No Reason To Clone Around With Human Animal Hybrids

This is an update I wrote for Nevada LIFE on the human animal cloning attempts in Britain two months ago, but forgot to post here.  There's good news for those like me who oppose cloning and embryonic stem cell research.  Scientists have discovered a technique which gives them the same kind of stem cell as they say they need with embryonic stems which does not require cloning or killing embryos.  It allows them to extract our stem cells and revert them back to an embryonic like state.  This may make the whole embryonic stem cell and cloning issue go away.  Meanwhile, adult stem cell research is going ahead full steam.  Here's the update I wrote for Nevada LIFE.

Recent events demonstrate the necessity of a bill submitted to Congress to ban human-animal hybrids.

In April, British lawmakers voted overwhelmingly against legislation to ban scientists from creating human-animal hybrids for embryonic stem cell research. The House of Commons voted 336-176 to defeat a ban on creating human animal hybrids by cloning- that is, using the process the created Dolly the sheep by inserting human DNA into an emptied unfertilized animal egg to create a human-animal hybrid embryo for research.

The Commons also voted against a ban to prevent using sex cells-gametes (sperm and egg) of humans and animals to create "true" hybrids through fertilization by 286 to 223. Scientists will be allowed to create hybrids using human sperm with animal eggs, and animal sperm with human eggs.

These things happen when we encroach on the sanctity of human life. Human life becomes regarded as a commodity or natural resource for certain groups of people to exploit for their benefit.

British researchers and lawmakers argue in part that human animal hybrids are necessary for embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cell research will require cloning and human cloning requires human unfertilized eggs. There's a shortage of human eggs, so animal ones will have to do.

Lawmakers also argued that this is necessary to keep the UK a leader in embryonic stem cell research. Last year I asked a Stanford researcher making this same argument in a lecture at UNR if we should make unethical research on humans legal if leading researchers threatened to leave, were leaving or had left the United States to do unethical research on humans elsewhere. He should have said "of course not."

This is evil stuff. It is monstrous and self evidently so. If researchers are able to create these kinds of animal-human embryos, the 14 day limit that they can be grown to will disappear. There's no principle to stop them from going farther. There are many who would like to modify humanity with non human DNA to increase our capabilities and capacities. There are undoubtedly many who would like to grow human animal hybrid fetuses and birth them for body parts.

This is also unnecessary. Non-embryonic stem cell research is working very well and scientists now have stem cells with the alleged powers of embryonic stem cells which do not require human cloning or embryo killing. And scientists, the biotech industry and their cadre of bioethicists for hire should know better. It's unthinkable to do unethical research when all other alternatives have been exhausted. The more than 70 cures, treatments and benefits, the more than 1000 human trials using adult stem cells, the stem cell sources in amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood and the new technique which reprograms cells back to an embryonic like state is proof that we have NOT even begun to exhaust the alternatives and that we should not be going forward with speculative research which has not come close to living up to its hype, and which tampers with human life!

And more non-embryonic results will keep pouring in. This week the journal Cell Stem Cell said that scientists have "use d drugs to help turn brain cells from an adult back into embryo like stem cells" without destroying human embryos. This week we also learned that by using this new stem cell reprogramming technique- supported by President Bush when the Congress refused to go along-researchers at John Hopkins University "have established a human cell-based system for studying sickle cell anemia by reprogramming somatic (body) cells to an embryonic stem cell like state." Wesley Smith notes that "This is precisely the kind of experiment for which we were told that cloning was required."

What do the results mean? It means that there's no need to clone, kill more human embryos or create human animal hybrids for stem cell research to succeed. It also means that the Bush stem cell policy and pro-life objections are vindicated. Our resistance forced researchers to look elsewhere, to areas that have actually produced success.

To stop this monstrous activity from occurring or going forward in the United States, pro-life Congressman Chris Smith has introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2008, HR 5910 "to prohibit human-animal hybrids." Click here to read the details of the act. Those details tell us what is at stake and what ugly plans some scientists have in mind. It would prohibit human animal hybrids and provide punishments of not more than 10 years in prison and/or a fine of which ever is greater, $1 million, or 2 times the gain from this activity.

