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Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics. I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated. Bush had restricted federal funding for...

AMA Supports President's Decision to Fund Stem Cell Research For immediate release March 9, 2009 Statement attributable to: Joseph Heyman, MD Board Chair, American Medical Association "The American Medical Association supports President Obama's decision to lift the ban on federal funding of stem cell research. Stem cell research holds great promise to treat diseases that science has so far been unable to cure, and this change in policy will allow researchers to accelerate their efforts by applying for federal research funds. "The AMA supports biomedical research on stem cells and has encouraged strong public support of federal funding for this...

A California firm called Fertility Institutes is advertising gender selection for in vitro fertilization (IVF), claiming to be the first to offer tests to pre-determine eye, skin, and hair color. LifeSiteNews.com reports on the rapidly growing trend of sex-selection abortion, an idea many have considered since IVF technology was forming in the 1970s. The Fertility Institute's advertisement guarantees a 100-percent success rate and reads as follows: "For the first time ever, patients having genetic screening for abnormal chromosome conditions in their embryos will be able to elect expanded testing that can greatly increase the odds of achieving a healthy pregnancy...

LONDON, March 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Oxford University stem cell expert has urged the use of aborted children in organ transplants as a solution to the shortage of available organs. Sir Richard Gardner has called for a feasibility study on the possibility of obtaining organs from the bodies of aborted babies.He said, "It is probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others."The Daily Mail reports that pro-life and Christian groups have called the proposal "morally abhorrent," and said it will result in abortions being timed to suit transplant patients. Dr Peter...

Lifting Limits on Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Politics over Science and Ethics March 09, 2009 In a column to be published in the March 12 Catholic Standard newspaper, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl called the decision by President Barack Obama to void restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research “disheartening.” He went on to explain the Church’s support for ethical scientific research, such as adult stem cell research, noting its success over the past decades in addressing disease and illness. The column follows. Lifting Limits on Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Politics over Science and Ethics The announcement that...

Stem Cells Does Their Origin Matter? Preserving life—it is extremely important in the Christian faith. But what is the biblical definition of life, and how does this definition affect stem cell research?God clearly commands in Exodus 20:13: “You shall not murder [the intentional, predatory killing of another]” (NIV; see also Matthew 19:18; Romans 13:9). A big controversy today is that of determining when life begins. In the field of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), this determination is especially crucial. Because technology is advancing faster than society’s ethics, we are left to solve such dilemmas in the midst of active...

snip whatever one thinks of Darwin and genetics, assuming he was even partially right about genes, is there any hope for the children of such a hopelessly odd mother, not to mention a man who provided his seed because he was "in love" with her? The political culture of today says we can't answer this question publicly, but assuming Suleman's story is merely the tip of the iceberg, politicians who control the purse strings are eventually going to have to stake out a position here. Whatever side is taken, it would surely be interesting to know how many women, desirous...

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Terminally ill patients with less than six months to live will soon be able to ask their doctors to prescribe them lethal medication in Washington state. But even though the "Death with Dignity" law takes effect Thursday, people who might seek the life-ending prescriptions could find their doctors conflicted or not willing to write them. Many doctors are hesitant to talk publicly about where they stand on the issue, said Dr. Tom Preston, a retired cardiologist and board member of Compassion & Choices, the group that campaigned for and supports the law.

"Brain Death" is Life, Not Death: Neurologists, Philosophers, Neonatologists, Jurists, and Bioethicists Unanimous at Conference By Hilary White - Rome correspondentROME, February 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - If a patient is able to process oxygen from the lungs into the bloodstream, maintain a normal body temperature, digest food and expel waste, grow to normal adult size from the age of four to twenty, and even carry a child to term, can he or she be considered dead? Can a person who is "dead" wake up and go on later to finish a university degree? Can a corpse get out of...

David Axelrod Washington D.C., Feb 17, 2009 / 06:56 am (CNA).- White House adviser David Axelrod announced on "Fox News Sunday" that President Barack Obama is about to announce his next anti-life decision:  erasing every limitation  President George W. Bush placed on federal funding for embryonic stem cell  research  (ESCR).Under the previous administration, federal money for ESCR was limited to those stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001, while no federal dollars could be used on research with cell lines from embryos destroyed from that point forward. Obama "right now is considering an executive order lifting...

WASHINGTON--While the Obama White House is searching for a replacement for health czar Tom Daschle, policy work on health care reform--a priority for the administration--Is ongoing with one key advisor especially well connected. The brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a noted bioethicist, is advising the Obama administration on health care reform. Dr. Emanuel is the Chair of the Department of Bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and a breast oncologist. Dr. Emanuel is a special advisor to the director of the White House Office of Management and...

