Tag Archives: Topic: Bioethics

Law.com: “At issue in United States v. Mitchell is perhaps one of the most important privacy rights issues facing the courts: whether routine DNA sampling should be considered no different from fingerprinting or photographing, or whether the government ought to be required to get a warrant or wait for a conviction before taking a genetic sample.”

“Ms. Pratten, 28, is seeking to have B.C.’s Adoption Act declared unconstitutional because it gives adopted children rights to obtain records of their biological parents that are not provided to people who are conceived with the help of donated eggs or sperm.”

The Guardian: “The old, ill, mute and frail will be deemed expendable if assisted suicide is legalised, a thinktank says today. Society’s most vulnerable risk being bullied into an early death by greedy or uncaring relatives or bureaucrats, according to a study published by the Centre for Policy Studies.” The report can be found here.

Associated Press: “A witness says Nadya Suleman’s fertility doctor has expressed remorse for providing the mother of 14 with treatments that helped her conceive octuplets.”

Associated Press: “Poland’s influential Roman Catholic church appealed Monday to the country’s politicians to oppose in vitro fertilization, calling the procedure akin to eugenics.” More from LifeSiteNews.

Associated Press: “Nadya Suleman’s fertility doctor implanted her with a dozen embryos in the pregnancy that gave her octuplets, a state attorney said Monday, conflicting with Suleman’s assertions that only six embryos were implanted and two of them split.”

Associated Press: “The fertility doctor who treated octuplets mother Nadya Suleman is at a licensing hearing in Los Angeles to face allegations that he implanted her with too many embryos.”

E Christian Brugger writes at the Culture of Life Foundation: “Dr. Robert Edwards, IVF pioneer and recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, first fertilized a human egg in vitro (literally “in glass”) in 1969. The embryo died after the first cell division. He surmised that successful in vitro embryonic development required the harvesting of mature eggs.”

WisBusiness.com: “Governor Doyle has pledged to assist the U.S. Department of Justice in its efforts to uphold the guidelines and secure federal funding for stem cell researchers in Wisconsin and across the nation. ”

“A healthy baby boy was born from an embryo frozen for almost 20 years in what was hailed Sunday as scientific breakthrough that could allow women to start families much later in life.”

“US doctors have begun treating the first patient with embryonic stem cells as part of the first human study of the controversial treatment authorized by the government, the Geron Corporation said Monday.”

KPLR: “Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Roy Blunt are taking opposite positions on variety of social issues in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race.”

Wesley J. Smith writing at First Things / Secondhand Smoke: “The organization believes that regulations should be created that are specific to the field. I don’t know what they have in mind and so won’t comment about that, but the ACE is correct–factually and ethically, embryos are not the same thing as tissues tested by pathologists. Stating otherwise has the effect–and I suspect, the intent–of reducing embryos to nothing more than a tissue sample, for which far different ethical rules would apply.” Link to ACE press release.

“The idea of the ACLU battling a private corporation over whether clones are human beings or pieces of property may seem far-fetched. But almost a decade ago, the organization started thinking about how to do it.”

Wesley J. Smith writing at LifeNews: “I don’t know what the cause is, but a NYT story seeking to motivate people to demand that the Feds pass a law allowing the NIH to fund ESCR in the wake of the Lamberth decision ruling that doing so violates current federal law, gets a lot of things wrong.”

ANSA: “A court in Florence is reported to have petitioned Italy’s supreme Constitutional Court to rule on Italy’s 2003 law on assisted fertility, one of the most restrictive in Europe.”

National Post: “On Wednesday the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed to consider whether Ms. Pratten’s legal battle against the province’s Attorney-General and College of Physicians and Surgeons that seeks to make the identities of anonymous sperm, egg or embryo donors available should proceed to trial.”

LifeSiteNews: “Speaking out against in vitro fertilization, and other forms of artificial procreation, Cardinal Antonelli said, ‘Today, many people – not just couples but also singles and homosexuals – claim the right to have a child through artificial insemination and do not hesitate to resort to shameful forms of commerce. But there is no right to a child, because a person cannot be produced, acquired and owned as an object for one’s self gratification.’”

Baptist Press: “Scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston, Mass., published studies showing they had reprogrammed adult skin cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells without the hazards previously associated with the technique. Unlike previous conversions of adult cells into stem cells virtually identical to those in embryos, these iPS cells did not require the use of viruses to insert genes into cells — a technique which increases the risk of cancer in the recipient of the cells.”

