Life Issues

The right to euthanasia must exist in all hospitals, negotiators forming Belgium's new government said Friday in a move to counter opposition by some Catholic hospitals that have refused to permit assisted suicide on their premises. The negotiators, who are forming a government after the My 18 general elections, have said that every hospital must have a team of doctors prepared to apply euthanasia. Euthanasia was made legal, under certain conditions, in Belgium last year. Doctors will be given a protected status for performing euthanasia. Pro-life groups are concerned about the implications this policy will have both on people in Belgium and the state of assisted suicide laws in the world at large. "This is frightening and yet another argument for opposing assisted suicide and euthanasia," commented Nancy Valko, a leading monitor on end-of-life issues in the United States. "What kind of doctors and nurses will be left in Belgium?" The chairman of the Flemish liberal VLD party, Karel De Gucht said euthanasia is the business of a doctor and a patient, and that hospitals should not interfere. In February a doctor who carried out euthenasia on a terminally ill cancer patient in a Catholic hospital was dimissed by managers who accused him of not following the legal correct proceedure by the hospital management and dismissed. The doctor denied that he had disobeyed the law.

British Father Condemns Assisted Suicide Web Sites After Son Dies

From:  The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly

Source: The Bath Chronicle (England); April 7, 2003

London, England -- A Grieving father has attacked websites
offering advice on suicide after his teenage son trawled the
internet for information on the best way to kill himself. Tim
Piper, a bright A-Level student, was found hanged in a closet in
his bedroom by his horrified mother.

The 17-year-old from Chippenham, England had left a handwritten
suicide note which read: "I love you Mum and Dad. I always will."

But his parents only discovered later that Tim had been logging
on to internet sites filled with information on the easiest way
to commit suicide. Tim's devastated parents Hazel and Martyn and
their Member of Parliament James Gray have called for the
horrific sites to be shut down.

The sick websites, amny sponsored y pro-assisted suicide groups,
rate suicide in terms of ease and success rate.

One such site, calling itself Church of Euthanasia, even tells
people to "do a good job" when they commit suicide. It reads:
"Suicide is hard work. It's easy to do it badly, or make rookie
mistakes. As with many things, the best results are achieved by
thorough research and careful preparation."

The site goes on to discuss the pros and cons of death by
shooting, hanging, crashing a car, jumping, slitting your wrists,
drowning, freezing, overdosing or gassing yourself with nitrous
oxide, exhaust fumes and even oven gas.

Hazel Piper told the inquest into his death at Chippenham that
her son was unhappy but put his behaviour down to being "a
teenager".

Tim and twin brother Jonathon were part of a study on twins and
filled in questionnaires every few years. In his last form Tim,
then 14, wrote that he was unhappy.

Hazel said: "I asked him about it and he said he was OK. I
thought he was just a 14-yearold. I thought he was becoming more
comfortable with himself."

Martyn Piper condemned the websites and demanded action to take
them off the net. "I am appalled. It is dreadful they should be
available to people who are upset and looking for that sort of
thing."

Police found graphic information on different means of suicide
when they searched Tim's personal computer. One such site called
ASH (Alternative Suicide Holiday) gives advice on the best type
of gun to use to shoot yourself.

James Gray, Conservative MP for North Wilts, said: "I am very
saddened to hear of this case."

Inspector Paul Ginger of Wiltshire Police's Computer Crime Unit,
said: "This is a very sad case. It had a big effect on officers
here. These websites are a concern nationwide, they are
impossible to police as there are different laws on what is
acceptable in every country.

---
Don't let the Hemlock Society and the popular media win the
hearts and minds of your family, friends, and neighbors!Death As
A Salesman:  What's Wrong With Assisted Suicide is a high-quality
video documentary.  It has been instrumental in affecting viewer
opinion on this pressing issue! Prepare your group and community
now! Order Now! New Regency (800) 266-5639 "Highly recommended!
Must viewing!"-- Ted Baehr, MOVIEGUIDE "Powerfulsimply the best
euthanasia video I've seen." -- Wanda Franz, Ph.D. President
Nat'l Right to Life

Assisted Suicides Almost Doubled in Oregon Last Year

From: The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly

Source: Salem Statesman Journal; March 5, 2003

Assisted Suicides Almost Doubled in Oregon Last Year Salem, OR

-- Confirming an earlier report in the Pro-Life Infonet, thirty-eight Oregonians died by assisted suicide last year, up from 21 in 2001, state officials reported this afternoon.

Last year's total was by far the highest since the law took effect in 1998, allowing people to kill themselves with the help of a doctor. Twenty-seven people used the law in both 1999 and 2000. Sixteen opted for assisted suicide in 1998.

Last year's surge in assisted suicides came as the federal government waged a legal fight to cripple the law. The voter-approved law has remained in force during the ongoing court battle.

George Eighmey, executive director of Compassion in Dying of Oregon, a group that supports the law and helps people carry it out, said he received more inquiries than usual last year from patients seeking a legal prescription for assisted suicide.

Eighmey partly attributed that to fear about the Bush Administration's efforts to derail the law. But he stopped short of linking such fears to the spike in assisted suicides.

"The fear factor may have caused more people to call me, but I don't think it caused more people to use the medication," he said. "It's not a huge number. It's not the thousands that the opposition said would occur," he said. "I expect the numbers to stay in that ballpark figure of 30 to 40 to 50 on a regular basis."