Brave New Pedagogues by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 11, 2009 Academics pride themselves on dreaming up the cutting edge ideas that govern us. That might not be a good thing. They frequently do so without any grave concern about the evidence behind their theories or any regard for the ethical problems inherent in adopting them. Thus, the Ivory Tower is a bastion of support for embryonic stem cell research even though thus far, it has been an abysmal failure and interfering with the creative process of birth is something that you will have to explain to the creator someday. “Stanford...

THE BACKLASH against Nadya Suleman, the 33-year-old single mother of six who gave birth to octuplets on Jan. 26, has been fierce. The reactions have ranged from reproach to ridicule to anger. On newspaper editorial pages, radio talk shows, and Internet comment boards, Suleman has been derided as a mental case or a mercenary or worse. There has been no outpouring of gifts from corporate America - nothing like the lifetime supply of Pampers that Procter & Gamble provided when the McCaughey septuplets were born in 1997, or the 15-passenger van Chevrolet donated to their parents. Indeed, one talk-show host...

As the economy turns grimmer by the day, more North Jersey residents are trying an unusual strategy to shore up finances: Selling their eggs or sperm for cash.  Lured by $8,000 payments advertised on Craigslist, highway billboards and college newspapers, an increasing number of young women are becoming donors to offset debt or to feel more secure as unemployment rises and savings dwindle. North Hudson IVF in Englewood Cliffs has experienced a 60 percent increase in the number of women inquiring about egg donation, according to Carol Woods, donor coordinator. Every day, there are e-mails and phone calls."The very first...

This is not going to be a column that dumps on the misguided and clearly troubled Nadya Suleman - the 33-year-old unemployed single Whittier (Los Angeles County) mother of six who gave birth to octuplets last month. Of course, a single mother of six has absolutely no business having more children.But the real issue here is that we live in a country with so few regulations on the human fertility business that clinics can engage in practices that can lead to premature births - producing low-birth-weight babies doomed to chronic illnesses and even infant mortality. The outrage isn't that Suleman...

President Obama told House Democrats Thursday that he will sign an executive order withdrawing limitations on federal funding ... ... for stem cell research. "I guarantee you that we will sign an executive order for stem cells," Obama said in response to a question from Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.). Obama added, though, that he wants to work with the House and Senate to make the order solid, according to the pool report. The remarks were made during a private question-and-answer session with members and confirmed by two sources. Obama had suggested during a pre-inauguration interview that he might not use...

LOS ANGELES - The spotlight on the mother of octuplets is turning to the fertility doctor who helped her give birth not once but 14 times by implanting Nadya Suleman with fertilized embryos. The Medical Board of California investigating the doctor - whom it did not name - to see if there was a "violation of the standard of care," board spokeswoman Candis Cohen said Friday. She did not elaborate. Suleman, 33, of Whittier, already had six children when she gave birth Jan. 26 to octuplets. The births to an unemployed, divorced single mother prompted angry questions about how she...

According to the grandmother of octuplets born in California last week, rather than allow her leftover frozen embryos to be destroyed, dissected in a laboratory, or frozen indefinitely, their mother chose to give them a chance at life by implanting them in her womb. Little did she expect to give birth to eight relatively healthy babies, or to be deluged first by congratulations, then by scorn, as critics questioned her choice not to selectively abort as a single mother of reportedly little means. Suleman, anonymous at the time, made headlines last Monday when she gave birth to the longest-living set...

Strategy for creating pluripotent cells called into question.The creation of human?animal hybrid embryos ? proposed as a way to generate embryonic stem cells without relying on scarce human eggs ? has met with legislative hurdles and public outcry. But a paper published this week suggests that the approach has another, more fundamental problem: it may simply not work. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, a stem-cell company based in Los Angeles, California, and his colleagues show that in their labs, early-stage human?cow, human?mouse and human?rabbit hybrid embryos fail to grow beyond 16 cells (Y. Chung et al. Cloning Stem Cells...

Family Research Council recognizes and respects the inherent dignity of every human life from conception (whether by natural or artificial means) until death. FRC desires to help build a culture of life, holding that all human life is a gift to be treasured. The life of every human being is an intrinsic good, not something whose value is conditional upon its usefulness to others or to the state.Threats to human life include abortion, euthanasia, and many new forms of biotechnology. However, human beings need not prove their moral worth by demonstrating sentience, or self-awareness, or a certain level of cognitive...