Catholic News Agency: “On Oct. 3, the University of Michigan wrote in a press release that ‘after several attempts,’ the school successfully created a new embryonic stem cell line known as UM4-6 . . . In a statement on Oct. 4, however, Michigan Right to Life condemned the creation . . . ”

Debora Spar writing at The Daily Beast: “Dr. Edwards’ work has clearly led to massive joys for millions of individuals but, more quietly, it has also raised a host of issues that the U.S. refuses to grapple with, much less resolve . . . In the United States . . . it can be said that ‘anything goes.’ No regulation, no (or little) insurance coverage, and a correspondingly greater chance for bad things to happen in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry . . . [A]s reproductive technologies continue to expand, they are bringing [women] options that push the notion of personal choice to terrifying limits.”

“A team of researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston published a series of experiments Thursday showing that synthetic biological signals can quickly reprogram ordinary skin cells into entities that appear virtually identical to embryonic stem cells.”

“So, why experiment on Guatemalan ‘patients?’ Because they were far removed from American consciousness and laws. They were voiceless, vulnerable, and unprotected. Kind of like human embryos are now.”

Reuters: “In vitro fertilization (IVF), the pioneering technique that won Robert Edwards the 2010 Nobel Prize for medicine, opened up a wealth of scientific options and a Pandora’s box of ethical dilemmas. Edwards’s success in fertilizing a human egg outside of the womb led not only to ‘test tube babies’ but also to innovations such as embryonic stem cell research and surrogate motherhood.”

Family Research Council: “On Tuesday, October 5, Christians here in D.C. and across the country will be focusing on the issue of helping support pregnant women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of a disability.”

Associated Press: “The Vatican’s top bioethics official says Robert Edwards, who received the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for developing in vitro fertilization, opened ‘a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction’ but is also responsible for the destruction of embryos and the creation of a ‘market’ in donor eggs.”

U.S. Department of State: “Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela and the Director of the National Institutes for Health, Dr. Francis Collins, will brief the media on the U.S. Public Health Service STD Inoculation Study of 1946-1948 in a teleconference call on Friday, October 1, at 11:15 a.m. EDT. This conference call is open to credentialed members of the media.”

Associated Press: “The advance in cell reprogramming by researchers in Boston was praised as a more efficient way of turning skin cells into stem cells, a step toward developing new medical treatments.”

OneNewsNow: “‘The American taxpayers said 15 years ago that public funding cannot be provided for embryonic stem-cell research, and this is a test in the courts [on] whether the rule of law will be upheld or whether taxpayer dollars will continue to be used for research that has proven to be unproductive, unlawful, and unethical,’ ADF attorney [Steve Aden] comments about the latest decision.”

The New American: “The Alliance Defense Fund is involved in the lawsuit that challenges the use of federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research. [Steven Aden], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund reacted to the Appeals Court decision. ‘We believe it’s a shame that they would rush to push funding of embryonic stem cell research, and a waste of taxpayer money.’”

Montreal Gazette: “The professional order representing Quebec nurses is opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide, suggesting the province should instead invest more to catch up in providing palliative care.”

Herald Sun: “One in three GPs in major cities believe people older than 70 who feel ‘tired of life’ should have the right to professional help in ending it, according to a poll conducted for Philip Nitschke’s Exit International.”

“A federal appeals court has lifted the injunction a federal judge put in place stopping President Barack Obama from forcing taxpayers to finance unproven embryonic stem cell research while scientists continue with their lawsuit against the funding.”

LifeNews: “The Obama administration argued with an appeals court on Monday to overturn the decision a federal judge issued to temporarily halt taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research that destroys human lives to produce. They claimed the temporary funding ban would hurt scientific research . . . [Steven Aden], a lead attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund applauded Lamberth’s decision. ‘The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments — prohibited by federal law — that destroy human life,’ he said. ‘The court is simply enforcing an existing law passed by Congress that prevents Americans from paying another penny for needless research on human embryos.’”

The Christian Institute: “A disability campaign group is to protest tomorrow against a Scottish assisted suicide bill, declaring that disabled people want assistance to live. Inclusion Scotland is demonstrating outside the Scottish Parliament from 9.30am against the controversial End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill which is spearheaded by Margo MacDonald MSP.”

Associated Press: “Judge Thomas Griffith questioned whether the work would really be irreparably harmed or just delayed if the government ultimately can win the ongoing case.”