Dr. Kenneth Stevens, a cancer specialist and president of Physicians for Compassionate Care, which opposes assisted suicide, said he was disappointed by the increase in 2002.

"There are certain things doctors shouldn't do," he said. "Doctors shouldn't have sex with their patients. Doctors shouldn't euthanize their patients They shouldn't write prescriptions that would be lethal. Those are the ethics we've had for generations."

State health officials are required by law to report annually on the law. The reports are based on death certificates, interviews and reports filed by doctors and pharmacies. The 2002 report was summarized in a letter published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

During the past five years, a total of 129 doctor-assisted suicides have been reported to state health authorities.

Among the findings outlined in the 22-page report: * All but one of the 38 people who used the law were white. The average age was 69.

* Thirty-two patients were afflicted with cancer.

* The three most commonly cited end-of-life concerns were loss of autonomy, a decreasing ability to take part in enjoyable activities and loss of control over bodily functions.

* Thirty-four patients used the prescription drug pentobarbital, two used secobarbital and two used Tuinal. Those have become the drugs of choice since the Eli Lilly Co. stopped producing secobarbital in May 2001.

* Half the patients became unconscious within five minutes and died within 20 minutes after taking their fatal doses. All of the patients died at home.

Few complications were reported in 2002. In one case, a patient coughed and gagged for 10 to 15 seconds after ingesting the medication and died 13 minutes later. Another patient vomited some of the medication and died two hours later. Another patient remained unconscious for 14 hours before dying.

No patients regained consciousness after swallowing the lethal drugs, according to the state report.

Stevens said lack of independent monitoring is a fundamental flaw in the assisted-suicide process. "I worry there may be things happening that are not reported," he said.

To request a prescription for a fatal dose of barbiturates, patients must be 18 or older, an Oregon resident, capable of communicating health care decisions and diagnosed with an illness that will lead to death within six months.

The number of lethal prescriptions written has increased each year, from 24 in 1998, 33 in 1999, 39 in 2000, 44 in 2001 to 58 in 2002.

Of the 58 prescriptions written for patients last year, 36 died after taking the medication, 16 died of their underlying illness and six were still alive at the end of the year. Two other patients who got their prescriptions during 2001 died after taking the medication in 2002.

Stevens said assisted suicide is not needed because improved care for terminally ill patients means they don't have to suffer. He said doctors go astray when they prescribe fatal drugs.

"Doctors should care and cure and be compassionate," Stevens said, "without writing the prescription whose purpose is to cause the patient's death."

Opposition to the law still remains firm by pro-life Oregonians.

"This law should be banned," said Patricia Willems of Salem. "Civilized people do not kill their citizens, but rather care for them lovingly."

Scott Dangermond said the law conflicts with his belief that "only God has the right to end a life." As Dangermond sees it, caring for a dying family member or friend can be a blessedly transforming experience for the caregiver. He thinks the assisted suicide law prevents that from happening.

"How unfortunate that the state of Oregon continues to support a process that takes away the gift of both caring for and being cared for, in one's final days, thus bypassing some of the most valuable lessons we ever learn in life."

The Oregon state report on assisted suicide can be read at http://www.ohd.hr.state.or.us/chs/pas/ar-index.cfm

Church Can't Be Silent in Face of Legal Euthanasia, Pope Says

From: The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly
Source: Zenit; October 29, 2002

Vatican City -- John Paul II warned about the dangers of euthanasia, when he
received the new Belgian ambassador to the Vatican. Belgium is the second
country, after the Netherlands, to legalize this type of killing.

In his address today to career diplomat Benoit Cardon De Lichtbuer, 60, the
Pontiff said that man, "created by God and called to share in his divine
life, has always been at the center of the Christian vision of the world and
that this is why the Church respects and defends life."

"How can she silence her great anxiety and reprobation in the face of laws
recently voted on in different countries which legalize active euthanasia?"
the Holy Father asked.

"In a society, in which all too often it seems that only good health and
profitability matter, it is necessary to see weak persons or those at the end
of life with other eyes; in particular, by applying and developing palliative
care for all patients whose situation calls for it," he added.

This care "makes possible the relief of pain and supports in dignity those
who are going to die," the Pope explained.

"Recognition of the sacred character and the inviolability of every human
person, conferred by the Creator, is, in fact, the only authentic defense
against ever possible violation of their dignity," the Holy Father stressed.

He added: "A society that would run the risk of challenging these principles,
would expose itself to far graver dangers, in particular, to making the right
of persons and fundamental values depend solely on consensus, which is ever
changing."

Bush Signs Born-Alive Infants Protection Act

Source: Pro Life Infonet

8/5/02

On August 5, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (H.R. 2175). The new law, sponsored by Steve Chabot (R, Cincinnati) guarantees that live-born infants are afforded full legal rights under federal law, regardless of their stage of development or whether their live births occurred during an abortion.

The act codifies (for federal law purposes only) the traditional definition of "born alive" that is already found in the laws of most states: complete expulsion from the mother, accompanied by heartbeat, respiration, and/or voluntary movements. The bill would also codify the traditional principle that the legal term "person" and other equivalent terms "shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."

The bill had passed the House on March 12 by a voice vote. The U.S. Senate approved it by unanimous consent on July 18.

When signing the bill, President Bush stated:

"The Born Alive Infants Protection Act establishes a principle in America law and American conscience: there is no right to destroy a child who has been born alive. A child who is born has intrinsic worth and must have the full protection of our laws. Today, through sonograms and other technology, we can clearly -- see clearly that unborn children are members of the human family, as well. They reflect our image, and they are created in God's own image.