This is alarming, but not alarmism because many in the scientific and bioethical communities have objected to the restraints of this bill for years.

The bill is in committee. It's not clear if it will make it out of committee, but we'll be monitoring its progress. The pace of scientific discoveries using alternatives to embryonic stem cell research and cloning may silence this research before it gets far off the ground. That's the good news and hopefully the news that will end these threats to humanity.

Roe Shocked Nation Like CA Court's Gay Marriage Decision

Just two months ago, Americans got a taste of how shocking the Roe v. Wade decision was 35 years ago when the California Supreme Court struck down California's law defining marriage as between one man and one woman that was passed, even in California, with overwhelming support.

That act of raw judicial power in California was similar to the way the United State's Supreme Court struck down abortion laws in all 50 states in its notorious Roe v. Wade decision.

Abortion advocates have spread the myth that the Court was just following popular opinion and public sentiment when it handed down Roe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Pro-life senior statesman Dr. John Wilke MD, notes that there was a flurry of legislative activity regarding abortion in state legislatures before and while Roe was being heard and ahead of Roe's decision in January, 1973. There were huge elections over abortion in 1972 in places like New York. If the Court was expecting to follow public opinion, they would have awakened in shock the day after those elections.

Wilke says that in April of 1972 New York legislators overturned New York's permissive abortion law. But it was vetoed by Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller. In the November elections, so many abortion supporting New York legislators were thrown out of office in New York-ground zero of the abortion movement-that the legislature had the votes to override Rockefeller's veto.

Wilke also says that after Colorado and California legalized abortion in 1967, 17 states had laws permitting abortion. Only four states had liberal abortion laws, twelve had laws generally restricting abortion to rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal deformities of the unborn. Florida was forced by court order to permit abortion. Thirty-three other state legislatures debated abortion, but rejected it. Referendums in Michigan and N. Dakota were defeated.

The tide was turning against abortion, not toward it, when the court stepped in. (Abortion, Questions and Answers, Love Them Both, Revised, pp. 33-35)

It's easy to see how shocking Roe was in 1973. It was as shocking as yesterday's decision which over turned an initiative voted on by Californians only eight years earlier, just as Roe invalidated abortion laws across America passed by their elected officials

That's why the 2008 presidential election is so critical to our cause and other causes. The courts are out of control and are anti- life and anti-family. The next president will pack the lower courts and make nominations to vacancies in the Supreme Court. With the two oldest justices being fervent abortion supporters, the next president will impact another generation of abortion in America.

Pro-lifers have clear choices for President in 2008. Senator Barrack Obama supports abortion on demand. He is supported by the leading abortion organizations and even opposed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act when he was an Illinois state legislator. Not even NARAL Pro Choice America was willing to oppose that. But Obama did. Obama has promised to appoint justices who will uphold abortion.

Senator John McCain is pro-life, has a consistent pro-life voting record on abortion and has promised to appoint justices like Justices Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Alito.

The stakes are high and getting higher with each election. We are one justice away from the overturn or severe limitation of Roe. Or we are one president away from another series of bad judicial appointments and decades more of waking up to more shocking Supreme Court decisions.

Why So Many Christians Vote Pro-Life

Here's an article that I submitted to a local Christian Newspaper with slight changes.  It's to address the effort to water down the importance of the pro-life Christian vote.

Years of polling show that Christians are decidedly pro-life and that their pro-life convictions have a powerful impact on elections.

That impact explains the continuing efforts to water down the importance of abortion to make it just one issue among many for Christians. If abortion becomes just one issue among others, it makes it easier to support candidates who are not pro-life but agree with pro-life Christians on other important issues.

There are many pressing issues Christians are concerned about, but it's not hard to understand why abortion is the leading, if not single, issue for so many.

Why are so many Christians pro-life?

1. The Unborn Is Our Neighbor. Ultrasound and intra-uterine photography leave no doubt what the unborn is. The unborn is one of us- a someone, not a something; a unique, complete, tiny human who fully shares our humanity. The unborn's self-evident humanity makes him our neighbor, and Christians are fulfilling the great commandment when they love their unborn neighbors as themselves. When they advocate for their protection, they are fulfilling the Golden Rule.