O. Carter Snead, Science, Public Bioethics, and the Problem of Integration (June 1, 2010). UC Davis Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 5, June 2010; Notre Dame Legal Studies Paper No. 10-27. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1682025

“This Article examines the question of how scientific methods and principles can and should be integrated into the making and enforcement of laws in this domain without compromising the integrity of science, the democratic legitimacy of government, or both. It identifies, analyzes and critiques one prominent model of integration, namely, the proposal to delegate virtually all public bioethical questions to scientific experts for resolution solely using the tools of their respective disciplines. The Article argues that this model of integration raises serious prudential concerns relating to democratic accountability (and thus legitimacy). More deeply, it argues that the proposal is unsustainable in principle because of the fundamental conceptual incompatibility between the premises and methods of modern science and the ethical principles that comprise the currency of public bioethical deliberation. It concludes by offering a provisional way forward, arguing that integration should be a function of defining and policing the boundaries of scientific methods and ethical reasoning, according to their respective competencies for the particular public bioethical question at issue. The Article provides an analytic tool to facilitate this line drawing, and illustrates its application with reference to several contemporary debates within public bioethics (i.e., the recent FDA approval of Plan B emergency contraception, the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and the impact of cognitive neuroscience on theories of criminal punishment).”

BioEdge: “The recent cliffhanger Australian Federal election returned a Labor government led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, but in coalition with the Greens. With the balance of power firmly in their hands, Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has demanded that a vote on euthanasia become a top priority for the new government.”

ChristianNewsWire: “Advocates International (AI), part of the public interest legal team along with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (GD&C) who brought the case before the court more than a year ago, joined even the government’s opposition and filed their clients’ opposition to the University of California Regents’ untimely and insufficient motion to intervene in a desperate effort to try to protect their patently pecuniary interest in the unlawful, unethical and unnecessary continuance of federal funding of research involving the destruction of living human embryos pending the government’s appeal of the preliminary injunction barring such funding.”

Telegraph: “Britain’s world-leading position in stem cell research faces its own ‘valley of death’ if government cuts are too deep, claim leading scientists.”

MSN News: “The Bioethics Advisory Committee has proposed that a national body be set up to monitor all stem cell research, including human—animal stem cell combinations, in Singapore. And this could materialise early next year.”

Barbara P. Billauer, Human Reproductive Cloning: Science, Jewish Law and Metaphyics (September 20, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1679907

“In this, Part II, of the paper I expand and annotate statements of the Ramban on the interrelationship of the reproductive faculties of an organism and its soul by examining the development of the spiritual states of plant, animal and human and noting the commensurate evolution with its reproductive facilities. Speculating that the reproductive mechanism of each species is indelibly related to its soul-state, I suggest that interfering with human sexual reproduction by HRC has the same effect the Ramban argues is the result of Kilayim (interbreeding), i.e., wrecking havoc with the Universe.”

USCCB: “The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should not require coverage of contraception or sterilization in group and individual health plans as part of ‘preventive’ services for women, said representatives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as HHS continued its deliberations on a final list of required preventive services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).”

Political Cortex: “An appeals court in the United States suspended a ban imposed last month on federally-funded research involving embryonic stem cells . . . However, with legal action ongoing, the extent to which NIH will be able to pursue and fund projects remains unclear. The legal action, which was also backed by Christian groups including the Alliance Defense Fund, is against the NIH.”

American Medical News: “The National Institutes of Health is restarting funding of embryonic stem cell research after an appeals court temporarily lifted a lower court’s ban against it . . . The plaintiffs, which include the Christian Medical & Dental Assns., an adoption agency and others, are still confident they will prevail, said [Steve Aden], senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, part of the plaintiffs’ legal team. The alliance takes on cases involving religious freedom. ‘We’re still looking forward to briefing the case and ultimately prevailing, because we think the law is clear,’ Aden said.”

Guardian: “Two men were facing jail today after being convicted of running an illegal fertility company providing women with access to sperm donors. Nigel Woodforth, 43, ran the operation from the basement of his home in Reading, Berkshire, with 49-year-old Ricky Gage.”

LifeNews: “The opinion poll shows a plurality of Americans (47 percent) oppose federal funding of stem cell research that involves destroying human embryos, while only thirty-eight percent (38 percent) support such funding.”

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on KFUO Radio with Roland Lettner to discuss federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  | MP3 audio 23:07 mins | Related ADF Media information

The Tech (MIT): “Arguments will be heard at 10 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 27. It had previously been expected the court would decide on the strength of briefs filed before it, the last of which is due Sept. 20. The court will probably rule a few days after oral argument . . . The lawyers for Sherley and Deisher, are all working pro bono, meaning free of charge, because they believe the work is in the public interest. The lead counsel is Thomas G. Hungar, a partner at the high-powered law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher; five Gibson Dunn associates are also on the case. They are joined by Samuel B. Casey of Advocates International and Steven H. Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Blog of LegalTimes: “A federal appeals court in Washington will hear oral argument Sept. 27 in the government’s challenge of a preliminary injunction that blocks funding for human embryonic stem cell research.”

