Tag Archives: Topic: Bioethics

OneNewsNow.com reports: “Scientists in growing numbers complain their research on human embryos is facing problems because they are finding that financial rewards are ineffective in enticing women to sell their eggs.”

LifeNews.com reports: “. . . During her acceptance speech last week, Paling promised the parents of disabled children that she would be their advocate in the White House. Biden questioned that commitment by attacking Palin’s stance on the issue of …

LifeNews.com reports: “The Republican party platform committee has released a platform that contains some of the strongest pro-life language in the history of the party. Looking at bioethics issues, it also strengthens the language on stem cell research by calling …

The Harvard Crimson reports: Scientists from Harvard and Columbia announced Thursday the creation of the first patient-specific stem cell line from humans afflicted with a genetic disease, a key step in the push to create therapies for a wide variety …

The Daily Mail Online reports: A couple are celebrating the birth of a baby created using sperm frozen for a record-breaking 19 years. Emmanuel and Zoe Iyoha hit the headlines in 2006 with the birth of daughter Poppy, now 23 …

LifeSiteNews.com reports: In a conference call with journalists, Frank Donatelli, deputy chair of the Republican National Committee, was asked to explain McCain’s ignorance of these major scientific and medical advances of adult research and his continued support for embryonic research. …

David Brooks has this piece in the NY Times. He writes: . . . There seems to be a general feeling, as a Hastings Center working group put it, that “behavioral genetics will never explain as much of human behavior …

Tom Strode reports on the Faith and Family site: “London woman is carrying Great Britain’s first baby guaranteed not to inherit breast cancer, but she had to eliminate several of her other embryonic offspring to do so.”

The Michigan Family Forum has sent an update reporting: Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation (MiCause) is a coalition of groups coming together to oppose the ballot proposal loosening restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. Michigan Family Forum is …

The BBC reports: A code of practice to regulate the use of electronic chips to screen embryos is to be drawn up by the European Fertility Society’s ethics task force . . . Professor De Wert said: “One of my …

The AP reports: Supporters of a ballot measure that would loosen Michigan’s restrictions on embryonic stem cell research took a big step toward placing it on the November ballot. The Stem Cell Research Ballot Question Committee said Monday it turned …

The Telegraph reports: “Infants born from embryos which were frozen and then thawed before being implanted into a woman had a higher birth weight and were less likely to suffer abnormalities. Fewer of the children were also twins or triplets.”

The Christian Institute reports: “A team of scientists has been granted permission to create embryos that are part pig, part human.”

The NJ Ledger Star reports: “Eight months after state officials broke ground on New Jersey’s new center for stem cell research, the once-heralded $150 million project has quietly been put on indefinite hold.”

LifeNews.com reports: “In John McCain, pro-life voters have a solid presidential candidate against abortion but they have had concerns about his desire to spend public funds on embryonic stem cell research. However, the Arizona senator continues to keep his mind …

Daniel McConchie reports on the Americans United for Life Blog. He writes: Having found that women are generally uninterested in going through a risky procurement procedure so scientists can use their eggs for cloning and embryonic stem cell research experiments, …

LifeNews.com reports: The nation’s Catholic bishops followed through on their desire to put forward an initial statement opposing embryonic stem cell research. They voted almost unanimously — 191 to 1 — to approve the statement at their annual meeting in …

The familiar categories of autonomy and rights, on the one hand, and the calculation of costs and benefits, on the other” are inadequate, especially when it comes to deciding for what ends biotechnology should be used.

LifeNews.com reports: “While controversial embryonic stem cells continue to be plagued by the same problems, scientists announced a big proof of principle in research with iPS cells. Those are the adult stem cells that researchers have been able to convert …

Pewsitter.com reports: In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) doesn’t seem to be the panacea for birth for those wanting a baby. If this bursts your bubble, then maybe you’re uninformed. “In Vitro” specifically means in a test tube, or Petri dish. Typically …

The Daily Mail reports: Designer babies with three parents could be born in Britain within three years. The controversial technique screens an embryo created by a man and a woman for incurable genetic diseases. Any defective DNA is then replaced …

“It is going to be, ‘Sex is just for fun,’ ” Hughes will tell a crowd. “In vitro fertilization is going to be for making your children.”