2. Abortion arguments are offensive because they make the right to life and the value of human beings conditional upon the possession or exercise of certain characteristics. Humans who do not immediately possess these arbitrary criteria are regarded as human non persons and expendable.

But Christians are told that humans have a nature. They are created in God's image. Our status as bearers of God's infinite nature is not conditional; it is not earned, and it is not achieved. It is inherent and belongs to us from the moment of our conception.

Abortion arguments are offensive because the arbitrariness of those arguments undermines universal human rights. Which characteristics determine who has rights and value and who does not? To what degree must we possess these unfair and arbitrary measures? And who gets to decide what these characteristics are and the degree to which we must possess them? God is God, we are not.

Christians are also opposed to the arbitrary abortion arguments because the Bible warns them against partiality and favoritism.

3. Christians have a special love for and obligation to the weak. The Bible is filled with exhortations to help, love and provide protections for the weak.

The unborn is the weakest member of our society. And just as Christians are moved to help the weak, the unborn's exceptional helplessness moves them to protect her with greater urgency. The unborn's weakness doesn't make her expendable. It requires special love and protection. Jesus says that Christians are loving and serving Him when they love and serve the weakest among them. When Christians love and defend the unborn, they believe they are loving and serving Jesus.

4. Christians are moved by the deep wounds and alienation that burden women and men who have participated in abortion. Christians are moved to help women in crisis and see women and men be healed and released from the pains that come from abortion. That's why there are over 3000 Crisis Pregnancy Centers with post abortion ministries run in large part by Christians.

5. Abortion has a wide and destructive impact on America. Christians are keenly aware that when any humans become expendable, the rest of us become negotiable. Abortion has not only taken 50 million innocent lives and wounded millions of women and men, it has led to a coarsening and disregard for human life.

These are just some reasons why many Christians are so pro-life and why abortion is their fundamental political voting issue and not just one issue among many.

Post script. This does not intend or pretend to speak for all Christians, define Christian beliefs on abortion or question the faith of Christians who support abortion or vote for those who do. That's why the words "so many" are used. Nor does it mean that every pro-lifer is or has to be a Christian. Many of these principles are self-evident and being a Christian is not necessary to hold them. The above addresses the attempt to water down the Christian pro-life vote and explains why so many Christians vote pro-life.

President Bush Denies Funding For Coercive Abortion. Reid Opposed Bush Action In 2007.

Lifenews.com reports that "President Bush has again refused to direct taxpayer funds to a United Nations agency accused of promoting abortion and backing the one-child forced-abortion policy in China. Bush revoked funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for the seventh consecutive year. The White House is withholding almost $40 million in funding from the UN agency because the State Department has determined that it has violated the Kemp-Kasten amendment of 1985." 

Lifenews.com notes that Kemp-Kasten is a "pro-life law that ensures no public funds can go to groups that promote forced abortions overseas."  Bush has has denied $235 million in taxpayer funds to the UNFPA since 2001.

How bad is the One Child Policy in China supported by UNFPA?" The libertarian Cato Institute’s Stephen Moore says, “this program will go down in history as one of the greatest abuses of human rights in the 20th century.”  That program receives funding from the UN Population Fund. 

And where is "pro-life" Harry Reid on this?  On September 6, 2007 “pro-life” Senator Harry Reid voted against an amendment attached to the 2008 State/ Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2764) “To prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion” -programs like China’s inhumane One Child Policy funded by the UN Population Fund. The amendment says, “…none of the funds made available in this Act nor any unobligated balances from prior appropriations may be made available to any organization or program which, as determined by the President, supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

You can't call yourself pro-life and vote against amendments "to prohibit funding of organizations that support coercive abortion."  The same goes for "pro-lifers" who oppose the Mexico City policy to stop funding to groups promoting and performing abortions in other countries.

By the way, how can you call yourself pro-choice and say you believe in reproductive rights if you support funding to programs which practice coercive abortion? 

Good for President Bush.