The Born Alive Infants Protection Act is a step toward the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law. It is a step toward the day when the promises of the Declaration of Independence will apply to everyone, not just those with the voice and power to defend their rights. This law is a step toward the day when America fully becomes, in the words of Pope John Paul II, 'a hospitable, a welcoming culture.'

Our society has enough compassion, wealth and love to care for mothers and their children, and to see the promise and potential of every life. In protecting the vulnerable and the weak, the imperfect and the unwanted, you are affirming a culture of life."

Abortion Training Proposed for Doctors

By Michelle Guido
Mercury News http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/3846978.htm
Mon, Aug. 12, 2002

California would become the first state in the nation to take away
the discretion medical schools now have over how to offer abortion training under legislation that would require all accredited institutions to teach the procedures to ob/gyn residents.

The bill would allow doctors or schools to opt out if they have moral or religious objections. But it would require that medical schools see to it that obstetrics and gynecology residents could get the instruction elsewhere.

The legislation, which is expected to be debated on the Senate floor this week, is designed to address the shortage of abortion providers in the state. As doctors who perform abortions age and retire, ensuring that abortion training becomes a routine requirement of ob/gyn residency programs is critical, said Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, the author of the bill.

``Those older doctors are the ones that remember the hospital wards that were filled with women dying from botched abortion procedures,'' she said. ``Most residency programs have ignored that this is a procedure to which every woman has a constitutional right.''

Jackson's legislation has support from a pro-choice majority in both the Senate and Assembly, which approved the bill in June.

More than half of ob/gyn residency programs nationwide don't offer abortion training -- even though the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires that ob/gyn residents have access to the training.

In California, it's unclear how many of the state's 22 accredited ob/ gyn residency programs train doctors in abortion practices. The eight in Northern California allow students to undergo some form of training, although there are huge disparities in how they carry that out.

Jan Carroll, legislative analyst for the California Pro-Life Council, said that while she understands that ob/gyn residents should ``know how to empty a uterus,'' her group staunchly opposes the bill.

``Obviously our fundamental objection is we think it's offensive that the state should require medical students be trained in killing their patients,'' Carroll said. ``It stretches credulity to argue there is a shortage of abortionists in California.''

Elective course

Just before the accreditation rules went into effect in 1996, the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress acted to ensure that medical schools would not risk their federal funding if they did not comply with the abortion requirements.

As a result, many don't comply. Instead, they offer the training as an elective course residents often must go off-site to take. Given residents' hectic schedules, most don't take on the extra work.

The California legislation does not set new standards for how residency programs should teach abortion procedures. But backers say it sends a message that abortion training is integral to the education of young doctors.

At the University of California-San Francisco, ob/gyn residents spend six weeks in abortion services, working in a clinic at San Francisco General Hospital four days a week.

But at Stanford University, abortion training is a small part of the core curriculum, said Dr. Maurice Druzin, professor of obstetrics and gynecology.

``If someone wanted extensive training, they could take an elective,'' he said. ``We don't make a big deal of this.''

At other California universities, doctors in training have to get abortion instruction through Planned Parenthood or another school's program. UCSF, for example, trains ob/gyn residents from UC-Davis.

Jackson hopes that if Gov. Gray Davis signs AB 2194, more programs will follow UCSF's lead. Davis has not indicated whether he would sign the bill.

Breaking ranks

Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Granada Hills, was one of two Republicans in the Assembly who voted for Jackson's bill. He is the only physician in the Legislature.

``It's important that we have medical professionals now and in the future who are well-trained in performing medical procedures, like abortion,'' he said.

More than a third of California counties have no abortion providers. Between 1992 and 1996 -- the last year for which data is available -- the number of providers in California fell by 11 percent.

Proponents of Jackson's bill fear the situation will get worse as physicians retire without an adequate number of newly trained doctors to replace them. The majority of doctors who perform abortions are over age 50, and doctors over 65 are twice as likely to perform abortions than those under 40, according to a 2000 Kaiser Family Foundation Survey.

Experts attribute those statistics to the fact that many veteran doctors saw women die from botched abortions before the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973, which legalized the practice. Younger doctors are less likely to undergo the training if it is not part of the curriculum.

Fred Hopkins is an exception.

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya in the early 1980s, Hopkins once drove a Kenyan woman, bleeding and dying, 30 miles on the back of his motorcycle after an abortion went awry.

Hopkins returned to the United States and enrolled in medical school at Harvard University. During his residency at the University of New Mexico, he had to get permission to seek the training elsewhere, in addition to working 100 hours a week at the hospital.

Now he works at family planning and abortion clinics throughout California, and he supports Jackson's bill.

``There's no orthopedic surgeon out there that doesn't know how to set a bone,'' Hopkins said. ``You shouldn't have to be a young man who's watched mothers dying in Africa to understand the importance of one of the most common surgeries in gynecology.''

Right to Life New Zealand comments on the last paragraph of this article.

:"That Mr Hopkins can compare the deliberate killing of an unborn child with an orthopaedic surgery procedure is grossly disturbing".

Tab for Baby Boomer Deaths Could Kill Taxpayers

By Christine Hall
Source: CNSNews
August 08, 2002

(CNSNews.com) - Dying is expensive and taxpayers can expect a big bill in the decades to come as the large Baby Boom generation grows older and begins to die off, according to a new study.