The North Carolina Family Policy Council reports: A bill that would appropriate $16 million of state taxpayer dollars for stem cell research in North Carolina was introduced in the State Senate this week. The bill, SB 1965—Funds/Stem Cell Research, sponsored …

The point is that there is no single model for religious experience. Humans are capable of many different modes of being religious, and the brain subserves them all in predictable and measurable ways . . . his research will not support traditional monotheistic faith in God, though it may spark a renaissance of spiritual exploration by researchers of a poly- or pantheistic bent.

LifeSiteNews.com reports: Catholics in Edmonton are being asked to think twice before taking seeing or taking children to see the upcoming display of “plastinated” bodies at the Telus World of Science, could when it opens June 13. The Catholic Archbishop …

The bill permits the creation of so-called “savior siblings”—children created through IVF who are tested to ensure that they are genetically compatible with older siblings who might need a tissue match for therapeutic purposes.

“The Korean Catholic Church has expressed regret over the National Assembly’s recent revision of South Korea’s bioethics law, saying it violates women’s rights and dignity by allowing egg donors to be paid . . . ”

The principle of separation of church and state, properly understood, is not a persuasive basis for criticizing this religious heritage. President Bush, in relying upon his faith to justify his vetoes, acted in accord with well-established national tradition.

“The Senate Committee on Health and Welfare moved a ban on taxpayer funding of human cloning forward on Wednesday and now it heads to the full Senate for a debate and vote.”

Both political officials and medical leaders in Germany are outraged over a recent vote in the British Parliament to legalize human cloning involving hybrids.

Some 48 percent of Americans say abortion is morally wrong . . . while 62% say embryonic stem cell research is ok.

An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regards as a central element of the legislation . . .

“A Texas nurse has lost her long-running court battle for custody of the three embryos created from her ova and the sperm of her estranged husband.”

News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it’s a step toward creating “designer babies.”

Mary Doe is a human embryo preserved in liquid nitrogen, in an unnamed in vitro fertilization clinic. Mary Doe’s name was given by an organization dedicated to advocating for equal humanity and personhood of pre-born children, including “children in vitro.”

“When Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University reported his transformation of cultured mouse skin cells into a state approximating that of embryonic stem cells, he was met with plenty of scepticism. Other scientists hadn’t anticipated that such a feat was possible.”

“The governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is expected to approve a package of grants today to spend $750 million on constructing new research facilities at college campuses across the state.”

Much opponent focus is to change the bill to ban only so-called reproductive cloning but not so-called therapeutic cloning, plus their feared effect of this ban on research jobs and funding for Ohio.

Yesterday, Rep. Chris Smith introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act, H.R. 5910, to ban the creation of part-human, part-animal hybrid beings.

The Ethical Stem Cell Research Tax-Credit Act would provide a federal tax rebate to stem-cell researchers if their work doesn’t involve death or danger to human embryos.

A second bioethics watchdog has told LifeNews.com that claims the new announcement of a supposedly easier method of human cloning is hogwash.

Same sex couples could ‘create’ their own biological babies, and a person could even be both mother and father, if fertility scientists get the go ahead.

This guide begins by outlining major beginning-of-life issues, then divides sources into two categories – national sources and organizations.

. . . we are losing our common understanding of what it means to be a human being, and the idea that human beings are something “special” is rapidly becoming an antiquated notion.

Unlike the Dolly technique, however, the procedure is so simple and efficient that it has raised fears that it will be seized on by IVF doctors to help infertile couples who are eager to have their own biological children . . .

Sen. Sam Brownback, a leading pro-life advocate, is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to reject bids from two human cloning companies to start trials on humans with embryonic stem cells.

“Had an embryo been in her womb, there would be no question of ordering it to be discarded,” said Teresa Collett, a Minnesota law professor who is preparing Augusta Roman’s petition to the high court.