UPI: “Jacquelin Slinn and Trudy Moore have filed separate lawsuits seeking damages from Dr. Norman Barwin for providing different donor sperm than the ones they chose, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday.”

LifeNews: “A stacked panel will tell members of the Senate on Thursday that Congress should green light more funding for embryonic stem cell research and should overturn the federal law a judge has cited in his decision to temporarily halt government funding authorized under President Barack Obama’s executive order.”

Neuhaus Colloquium statement published at First Things: “If the new policy survives the challenge of litigation, for the first time in U.S. history, taxpayer funds will be available to promote research that requires the destruction of human embryos. This sharp reversal of direction was imposed with essentially no public justification or argument, and indeed with efforts that mask its true nature and significance. Since the new policy took effect, with an executive order issued in early March of last year, the Obama administration and its congressional allies have sought to avoid further argument about embryo-destructive research and to depict the debate as settled.”

LifeNews: “Delaware Congressman Mike Castle lost his bid to become the Republican Senate nominee to a pro-life candidate, Christine O’Donnell. With the defeat, the pro-life movement makes a huge gain by ridding itself of one of its top proponents of forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research.”

Law.com: “The Gibson team, working with Washington’s Alliance Defense Fund and Fairfax, Va.-based Advocates International, said in the court papers that a stay pending appeal ‘would lead to a flight of federal dollars into [human embryonic stem cell] research,’ hurting Sherley and Deisher and other National Institutes of Health grant applicants.”

National Post: “The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) said a survey of reproductive services showed wide disparities between laws and practice in many countries. As a result, patients returning home may face legal or medical problems . . . Both IFFS and ESHRE support the rights of patients to travel to receive fertility treatment, but said in a joint statement that ‘ideally, this should take place in their home country.’”

CBN News (video): “Steven Aden, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, discussed the immediate impact of the ruling and more on the Friday, September 10 edition of CBN Newschannel’s Morning program.”

LifeNews: “Today, attorneys for Advocates International, part of the pro-life legal team with the Alliance Defense Fund and the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, filed their 147-page opposition to the government’s 165-page request for an emergency stay of the federal district court’s order preventing funding while the case continues.”

Advocates International (AI), part of the public interest legal team along with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (GD&C) who brought the case before the court more than a year ago, announced this evening that their clients have now filed in the federal court of appeals their 147-page opposition to the government’s 165-page request for an emergency stay of the federal district court’s order enjoining the government’s unlawful, unethical and unnecessary federal funding of research involving the destruction of living human embryos pending the government’s appeal of that court’s preliminary injunction order.

Telegraph: “The advert was knocked back by Free TV Australia, which regulates all advertising material for free-to-air commercial stations, saying it would probably breach television’s code of conduct. The code ‘states that material which promotes or encourages suicide will invariably be unsuitable for television,’ it said in a statement.”

Boston.com (AP): “Sen. Arlen Specter on Monday initiated a drive to legalize federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, superseding conflicting court decisions that he said are slowing critical work to find cures for crippling diseases.”

“After the birth, Daniel insisted Karen get a passport for the boy, so he could visit his native Brazil. When she refused, Daniel sued her for joint legal and physical custody.”

Bloomberg: “Benedict, speaking before paying a historic visit to the U.K. later this week, said the Roman Catholic Church ‘cannot approve of legal initiatives that imply a re-evaluation of the life of the couple and the family.’ The pope, in a reference to legalized marriage among homosexuals, said such laws ‘contribute to the weakening of the principles of natural law” and to “confusion about society’s values.’”

At Public Discourse, “An Executive Summary of the Statement of the First Annual Neuhaus Colloquium”: “In this our first statement we take up the ethical, political, and scientific issues raised by President Obama’s stem-cell policy. This statement, the full version of which appears in First Things, represents the considered judgment of some of the leading scientists and public intellectuals today—a major statement on a pressing and timely topic . . . In the name of the American people and with the funds provided by them, the Obama administration has begun to incentivize the exploitation and destruction of human life for scientific research. It has done so without addressing the profound moral issues at stake, without offering a serious argument in defense of its approach, and in spite of the fact that alternatives to the destruction of embryos are emerging in stem-cell science.”