"It's a lot more expensive to leave this world than to enter it," said John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. "The reason people aren't more aware of the expense is because most of it is hidden" in big government programs, namely Medicare and Medicaid.

The good news for the deceased and their families is the government will pick up about 65 percent of the cost through those subsidized programs. But that may be bad news for taxpayers who fund the programs.

Thanks to the Baby Boomers, in just a few years, the cost of dying will soar, according to the calculations of Texas A&M University researchers Andrew J. Rettenmaier and Zijun Wang.

According to the study, nearly 1/3 of the annual Medicare budget is spent on dying beneficiaries who make up less than 10 percent of the total Medicare caseload.

"A lot of the problem arises because people who are spending this money are spending other people's money," said Goodman. "If a person and his family [are] spending their own money ... they'd be more frugal about it. You might not engage in pointless therapy.

By spending someone else's money, there is no incentive for the doctor, hospital, patient or patient's family not to spend, Goodman continued.

"If patients were able to profit from saving money, if every dollar they save [earned them] 50 cents, then we think you'd get different behavior," Goodman said.

Medicare should be reformed to encourage the use of medical savings accounts (MSAs) or, perhaps, to give cash to families if a terminally ill patient "does hospice or goes home or opts for other care," said Goodman.

Under the current system, the only way to get benefits out of Medicare is to be in the hospital and to use medical resources, he noted.

Even liberal Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy (Mass.), who chairs the Senate health committee, could agree with such reforms, Goodman believes.

"I think everyone realizes when you're spending a third of your entire budget on people in the last two years of their lives that there's probably better uses for some of those dollars," said Goodman.

But Marilyn Moon, a health care analyst for the Urban Institute, doesn't agree that end-of-life spending is excessive or that the big spenders are those who die.

"If you look at the top five percent of spenders each year ... whether they die or not, they account for 45 percent of Medicare spending," said Moon. Also, more Medicare dollars are spent on people who are expected to live than on those expected to die, she said. "So if we want to go after the big spenders, we don't even have to go after people who die."

The bigger problem, she believes, is equating high costs with frivolous spending.

"I believe that while we should be very careful about discouraging unnecessary use of services ... when you look deeper, all evidence points to the fact that this is not a massive problem," she said.

In any case, said Moon, "care leading up to death is often when people are the sickest, and that's when you think you should be spending money, because you don't always know it's a terminal illness."

According to Medicare's trustees, under current law, taxes that fund Medicare hospital insurance are projected to fall "increasingly short" of expenditures after 2015.

And Medicare expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) are projected to increase "rapidly," from 2.4 percent in 2001 to 5.0 percent in 2035 and then to 8.4 percent in 2075.

To plan for big end-of-life expenses as well as Medicare's overall budget woes, Moon believes the solution lies, not in saving money for the future or, as Goodman suggested, offering cash incentives not to spend, but in payroll tax increases.

Workers and employers each now pay a total of 2.9 percent of employee wages to pay for Medicare hospital insurance.

"I don't think that [tax increases] have to be as burdensome as some folks believe," said Moon. "When I look at the projections and how much better off we'll be as a society, I don't see that it's going to be that big a deal. I don't want mom living with me, personally."

Politically, though, Moon doesn't foresee Republicans or Democrats making a big push for Medicare reform anytime soon.

"We're still in the 'pretend era' of Medicare reform," she said. "'Let's pretend that if we turn it over to the private sector, poof, health care will magically be cheaper, even though there are going to be twice as many people on the system.' There's not enough money to be saved that you can pay for a doubling of the population.

"And on the other hand ... you can't say, 'we don't have to do anything, and poof, magically it will work out.'"

"There's too much fear by the Democrats that they'll get painted as tax and spend liberals and too much fear on the Republican side that they'll look like they're Democrats," said Moon. "Therefore nothing happens."

Abortion, Torture in North Korea Examined

By David Brody, Washington, D.C., correspondent

Source Focus on the Family

Under North Korea's government's dictatorship, there is massive famine, religious persecution and daily torture in prison camps. Now, a Senate committee is trying to expose the atrocities.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees are fleeing North Korea into China looking for food and work and trying frantically to escape an oppressive dictatorship, witnesses before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Immigration Subcommittee testified last week. In North Korea, you can be thrown into jail for even disagreeing with the government.

One of the witnesses, Soon Ok Lee, somehow managed to escape from a North Korean prison camp. Her stories of what she saw are horrifying, including the killing of the unborn.

"They all kill unborn babies by inserting the salts and salt liquids into the wombs," Lee said.

Lee was tortured day and night for two years for a crime she never committed. She added that in North Korea those who don't worship the dictator are tortured as well. Many Christians in the country have been killed for their beliefs, she told Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the respective Republican and Democratic leaders of the subcommittee:

LEE: In the prison, I saw a lot of Christians, and their crime was believing in God. I've seen eight women dragged out and ... punished because they didn't say they didn't believe in Christ anymore. And these women were burned."
BROWNBACK: Burned to death?
LEE: Yes.

Lee said she hopes her story will be a first step in stopping the atrocities.

Human Cloning Has a Real Slippery Slope

From: The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly
Subject: Human Cloning Has a Real Slippery Slope
Source: Washington Times; May 18, 2002

By Steven Chapman

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: Steven Chapman is a nationally syndicated
columnist.]

A year ago, Americans heard about the amazing promise of stem-cell
research. Someday, we were told, it could vanquish cancer. Cure
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Let paraplegics walk again. There was only
one problem: The stem cells would have to come from human embryos produced
by in vitro fertilization. Taking the cells would mean destroying the
embryos.

This presented a bit of a dilemma. Our elected representatives in
Washington debated the science and the morality, and a consensus emerged
in favor of such research. Even some "pro-life" politicians who oppose
abortion rights agreed. Eventually, President Bush elected to allow
federal funding for work involving 64 colonies of embryo cells that were
already in existence.

His policy didn't go as far as most advocates wanted. They pointed out
that more embryos are created every day in fertilization clinics than will
ever be implanted in wombs. They thought it unconscionable, as paralysis
victim Christopher Reeve put it, to let these surplus embryos "be tossed
away as so much garbage when they could help save thousands of lives."

But for them, Mr. Bush's decision was at least a partial victory.
Stem-cell research on embryos was allowed to go forward.

Today, we are once again hearing about the potential of stem-cell
research. But apparently, the promise held by embryos from fertility
clinics, so dazzling just 12 months ago, has dimmed. This time, the
potential advances are said to come from cloned embryos.

Everyone in Washington wants to ban "reproductive cloning" - creating
embryos destined for implantation, gestation and birth. But many people in
Washington want to allow "therapeutic cloning" - creating embryos purely
for medical research.

Last year's debate was about whether to condone the dissection of embryos
that would be destroyed anyway. This year's debate is about whether to
destroy embryos that wouldn't have been created otherwise. And it's
revealing to contemplate how the arguments have evolved.

"Private companies are creating embryos specifically for stem cells, and I
think that's a very bad idea," said Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania
Republican, then, as he endorsed research on existing embryos. Mr. Specter
is now sponsoring a bill that would allow what he once opposed: the
creation of embryos specifically for stem cell research.

"I oppose creating embryos for therapeutic reasons," asserted Sen. Barbara
Mikulski, Maryland Democrat. Despite that long-ago declaration, she is
co-sponsoring Mr. Specter's bill. Mr. Reeve, who stressed the folly of
refusing to use embryos that would be destroyed anyway, now wants embryos
created precisely so they can be destroyed.

What has happened is simple. In the previous debate, everyone agreed we
needed this type of medical inquiry, but only within clear limits. Now,
the first time those limits put any sort of constraint on science, we find
they are intolerable. The about-face of Mr. Specter and others isn't
obvious, because they take some trouble to conceal the reality of what
they want. The advocates all insist they oppose cloning human beings. But
the process they favor is the same as cloning, in that it involves
creation of an embryo with the genetic material of one person rather than
two.

The only difference is that in reproductive cloning, the embryo would be
implanted in a womb and carried to term. Mr. Specter's bill would allow
cloning so long as the embryo is not implanted. Cloning a human being is
allowed. But letting it live is strictly forbidden.

These embryos are to exist for our benefit, not for their own. We will be
sanctioning the creation of life solely for its destruction - something
that stem-cell research advocates said last year they couldn't
countenance.

Everyone favors scientific progress. Everyone has a stake in discoveries
that could conquer terrible diseases. The question is: At what cost?

Currently, cloned embryos can't live more than a few days unless they're
implanted in a womb, which Mr. Specter's bill would forbid. Scientists say
the seven days of development an embryo can undergo outside the womb is
enough for their needs. And in the view of supporters, a 7-day-old
"blastocyst" is the moral equivalent of a wart, deserving no protection.

But researchers are already working to develop an artificial womb that
would allow a fetus to mature outside a woman's body. And someday, almost
inevitably, some scientist will say the seven-day limit is too tight. With
two weeks, a month, or three months, he will say, we could achieve medical
miracles that would help millions of sick people.

If we can justify carving up week-old embryos, can we not justify carving
up recognizable fetuses? Do we tell a Parkinson's victim that he has to
die because we suddenly have moral qualms about killing embryos?

You can guess the answer. Supporters of therapeutic cloning say a sturdy
legal barrier will let us realize the benefits of medical research without
opening the door to abuses. Where have we heard that before?

New Study Finds Abortion Risks Higher Than Expected

From: The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly
Source:   The de Veber Institute; April 23, 2002

Toronto, CA -- Abortion complications are seriously underreported, leaving
women who undergo abortion largely unaware of the range of physical and
psychological risks they face, according to a new study by a Canadian
bioethics institute.

Breast cancer, pelvic infection, infertility, life-threatening ectopic
pregnancy, and subsequent premature births - with higher rates of children
born with cerebral palsy - were found to be associated with abortion in a
comprehensive review of the world medical literature. Abortion
complications were not limited to physical health. While abortion is often
regarded as a cure for the depression and stress of a crisis pregnancy,
the study found that women are more likely to commit suicide after
abortion than after giving birth to a child.

Current abortion rates of 114,000 in Canada and 1.4 million in the U.S.
underscore the magnitude of this potential public health issue.

"In the absence of this knowledge, how can a woman give her informed
consent to an abortion?" asks Ian Gentles, history professor at York
University in Toronto, and one of the authors of the study entitled
Women's Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence,
published by the deVeber Institute, a nonprofit bioethics and social
research group based in Toronto.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory University professor of humanities and
women's studies, calls the findings "compelling", and says the study
"makes overwhelmingly clear [that] women who seek abortions in the United
States and Canada are not even told of the risks they are running."

The study calls for a more accountable system of risk assessment where
research data accurately reflect the true risks of abortion to their
future health and fertility.

Key abortion risks

An extensive review of the world medical literature reveals abortion is
associated with:

   * Suicide risk

A woman's risk of suicide is up to 6 times higher after abortion than
after giving birth to a child, according to three large worldwide studies.

Gissler M et al. Suicides after pregnancy in Finland 1987-94: register
linkage study. British Medical Journal 1996 Dec. 7;313(7070):1431-4.

   * Breast cancer

27 worldwide studies, including 13 U.S. studies, show the risk caused by
the unprotected internal estrogen exposure a woman receives after an
abortion. A young woman who aborts her first pregnancy nearly doubles her
lifetime risk of developing breast cancer.

Daling JR et al. Risk of breast cancer among young women: relationship to
induced abortion. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 1994
Nov(2);86(21):1584-92.

   * Immediate complications

Pain, bleeding, infection, perforated uterus, and occasional death occur
at rates higher than usually reported. True rates are often underestimated
by inadequate hospital diagnostic coding.

Heisterberg L, Kringelbach M. Early complications after induced
first-trimester abortion. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica
Scandanavica,1987;66(3):201-4.

   * Infertility, prematurity, cerebral palsy

Subsequent infertility, life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, and premature
delivery of subsequent children - which increases the risk of cerebral
palsy 38 times in the earliest premature babies.

Escobar GJ et al. Outcome among surviving very low birthweight infants: a
meta-analysis. Archives of Disease in Childhood 1991;66:204-211.

To order the study from the deVeber Institute visit the website:
http://deveber.org/publications2.html#launch

Killing Isn't Medicine: Assisted-Suicide Contortions

From: The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly

Source: National Review; May 1, 2002

by Wesley Smith

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: Wesley J. Smith is an attorney for the
International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. He is the
author of "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America" and
co-author of "Power Over Pain: How To Get the Pain Control You Need."]

Last month, to the cheers of editorial writers throughout the country, a
federal judge enjoined Attorney General John Ashcroft from revoking the
federal licenses to prescribe controlled substances of Oregon doctors who
legally assist in a patient's suicide. The Oregon lawsuit was filed last
year when Ashcroft issued a directive in the Federal Register, proclaiming
that assisted suicide was not a "legitimate medical purpose" under the
Controlled Substances Act (CSA). But United States District Court Judge
Robert E. Jones ruled that once Oregon determined that assisted suicide
was a legitimate medical act, the federal government was bound to accede
to the state's determination even when enforcing federal law.

This week, the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in another
assisted-suicide case, the facts of which seem to have great bearing on
whether assisted suicide is or is not a medical act. The case involved a
terminally ill woman disabled by Lou Gehrig's disease (known as
motor-neuron disease in Europe) named Diane Pretty. Mrs. Pretty wants to
commit suicide. But her disease has progressed to the point where she
cannot do the deed on her own. So last year, she filed suit in Britain
seeking a court order guaranteeing that her husband would suffer no legal
penalty for helping her kill herself, even though Britain's law prohibits
assisted suicide.

Pretty's case is acutely relevant to Ashcroft's attempt to declare
assisted suicide non-medical under the CSA. Consider the relief Mrs.
Pretty requested from the British and EU courts: She wanted her husband
Brian to help kill her legally. Not her doctor; her husband who,
relevantly, is not a physician and has no medical training other than that
he may have picked up as a caregiver for his wife.

Pretty's lawsuit has been treated with great respect in the British and
European courts. The trial court first gave its permission to bring the
case and then spent a great deal of time hearing evidence and pondering
the law before ultimately rejecting the claim. The House of Lords, the
British equivalent of the Supreme Court, took the appeal and held a
hearing that treated her arguments with utmost solemnity and seriousness.
Then, when the Lords ruled against Mrs. Pretty, the EU Court agreed
quickly to take up the matter to see if Britain's anti-assisted-suicide
law violated the European Rights Convention.

Now imagine what would have happened if this case had not been about
assisted suicide but about Mrs. Pretty wanting her husband to be allowed
to perform surgery on her, such as the minor procedure required to insert
her feeding tube into her abdomen. Or, what if she had brought the case
requesting that her husband be allowed to decide the proper medication for
her to take to alleviate the symptoms of her disease. She would have been
laughed out of court! Why? Because those are actions that are clearly
medical: Only licensed medical professionals can perform surgery or
prescribe medications. Thus, the case would be deemed utterly frivolous
and a waste of the court's time.

Notice also that Mrs. Pretty did not sue to prevent her husband from being
prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license if he assisted her
suicide. The very idea of such a suit is so ludicrous that it would have
never occurred to her attorneys. Assisting a suicide, after all, isn't
medicine.

Further proof of this is found in the advocacy of the euthanasia movement,
which has established a cottage industry in suicide devices. For example,
Derek Humphry, cofounder of the Hemlock Society has established NuTech,
which is devoted to promoting suicide-facilitation devices. As reported
breathlessly Economist in the December 6, 2001, among these contraptions
is the "DeBreather," a face-mask apparatus that recycles a suicidal
person's own carbon dioxide toward the end of cutting off all oxygen.
How-to-commit-suicide videos Humphry promotes (and stars in), also extol
the use helium and a plastic bag to bring life to an end.

Now ask yourself this question: Should Medicare pay for the expense of
obtaining and using a DeBreather if the patient is over 65? Or should your
local HMO provide the device to patients as if it were durable medical
equipment akin to an oxygen tank or a kidney-dialysis machine? Indeed,
should helium be considered a palliative medical agent? The entire concept
is preposterous, ridiculous. Why? Simply stated, killing isn't medicine.

