November 2006

Those Wildly Enthusiastic New Democrats

Rep.Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, who will be the lead sponsor of a house bill to expand federally funded research said last week after meeting with the 41 new house Democrats, “to describe them as wildly enthusiasticabout this bill would be an understatement.” House-speaker elect NancyPelosi, D-California, has high priority stamped on the stem cell bill announcing […]

Read the full article →

Those Wildly Enthusiastic New Democrats

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, who will be the lead sponsor of a house bill to expand federally funded research said last week after meeting with the 41 new house Democrats, “to describe them as wildly enthusiastic about this bill would be an understatement.” House-speaker elect Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has high priority stamped on the stem […]

Read the full article →

Respectable Baby Killing

(from NationalReview Online) The push to permit infanticide has entered the mainstream. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology (RCOG) has recommended that adebate be had about whether to permit “deliberate interventions to killinfants.” The recommendation, which was widely reported in the media, was in response to a query from the Nuffield Council on Bioethicsconcerning […]

Read the full article →

Some days I just don’t sleep so well at night

Here is a sampling of clips in my inbox in the last 24 hours. First, the story of the New Zealand 66 year old woman who traveled to China for a stem cell transplant from aborted fetuses. Her son reports she has now died. Apparently she had a motor neuron disease and had the stem […]

Read the full article →

Giving Bioethics a Conscience

Among the vast array of news items that I’ve come across this year, two stories clearly communicate a few of the many challenges that CBC faces every day. A Romanian girl desperately in need of money for food and rent donates her eggs repeatedly. She nearly lost her life and now suffers permanent infertility due […]

Read the full article →

Giving Bioethics a Conscience

Among the vast array of news items that I’ve come across this year, two stories clearly communicate a few of the many challenges that CBC faces everyday. A Romanian girl desperately in need of money for food and rent donates her eggs repeatedly. She nearly lost her life and now suffers permanent infertility due to […]

Read the full article →

Using The Body’s Own Stem Cells To Grow New Arteries

Here is yet another example of a patient’s own stem cells being used to treat his illness. Tom Reynolds is a 77 year old man with blocked arteries. The blockage he experienced was cutting off the blood supply to his legs, making it painful and difficult for him to walk. He was facing permanent disability-being […]

Read the full article →

Scrambled Eggs: The Politics of Stem Cells

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY Bioethics: Missouri passes Amendment 2, which makes cloning a constitutional right. Meanwhile, scientists grow a liver from umbilical cord cells, real progress the media and grandstanding politicians ignore. About the same time actor Michael J. Fox, former star of the appropriately named sitcom “Spin City,” was appearing in ads claiming Republican candidates […]

Read the full article →

The Debate of the Century with Peter Singer: Revisited

This famous debate is now available on DVD. Order a copy today. Peter Singer has been dubbed “the world’s most influential living philosopher.” An Australian whose appointment to a chair in bioethics at Princeton University in the late 90s stirred furious controversy, he combines personal modesty and affability with a capacity to frame fresh, alarming, […]

Read the full article →

A New ‘Oklahoma Land Rush’

With the passage of Proposition 71 in California, Big Biotech appears to have succeeded in sparking a cloning “Oklahoma Land Race,” pitting the various states against each other in an intense and bitter competition to attract biotech companies to locate within their borders. These perks come in two general forms, sometimes combined. First, laws allowing […]

Read the full article →

You Were a ‘Dot’ Once Too

(from tothesource.org) It’s no surprise that Americans are confused. The election [may have been] decided by stem cells and cloning, complex scientific issues that most people don’t pretend to understand, and that divide within as well as between the parties. The press has hardly helped by presenting this as round two of the abortion debate. […]

Read the full article →

Suckers for ‘Science’

(weeklystandard.com) How to talk California taxpayers out of $3 billion. THE PASSAGE OF PROPOSITION 71 in California (the Stem Cell Research and Cures Act) was an acute case of electoral folly. As Californians plunged headlong into a $6 billion quagmire of debt in a quixotic quest for “miracle cures” from human cloning and embryonic stem […]

Read the full article →

Killing Them Kindly, Lessons From the Euthanasia Movement

(originally published in Books and Culture) Decades ago a prominent euthanasia proponent stated that “there is a place in humanity for murder, that is to say by killing the unfit.” Another commanded, “Chloroform unfit children. Show them the same mercy that is shown beasts that are no longer fit to live.” One might be forgiven […]

Read the full article →

An Indecent Proposition

(weeklystandard.com) CALIFORNIA IS FLAT BROKE, its budget a fiscal train wreck. Expenses have so far exceeded state revenues that this spring citizens of the Golden State were forced to pass a bond measure borrowing $15 billion (not including interest) just to keep the state afloat. And now, the Piper must be paid to restore fiscal […]

Read the full article →

Now They Want to Euthanize Children

(Weekly Standard) In the Netherlands, 31 percent of pediatricians have killed infants. A fifth of these killings were done without the “consent” of parents. FIRST, Dutch euthanasia advocates said that patient killing will be limited to the competent, terminally ill who ask for it. Then, when doctors began euthanizing patients who clearly were not terminally […]

Read the full article →

Recent developments in the euthanasia debate in the Netherlands

Last summer three themes surfaced in the public discussion on end-of-life-decisions. These are: euthanasia in case of patients with (beginning) dementia, terminal sedation and euthanasia, and life termination of severely handicapped newborn babies. This article will briefly describe and comment on these discussions. 1. Euthanasia for patients with dementia. In the first month of 2004 […]

Read the full article →

The ‘Wrong’ Cure

(nationalreviewonline) Members of the liberal media elite have become rather choosy when it comes to advocating stem-cell cures for degenerative medical conditions. To these commentators, cures using adult stem cells just aren’t the “right” cures. For stem-cell therapy to really count, it has to come from embryos. Indeed, even the most astonishing research advances using […]

Read the full article →

Book Review: Never Let Me Go

Ishiguro’s latest novel, Never Let Me Go, is a beautifully written story about children growing up in the isolated and protected environment of the private school, Hailsham, in England. The children are educated and cared for and taught to paint wonderful pieces of art. The children hope that their drawings will be chosen to hang […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries