Russ Neglia has created a new pro-life blog under the Townhall.com umbrella. He calls it “Pro-Life Pro-Logic”, and it’s aptly named. Each post is well thought out and logically and dispassionately presented. He doesn’t post every day, but you’ll understand why when you read his articles. These aren’t quick hits on topic, they are essays that take a little time to read. He’s covered topics such as embryonic stem cell research and did a two-parter on how the death penalty relates to abortion. Check it out.

Technorati Tags: Russ Neglia, pro-life, abortion, embryonic stem cells, death penalty

One more reason that the ethical issues with embryonic stem cells don’t have to ignored to advance science.

New research released Sunday strongly suggests the success of a third category of stem cells that carry with them less political baggage. The two previously best-known sources for stem cells have been fetuses and adult tissues. The newly discovered stem cells are amniotic-fluid stem cells that reside in the placenta and the liquid around human fetuses in the mother’s womb.

The new cells are nearly as adaptable to multiply and change into many different cell types as the other strains. The potential is huge, using this technology body tissue can be renewed, or used to treat a range of diseases. They may also allow physicians and technicians to grow new organs in a laboratory for later transplantation.

All these sources of stem cells do not require an advancement of the culture of death. This is the path we should be taking, in a big way. Destroying embryos doesn’t even have to be on the table.

Technorati Tags: amniotic fluid stem cells, ethics, science

In Britian, they want to open up the discussion on whether abortion can happen sometime after the baby has already been born.

Doctors involved in childbirth are calling for an open discussion about the ethics of euthanasia for the sickest of newborn babies. The option to end the suffering of a severely damaged newborn baby – who might have been aborted if the parents had known earlier the extent of its disabilities and potential suffering – should be discussed, says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in its evidence to an inquiry by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which examines ethical issues raised by new developments.

The college says the Nuffield’s working group should “think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best-interests test and active euthanasia as they are means of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns”.

The inquiry is looking into “the ethics of prolonging life in foetuses and the newborn”. Euthanasia was not originally on the agenda, because of its illegality. But the RCOG submission has persuaded the inquiry to broaden its investigation, although any recommendation favouring euthanasia for newborns is highly unlikely before a change in the law.

Once one envelope has been successfully pushed aside, the next lies not that far away. The question of extraordinary lifesaving steps is one thing, but “active euthanasia” brings the matter into a whole new light. One has to wonder where the ethics and morality of those wanting such discussions to take place have gone.

And here’s an interesting attempt at selling the idea.

The college ethics committee tells the inquiry it feels euthanasia “has to be covered and debated for completion and consistency’s sake … if life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome.” It points out that a pregnant woman who discovers at 28 weeks that her baby has a serious abnormality can have an abortion. Parents of a baby born at 24 weeks with the same abnormality have no such option.

“See, if this were an option, then we’d have more babies carried to term. Isn’t that wonderful? Only then would be bother with the eugenics. And really now, isn’t killing an already-born preemie just the same as a late-term abortion anyway?”

Abortion, being commonplace in our society, is now the foundation on which we start removing the infirm and the helpless. A comment on the Redstate post that gets the hat tip notes this:

I remember fairly recently they just uncovered a mass grave filled with Hitler’s first victims. They weren’t Jews, Gays, Gypsies or any other people group. They were the disabled and infirm. Now the reason they were killed was for the perfection of the race, but I also don’t swallow the “it is for their own good” argument-especially when those who are being put out of the misery may not have a voice or a choice.

Unfettered abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia and eugenics are all faces of the same thing; a lack of respect for life.

Technorati Tags: euthanasia, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, abortion, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, eugenics

Via Redstate.com comes exposure of the tactics of those who want to move forward with human cloning and embryonic stem cell research with taxpayer money. They can’t get the citizenry to accept it at face value, so they’re engaging in classic Orwellian misdirection.

The proposed Missouri constitutional amendment 2 says, for example, that it will prevent human cloning. However, as Missourians Against Human Cloning notes in their explanation of the language of the amendment, what it says on the ballot is quite different from what the amendment actually says. In fact, the amendment allows for “Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer”, which is the textbook definition of human cloning. The “human cloning” that is banned, as per the amendment, is just the implantation of the results of that transfer into a human womb. If it stays outside, it ain’t a clone, so they say. But the ballot language doesn’t define its terms, so they hope to pull one over on Missourians by saying the right words, but not meaning what most folks think they mean.

This is just bullet point 1 in a list that also includes a blank check to the biotech industry. The Redstate post has links to lots of good information about this situation. It doesn’t say much for their cause at all that they have to resort this these sorts of underhanded tactics to get their way.

Why do I care about what happens in Missouri, if I’m in Georgia? Because if this deception works there, it will be exported, make no mistake.

UPDATE: Scott Ott at ScrappleFace hits the nail on the head, with his own video production of “Michael J. Embryo”, and some biting wit that drives the point home.

Technorati Tags: cloning, embryonic stem cells, Missouri

Or ever have.

Biologists have uncovered a deep link between lifespan and cancer in the form of a gene that switches off stem cells as a person ages.

The critical gene, already well known for its role in suppressing tumors, seems to mediate a profound balance between life and death. It weighs the generation of new replacement cells, required for continued life, against the risk of death from cancer, which is the inevitable outcome of letting cells divide. To offset the increasing risk of cancer as a person ages, the gene gradually reduces the ability of stem cells to proliferate.

The new finding, reported by three groups of researchers online Wednesday in Nature, was made in a special breed of mice that lack the pivotal gene, but is thought likely to apply to people as well.

The finding indicates that many of the degenerative diseases of aging are caused by an active shutting down of the stem cells that renew the body’s various tissues, and are not just a passive disintegration of tissues under life’s daily wear and tear, as is often assumed.

“I don’t think aging is a random process – it’s a program, an anti-cancer program,” said Dr. Norman E. Sharpless of the University of North Carolina, senior author of one of the three reports.

I find this article interesting on a number of levels. Let’s start with the idea that this scientist says that aging is not a “random process”, rather that it is “an anti-cancer program”. This, to me, really stretches the credulity with which one must view evolution. Somehow, over the years of random changes, a program emerged through natural selection. But since the vast majority of mutations result in a degradation of the organism, the odds of such a program being written are astronomical, on top of all the other odds-beating events like the formation of life itself. (Talk about having faith in your religion.)
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