A few years ago, Berkeley Assemblywoman Dion Aroner authored legislation
to legalize physician-assisted suicide in California. At a public forum I
confronted her and made the points I have just written above. Aroner
nodded her head and acknowledged candidly that she would have preferred to
keep doctors out of it. But, she said, she believed it necessary to bring
assisted suicide under a medical umbrella for political reasons.
Otherwise, her bill would have no chance of passage.

Assisted-suicide activists intentionally redefine, distort, and subvert
medicine, medical ethics, and the morality of health-care public policy in
pursuit of their dream of obtaining the right to "choose the time and
manner" of their own deaths. But at least they have an excuse: They are
death fundamentalists driven by a cancerous ideology that is as deeply
felt as the most sincere expression of religious faith. But when a federal
judge thwarts the United States attorney general from recognizing the
obvious truth that intentional killing is not medical by forcing him to
accept Oregon's twisted redefinition, not only has medicine been subverted
but also has language and the law.

3D ultrasound lets parents 'touch' unborn child

Reuters
Chicago, May 13

Chubby cheeks. A cute button nose. Tiny fingers and toes. A newborn can melt hearts and turn sane adults into cooing, babbling fools.

Expectant parents who can't wait to feel their baby's touch soon may be able to preview that sensation while the child is still in the womb, thanks to computer software developed by a New Mexico company that adds a touch component to 3D ultrasound technology.

The e-Touch software, developed by Novint Technologies Inc., a private Albuquerque, New Mexico-based company, replicates the sensation of touch through a special stylus traced over the ultrasound image of the unborn child. The software also helps enhance the 3D picture, said Novint founder Tom Anderson.

"You can actually see what the baby looks like much more clearly," said Anderson, 27, whose wife is expecting their first child in July. He has already spent many hours touching his son's image.

"It feels a little bit squishy... similar to skin. You can feel along the surface and feel a little bit of pressure and contour," said Anderson.

Touch technology may have important medical applications. For example, it can help in monitoring a foetus' development.

"If a baby has an anomaly, it might help the parents to know how it is shaped," said Jan Easton Carrasco, president of New Mexico Sonographics.

Various medical applications
Other uses for the equipment could include evaluating breast tumours or colon polyps, reducing surgical errors by essentially allowing a doctor to practice before performing an operation, or in the training of medical residents.

"The sense of touch is tremendously important from a surgical standpoint," said Dr. Glenroy Heywood, a surgeon with the University of New Mexico Hospitals who is working to develop applications for the software.

Used together with a CT scan or MRI image, the software lets a physician feel textures and surfaces of the patient's body, similar to what occurs once an operation is already under way.

"As surgeons we depend a lot on what we feel," said Heywood, a specialist in gastrointestinal oncology. "If you feel a tissue, you can tell if it's a malignancy or a non-cancerous or benign problem such as inflammation."

Touch technology eventually could even reduce the use of animals in medical research, Heywood said.

Anderson helped develop human-computer interfaces while working as an engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. He licensed the technology when he left to form Novint.

The company, with 10 employees and revenues of $600,000, is working on a variety of touch applications, including automotive ergonomics, computer gaming, and underground oil and gas exploration.

Anderson said he expects to reach revenues of $1 million this year and hopes to take the company public in a few years.

Focus on the Family Denounces Powell’s Pro-Condom Comments
Dr. James Dobson Calls on President Bush to Repudiate Secretary of State’s Remarks

Source: Focus on the Family

February 14, 2002

Colorado Springs—In a global forum with young adults to be broadcast internationally by MTV, Secretary of State Colin Powell today encouraged the world’s youth to "forget about conservative ideas" with respect to sex education, and promoted the use of condoms to combat the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Focus on the Family President Dr. James C. Dobson strongly denounced Powell’s remarks.

"Colin Powell is the Secretary of State, not the Secretary of Health," Dobson said. "He is talking about a subject he doesn’t understand. He clearly doesn’t understand the science regarding condom efficacy."

Dobson held out Uganda as an example of the effectiveness of abstinence in stemming the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

"Secretary Powell seems to be ignorant of the fact that Uganda has made great progress against AIDS by emphasizing abstinence, not condoms. Uganda has cut the rate of HIV infection by as much as 50 percent among young people by delaying the onset of sexual activity by two years."

Bradley Beck, M.D., medical issues advisor for Focus on the Family, noted Powell’s ignorance of the facts: "It would have been nice if Colin Powell had read the condom efficacy report published last year by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and other government health agencies. The study showed no data proving condom efficacy for most sexually transmitted diseases. Powell’s comments fly in the face of that report."

The study, released in July 2001, is titled, "Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention."

Dobson added, "Secretary Powell’s comments directly contradict those of his boss, President Bush, who just proposed a $33 million increase in funding for abstinence-only education in the United States. As one who has distinguished himself in the armed services, surely Mr. Powell must understand the importance of self-control and discipline. These very characteristics are helping to win the war against terrorism. It is these same traits that can keep young people from HIV infection through abstinence.

"Colin Powell is a career soldier. He knows what it means to follow the Commander-in-Chief. We have to assume he wouldn’t contradict his boss without prior approval. If that is not the case, the President needs to publicly repudiate these statements immediately."

Powell Endorses 'Safe Sex' on MTV

Source: Focus on the Family

By Bob Ditmer, correspondent

February 15, 2002

Conservatives are blasting the secretary of state for endorses the "safe-sex" myth on worldwide television.