Targeting & Discriminating Against Pro-life Doctors

There's an abortionist shortage in the United States and I suspect in the UK too.  There's been roughly a 40 percent decline in the number of doctors willing to do abortions since the early 90S.  The aging fleet of abortion providers are not being replaced.  So abortion advocates are targeting pro-life doctors to compel them into doing abortions. 

One way to do this is through medical associations which in the United States and Britain are targeting pro-life doctors.  More on the AMA later, but here's a snippet from Life News.com (Pro-Life News Report 07/01/08 #4356."

British Pro-Life Doctors Threatened by British Medical Association Motion
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- After medical associations in the United States caused headaches for pro-life doctors by potentially approving a policy requiring abortion referrals for accreditation, now pro-life physicians in England are concerned. Dr. Evan Harris, the pro-abortion MP and member of the British Medical Association Medical Ethics Committee, has tabled a motion for the BMA's forthcoming Annual General Meeting July 7-10. According to the leading British pro-life group SPUC, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn, Harris's motion would marginalize doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion, specifically by effectively barring them from seeing patients with unplanned pregnancies.

Is Having an Unplanned Birth Worse for Teens Than Abortion?

Is Having an Unplanned Birth Worse for Teens Than Abortion? That's the Question The Elliot Institute answers in their recent email newsletter (Elliot Institute News Vol. 7, No. 10 06/28/08), half of which is reproduced below in the wake of the news that girls in an East Coast High School had made a pact to get pregnant .

But first, here are some Teen Abortion Facts from their site Abortion is The Unchoice

• Teens are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide if they have had an abortion in the last six months than are teens who have not had an abortion.





• Teens who abort are up to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than adults who abort, and a history of abortion is likely to be associated with adolescent suicidal thinking.





• Teens who abort are more likely to develop psychological problems, and are nearly three times more likely to be admitted to mental health hospitals than teens in general.





• Teens who abort are twice as likely as their peers to abuse alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine.





• Teens are more likely to abort because of pressure from there parents or partner, more likely to report being misinformed in pre-abortion counseling, and more likely to have greater difficulty coping after abortion. Source: Teen Abortion Risks Fact Sheet

Now to their Article, "Is Having An Unplanned Birth Worse For Teens than Abortion?"

With the recent news of a rash of pregnancies among girls at a high school in Massachusetts, it seems everyone is agreeing that teen pregnancy is a problem. But are teens who abort better off than teens who carry an "unwanted" pregnancy to term?

Not according to a study published in  the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The study found that adolescent girls who abort unintended pregnancies are five times more likely to seek subsequent help for psychological and emotional problems compared to their peers who carry "unwanted" pregnancies to term.¹

Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling Green State University, also found that adolescents who had abortions were over three times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping and nine times more likely to report subsequent marijuana use.

The results were compiled after examining 17 other control variables, like prior mental health history and family factors, that might also influence subsequent mental health.

The data was drawn from a federally-funded longitudinal study of adolescents from throughout the U.S. who participated in two series of interviews in 1995 and 1996. About 76 percent of girls who had abortions and 80 percent of girls who gave birth were between the ages of 15 and 19 during the survey, with the remainder being younger.

This study is particularly important because it examines pregnancy "wantedness," in addition to a large number of other control variables.

"Over the last several years, numerous studies have conclusively linked higher rates of mental illness and behavioral problems associated with abortion compared to childbirth. But abortion advocates have generally dismissed these findings, insisting that while women who abort may fare worse than women who give birth to planned children, they may fare better than the important subgroup of women who carry unintended pregnancies to term. Coleman's study addresses this argument and shows that the facts don’t support abortion advocates’ speculations.

Higher Risk Factors for Teens

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion statistics throughout the U.S., about a quarter of the abortions that take place each year are performed on girls younger than 20.

"Previous studies have found that younger abortion patients may be more likely to experience difficulties coping after abortion compared to older women. One reason behind this may be that teens are more likely to be pressured into unwanted abortions or to undergo abortions later in pregnancy, which carry a greater risk of physical and psychological complications.