BioNews: “A federal appeals court in the US has ruled that federal funding for embryonic stem (ES) cell research may continue and an injunction placed on the funding by a lower court last month is temporarily suspended . . . Opponents argue that federal funds should not be used in research that involves the destruction of what many consider human life and that the benefits of the research are as yet unproven. ‘We believe it’s a shame that they would rush to push funding of ES cell research, and a waste of taxpayer money,’ said a lawyer instructed by the Alliance Defense Fund which is involved in bring the action against the NIH. Opponents have been asked to file a response to the court by 14 September and the Government must then submit its response six days later.”

WorthyNews: “‘The American people should not be forced to pay for even one more day of experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate an existing federal law,’ said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel [Steven H. Aden]. ‘The district court’s decision simply enforced that law, which prevents Americans from paying another penny for needless research on human embryos made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research. In economic times like we are in now, it doesn’t make sense for the federal government to use precious taxpayer dollars for this illegal and unethical purpose.’”

MercatorNet / Sheila Reports: “The Alliance Defense Fund, co-counsel in this suit, helps us follow the straight line narrative. Starting with the August ruling, revealing what the Obama administration was trying to do in the first place: ‘The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found last month that the policy President Obama attempted to institute through an executive order in March 2009–which rescinded former President George W. Bush’s executive order limiting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research–is likely in violation of the Dickey/Wicker Amendment, a federal law prohibiting the federal funding of research involving the destruction of human embryos. The district court issued a preliminary injunction that immediately halted funding.’”

Christian Post: “Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is back on following the ruling of a federal appeals court Thursday . . . Still, the decision was criticized by conservative groups including the Alliance Defense Fund, co-counsel in the lawsuit against the federal funding of the research. ADF Senior Legal Counsel [Steven H. Aden] argued that Americans ‘should not be forced to pay for even one more day of experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate an existing federal law.’”

WORLDmag.com: Government officials said Friday they will fund controversial embryonic stem cell research, one day after an appeals court temporarily lifted a judge’s order that funding cease . . . ‘The American people should not be forced to pay for even one more day of experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate an existing federal law,’ said one of their lawyers, [Steven H. Aden], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.”

LifeSiteNews: “The National Institute of Health (NIH) is expediting the grant process for outside researchers in human embryonic stem-cell (hESC) research, after the D.C. Court of Appeals gave them an emergency stay until September 20 on a judge’s order halting their work . . . Attorneys with Advocates International (AI), Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (GD&C), are representing the plaintiffs against the NIH, and have filed a comprehensive summary judgment motion with Lamberth’s court.”

Associated Press: “The government said Friday it’s back in the business of funding embryonic stem cell research — at least for now — after an appeals court temporarily lifted a judge’s ban . . . ‘We believe it’s a shame that they would rush to push funding of embryonic stem cell research, and a waste of taxpayer money,’ said [Steven H. Aden], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is involved with the lawsuit that challenged the government funding.”

BBC: “The court in Washington placed a temporary stay on an earlier decision by US District Judge Royce Lamberth . . . The legal action, which was also backed by Christian groups including the Alliance Defense Fund, is against the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”

Wall Street Journal Law Blog: “[Steven H. Aden], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, criticized Thursday’s ruling. ‘The American people should not be forced to pay for even one more day of experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments and violate an existing federal law,’ Aden told the AP.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education: “The federal government can continue to finance embryonic-stem-cell research, temporarily, because a federal appeals court on Thursday lifted an injunction that had blocked such work. The move added to optimism about eventual victory for university scientists who use this research in a search for cures for a range of devastating diseases . . . Even before the appeals court reversed the judge’s ruling, advocates of embryonic-stem-cell research said they were growing confident of victory . . . In particular, Congress never voiced objections to a Bush policy that allowed research on a limited number of stem-cell lines, said lawyers on both sides of the case. [Mr. Aden], the plaintiffs’ lawyer, acknowledged he was unclear on how the judge would rule on that argument. ‘That’s a good question,’ said Mr. Aden, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Earned Media: “Advocates International (AI), part of the public interest legal team along with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (GD&C) who brought the case before the court more than a year ago, announced this evening that their clients have now filed a comprehensive summary judgment motion in the federal district court, including evidentiary declarations by plaintiffs Dr. James Sherley and Theresa Deisher along with an attorney’s declaration providing the administrative record, asking Chief Judge Royce Lamberth based upon the undisputed evidence in the case to enter a final declaratory judgment declaring invalid the government’s controversial guidelines for public funding of embryonic stem cell research that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued on July 7, 2009 on the grounds that these guidelines violate federal law expressly barring such funding and were in any event improperly promulgated in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”