human studies commenced. But it now appears that adult stem cells may well provide future treatments for neuromuscular diseases.
*Severed spinal cords in rats were regenerated using gene therapy to prevent the growth of scar tissue that inhibits nerve regeneration. The rats recovered the ability to walk within weeks of receiving the treatments. The next step will be to try the technique with monkeys. If that succeeds, human trials would follow.
*In one case reported from Japan, an advanced pancreatic cancer patient injected with bone marrow stem cells experienced an 80 percent reduction in tumor size.
* In separate experiments, scientists researched the ability of embryonic and adult mouse pancreatic stem cells to regenerate the body's ability to make insulin. Both types of cells boosted insulin production in diabetic mice. The embryonic success made a big splash with prominent coverage in all major media outlets. Yet the same media organs were strangely silent about the research involving adult cells.
Stranger still, the adult-cell experiment was far more successful - it raised insulin levels much more. Indeed, those diabetic mice lived, while the mice treated with embryonic cells all died. Why did the media celebrate the less successful experiment and ignore the more successful one?
* Another barely reported story is that alternative-source stem cells are already healing human illnesses.
*In Los Angeles, the transplantation of stem cells harvested from umbilical-cord blood has saved the lives of three young boys born with defective immune systems.
“‘This [isolating stem cells from fat] could take the air right out of the debate about embryonic stem cells,’ said Dr. Mark Hedrick of UCLA, the lead author. The newly identified cells have so many different potential applications, he added, that ‘it makes it hard to argue that we should use embryonic cells.’” -- Thomas H. Maugh II, “Fat may be answer to many illnesses,” Los Angeles Times, 4/10/01
“With the newest evidence that even cells in fat are capable of being transformed into tissue through the alchemy of biotechnology, some scientists said they are beginning to conclude they’ll be able to grow with relative ease all sorts of replacement tissues without resorting to embryo or fetal cells…‘It’s highly provocative work, and they’re probably right,’ said Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas…Like many biologists, Olson believes that adult, fetal and embryonic stem cell research all merit support…it’s heartening, he said, that almost “every other week there’s another interesting finding of adult stem cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be reevaluated.’” --Rick Weiss, “Human Fat May Provide Stem Cells,” The Washington Post, 4/10/01
“In a finding that could offer an entirely new way to treat heart disease within the next few years, scientists working with mice and rats have found that key cells from adult bone marrow can rebuild a damaged heart—actually creating new heart muscle and blood vessels…Until now researchers thought that stem cells from embryos offer the best hope for rebuilding damaged organs, but this latest research shows that the embryos, which are politically controversial, may not be necessary. ‘We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells,’ [Dr. Donald] Orlic [of the National Human Genome Research Institute] said.” --Robert Bazell, “Approach may repair heart damage,” NBC Nightly News, 3/30/01.
“[Dr. Donald] Orlic said fetal and embryonic stem cell researchers have not been able to show the regeneration of heart cells, even in animals. ‘This study alone gives us tremendous hope that adult stem cells can do more than what embryonic stem cells can do,’ he said.” --Kristen Philipkoski, “Adult Stem Cells Growing Strong,” Wired Magazine, 3/30/01
“Like several other recent studies, the new work with hearts suggests that stem cells retrieved from adults have unexpected and perhaps equal flexibility of their own, perhaps precluding the need for the more ethically contentious [embryonic] cells.” --Rick Weiss, “Studies Raise Hopes of Cardiac Rejuvenation,” The Washington Post, 3/31/01
“Umbilical cords discarded after birth may offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by strokes and other ills, free of the ethical concerns surrounding the use of fetal tissue, researchers said Sunday.” --“Umbilical cords could repair brains,” Associated Press, 2/20/01.
"PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has succeeded in ‘reprogramming' a cell -- a move that could lead to the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The Scotland-based group will today announce that it has turned a cow's skin cell into a beating heart cell and is close to starting research on humans... The PPL announcement...will be seen as an important step towards producing stem cells without using human embryos." --"PPL follows Dolly with cell breakthrough," Financial Times, 2/23/01
“Because they have traveled further on a pathway of differentiation than an embryo’s cells have, such tissue specific [adult] stem cells are believed by many to have more limited potential than E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells or those that PPL hopes to create. Some researchers, however, are beginning to argue that these limitations would actually make tissue-specific stem cells safer than their pluripotent counterparts. University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Glenn McGee is one of the most vocal critics on this point: ‘The emerging truth in the lab is that pluripotent stem cells are hard to reign in. The potential that they would explode into a cancerous mass after a stem cell transplant might turn out to be the Pandora’s box of stem cell research.’” --Erika Jonietz, “Biotech: Could new research end the embryo debate?” Technology Review, January/February, 2001.
Great post. Thank you for taking the time to present this pertinent info.
We all need to pray for many of those who replied - they are satan driven and serve no purpose other than to bash you and your message. You are only answering His call and are an apostle in our perverted world.
God bless you and your family.
I am appalled.
This is really part of a larger discussion which no one seems to want to have. Why the rampant infertility? In my day, we certainly did not have any trouble conceiving and bearing children. Perhaps that is because we were much younger. Indeed, we had the opposite problem, and that is why we are seeing this problem now.
Today, society is shocked if a couple marries before 30 (they're so young) and further shocked if the wife gives up her career to bear children before 38, or older. No wonder they are infertile! Our next "problem" will be how to handle a generation children orphaned at 15, when their 65 year old mothers and fathers suddenly pass away.
Why do couples wait so long to start their families? Several reasons:
1) society requires more education to launch a career
2) society is highly upwardly mobile -- unwilling to settle for anything except the finest weddings, houses, cars, furniture, etc.
3) the economy requires both members of the marriage to work full time -- indeed modern society looks down on homemakers and soccer moms as useless appendages
4) the pill and other forms of birth control (as well as popular mores and public school education) have removed the shame and embarrassment out of pre-marital sexual activity
5) the "pill" and the "patch" does not protect women from STDs, thus rendering many young couples infertile before they ever decide to have children
Anybody around here remember the old TV commercial where a voice booms over the background music, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature..."
Modern generations have been trying to "fool" Mother Nature for the last 40 years -- and the results are definitely NOT NICE.
Who would think the words uttered by Charlton Heston in a left-wing, Sci-Fi movie would be true today?
It's a shame how humanity is digressing. I often wonder how God feels about IVF? Is He happy about it? Is this what he meant by procreation in the sanctity and sacrament of marriage?
If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
Keep it up, Coleus; good job.
I thought simply because it was time and I wanted to have a baby it would work out.
Sadly, I find this attitude to be commonplace. We pray, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," not, "my will be done," although this is how we often behave.
The critique of IVF is right on the money:
There are an average of 24 embryos destroyed or frozen in order for one IVF baby to be born. The moral principle violated by this procedure is the most fundamental of all moral tenets: one can never do an evil in order that good may come of it.
Wonderful collection of articles.