"A 2004 Medical Science Monitor study of women who had abortions found that 64 percent of American women reported that they felt pressured into abortion.² Coleman said that for teens, the pressure probably comes from the fact that they are more likely to be perceived as unready to be parents and that abortion is often seen by those around them as the best solution.

"When women feel forced into abortion by others or by life circumstances, negative post-abortion outcomes become more common," she wrote.

"Adolescents are generally much less prepared to assume the responsibility of parenthood and are [therefore] the recipients of pressure to abort."

Coleman pointed out that, while having a child as a teen may be problematic, "the risks of terminating seem to be even more pronounced."

Other studies comparing outcomes for abortion versus delivery of unintended pregnancies have found higher rates of clinical depression, anxiety, and substance abuse among women who abort, while studies that did not look only at unplanned pregnancies also found that women who aborted are at increased risk for suicidal behavior, psychiatric problems, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and sleep disorders, which are often linked to trauma.

While previous studies have often been criticized for methodological shortcomings, studies that have come out in the last several years have been designed to address those problems and have gone through vigorous scrutiny from peer-review panels before publication.

"The scientific evidence is now strong and compelling," Coleman stated. "Abortion poses more risks to women than giving birth."

While there has been a long-standing assumption that such problems are related to mental health problems that existed before abortion, a large-scale study conducted in New Zealand last year found that this wasn’t the case.³

The standard theory has been that women who have problems coping after abortion were probably already mentally unstable and therefore more likely to be even worse off if they continued the pregnancy.

The researchers in New Zealand thought that their study would confirm this theory, so they specifically controlled for pre-existing mental health problems. What they found, however, was that women who were mentally stable before abortion were still more likely to experience mental health problems after abortion.

New Test To Target More Down Syndrome Baby Humans. Targeting Others Targets Us.

A new non invasive test has been developed in Britain to test for Down Syndrome in unborn children that is easier than the invasive amnio centisis testing.  The test is reported to have 90 percent accuracy.  The test is meant to ID Down Syndrome children and target them for destruction.  It's suggested that 80 percent of Down Syndrome Children are destroyed by abortion already.  We are wiping out Down Syndrome by wiping out people with Down Syndrome.

This will only add to the targeting of down syndrome children for destruction and add to the mentality that we deserve certain kind of children and only a certain kind of child will do.  It also fuels the mindset that certain humans have life not worthy of life and that it would be better to do them and society a favor by killing them ahead of time.  The companion thought/justification is that the lives of the handicapped or in this instance, the person with Down Syndrome is that life is a burden to themselves.  That is, their existence is so pathetic that their existence is harmful to the person with Down Syndrome and other disabilities.

With that mindset deeply ingrained in our culture, we should not be surprised when people evaluate us by our characteristics either.  If we can demean and target the Down Syndrome child for death because he or she does not meet our expectations, others can do the same to us.  Once anyone becomes expendable, we all become negotiable.  We can't target others without becoming targets ourselves.

Here's the story from today's briefing from Life News.

New Prenatal Test for Down’s Syndrome Concerns Pro-Life Advocates
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new, non-invasive prenatal test for Down's syndrome is reportedly being developed in England and Hong Kong on a blood-test that claims 90 percent accuracy. The media is praising the new procedure as risk free and saying it will detect in the mother’s bloodstream a Down syndrome pregnancy. This simple blood test would replace the current “risky” method of inserting a needle into the mother’s womb to extract amniotic fluid near the fetus, a procedure that takes place sometime after the 14th week of pregnancy and sometimes results in miscarriage. But Alison Davis of the No Less Human group that is a part of the British Society for the Protection of Unborn Children responded to the news. “"The new non-invasive test for Down's syndrome will inevitably mean more pre-natal testing, leading to more abortions of babies with the condition. Describing this as a 'breakthrough' is offensive to people who live with Down's syndrome, and to all who recognize the equal right to life of disabled people,” she said. Of the new tests, Davis said “no comment is made on the equal tragedy of the deliberate seeking out and destruction of babies with the syndrome, because this is the whole aim of pre-natal testing. It is certainly no 'breakthrough' for people living with disabilities."