I argue that excellence in parenthood consists in a dual responsibility both to guide children toward the good life and to accept them as they are. I conclude that prenatal manipulation of healthy and normal characteristics in human offspring fails to balance the dispositional extremes of control and restraint to which many parents today are susceptible.

Louisiana House panel approved a bill on Wednesday that would limit state taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research.

The Food and Drug Administration is considering a request from two biotech companies to begin human trials involving human embryonic stem cells.

wo British pro-life groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the two licenses awarded by the government to scientists allowing them to create hybrid human clones.

Americans United for Life has issued the 2008 State by State Legal Guide to Abortion, Bioethics, and the End of Life. AUL released this email update making the announcement: ____________________ AUL Releases Defending Life 2008 on Capitol Hill On April …

HUMAN-cow embryos have been created in a world first at Newcastle University in England, hailed by the scientific community, but labelled “monstrous” by opponents.

Embryos containing both human and animal material have been created in Britain for the first time, a month before the House of Commons is to vote on new laws to regulate the controversial research.

Oregon recorded more deaths by physician-assisted suicide in 2007 than in any year in the decade since the practice was legalized.

On Tuesday, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman signed into law LB 606, which prohibits the state funding of human cloning for any purpose.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan crafted insufficient, unfair and biased ballot summary language that has resulted in yet another delay in the battle over whether a proposed constitutional amendment on preventing human cloning will go before the voters in 2008 . . .

MSNBC reports here on a young man injured and declared brain dead. While arrangements were being made to donate his organs and after intense family prayers, he came back to life. The young man claims to have heard doctors talking …

The growing row comes as Gordon Brown is facing an unprecedented challenge to his authority over plans for embryo research with as many as 12 ministers ready to quit if ordered to back the bill.

A new law is being considered in the United Kingdom next month which will strip away the legal need for a father. Birth certificates will report “Parent A” and “Parent B”.

In an effort to get researchers to think adult stem cells first, several people who were helped by the ethical research are speaking out.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and the Public Patent Foundation argue the patenting has driven some scientists overseas because they can’t profit from any follow-up work.

. . . mobilizing support for same-sex procreation using female sperm and male eggs would undermine the keystone argument against same-sex marriage.

The Government is considering supporting plans to allow children to be born who have been created using artificial sperm and eggs, according to press reports.

“A U.S. Senate committee has unanimously passed the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act (S. 1810), which will provide up-to-date information to families who receive adverse genetic diagnoses during pregnancy.”

. . . public argument is about the consequences of assisted reproductive technologies, how they result in embryo killing etc. . . The argument never touches on any objection to IVF per se—how the creation of new human beings in this way is itself wrong . . .

“A court case in which a doctor has been charged with hastening a disabled patient’s death, in order to harvest his kidneys and liver, has sparked concern among ethicists and organ transplant experts alike. ”

“A new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association makes it clear adult stem cell research is leading the way in providing tangible assistant to patients with a variety of ailments.”

The bill bans public funding for human cloning.

“The child could feel a crisis of identity trying to work out their relationship with relatives. The daughter’s husband may also feel an obligation to fertilise his mother-in-law’s eggs.”

“The protocol – the full name of which is The Groningen Protocol for Euthanasia in Newborns – lays out a set of guidelines that must be followed in making and executing the decision to kill a newborn infant.”

“Until now, the cloning debate has been hopelessly entangled with the stem cell debate, where the friends and the enemies of embryonic stem cell research have managed to produce a legislative stalemate on cloning . . .”

Family First reports: "The Unicameral’s Judiciary Committee today advanced a bill which would place a public ban on human cloning. LB 606 would prohibit the use of public funds and facilities 1) to destroy existing human embryos and 2) create …

Child conceived through artificial insemination ought to know the identity of their parents.

Albert Mohler reports on: "A rise in suicide among the young seems to be tied to the emergence of on-line suicide sites that offer advice and encouragement to kill oneself. The Telegraph [London] reports that, as an example, one village …