Focus on the Family is calling on the Bush administration to repudiate the pro-condom statements of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell appeared Thursday evening on a "global forum" for young adults that was broadcast on MTV. A young woman from Italy asked Powell what he thought of the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to condoms.

"I certainly respect the views of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church," Powell said. "In my own judgment, a condom is a way to prevent infection, and therefore I not only support their use, I encourage their use among people who are sexually active and need to protect themselves."

But Powell didn't stop there — he went on to castigate all conservative thinking on the issue.

"It is important that the whole international community come together, speak candidly about it," Powell said. "Forget about taboos, forget about conservative ideas with respect to what you should tell young people about. It's the lives of young people that are put at risk by unsafe sex, and therefore, protect yourself."

"We all appreciate Secretary Powell's work regarding the protection of our country, but when it comes to other types of protection he would do much better to stick to what he knows. It obviously isn't the effectiveness of condoms," said Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America.

Carrie Gordon Earll, bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family, said it is Powell's comments that put the lives of teens at risk.

"Our own government released a study last summer on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases. And that report found no data proving that condoms protected against most STDs (sexually transmitted diseases)," Earll said. "So here's Colin Powell suggesting that teenagers use condoms anyway, and that's totally irresponsible."

Earll is also concerned about the mixed messages coming out of the Bush administration.

"On one hand, the president increases abstinence-only education funding — then a couple of weeks later his secretary of state turns around and promotes a faulty condom message. The White House needs to decide where it stands on this issue, and if it's not pro-condoms for teens, then Powell should be sidelined and told to stick to matters of state," Earll said.

TAKE ACTION
Contact President Bush and urge him to immediately repudiate Secretary of State Colin Powell's comments encouraging the world's youth to "forget about conservative ideas" with respect to sex education and to use condoms to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases. Also, please thank President Bush for his recent proposal to increase abstinence funding by $33 million. To read Dr. Dobson's comments, see the Focus on the Family press release.

Australian Woman Settles Abortion-Breast Cancer Lawsuit

From: The Pro-Life Infonet
Source: World Net Daily; December 30, 2001

Melbourne, Australia -- A woman in Australia has settled with an abortion
practitioner she had sued because he failed to inform her of the research
linking abortion with breast cancer.

Even though 27 out of 35 studies published since 1957 have linked abortion
with breast cancer, pro-abortion groups continue to deny such a link
exists and refuse to inform prospective abortion recipients of the
studies. Similarly, abortion practitioners, as a rule, do not inform women
considering abortion about the research.

A confidentiality agreement prevents the details of the settlement, which
was negotiated in September but just now became public, from being
released.

According to Australian attorney Charles Francis, two similar cases were
settled in Australia in 1996. In those instances, the women said the
abortion practitioners failed to provide them information about the
"adverse psychiatric consequences" of abortion.

Also, another suit involving the abortion-breast cancer link is moving
forward in Australia, says Francis.

"In another case to be heard in New South Wales shortly, 'Mary' is suing a
hospital and an abortionist for failure to warn her that she might
subsequently have a bad psychiatric reaction and for failure to warn of
the increased breast-cancer risk," Francis said in a statement yesterday.

Karen Malec is president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
released a statement favoring the decision.

"We're delighted with the settlement of an abortion-breast cancer case,"
Malec said. "The abortion industry and its medical experts know that it
will be far more challenging for them to lie to women about the
abortion-breast cancer research when they are called upon to testify under
oath. Scientists know that abortion causes breast cancer but are afraid to
say so publicly in today's hostile political climate."

According to Dr. Joel Brind, president of the Breast Cancer Prevention
Institute and a leading researcher on the abortion-breast cancer link,
explains that a woman's estrogen level increases hundreds of times above
normal upon conceiving. One of the first physical changes to the pregnant
woman's body occurs in the breasts. That hormone surge leads to the growth
of "undifferentiated" cells in the breast as the body prepares to produce
milk for the coming baby. Undifferentiated cells are vulnerable to the
effects of carcinogens, which can give rise to cancerous tumors later in
life.

In the final weeks of a full-term pregnancy, those cells are "terminally
differentiated" through a still largely unknown process and are ready to
produce milk. Differentiated cells are not vulnerable to carcinogens.
However, should a woman have an abortion prior to cell differentiation,
she is left with abnormally high numbers of undifferentiated cells,
therefore increasing her risk of developing breast cancer.

A case in North Dakota in which a woman is suing an abortion facility in
Fargo for false advertising has its next round in court this March. In
promotional material, the Red River Women's Clinic abortion facility
claims that "none of [the claims about a link between abortion and breast
cancer] are supported by medical research or established medical
organizations."

The trial was scheduled for Sept. 11, but the terrorist attacks on the
U.S. prevented the case from going forward at that time.

Adult Bone Marrow Stem Cells Transplant Well

From: The Pro-Life Infonet
Source: Ananova; December 12, 2001

Montreal, Canada -- Researchers have found a type of adult stem cell which
could repair damaged organs without any chance of being rejected by a
patient's immune system. This while other scientists have been trying
unsuccessfuly to perfect cloned stem cells as a way of overcoming the
rejection problem.

A type of cell found in the bone marrow of adults is so safe it can be
transplanted between species.

The mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, don't carry markers on their surfaces
which lead to rejection, reports New Scientist.

Ray Chiu, of McGill University in Montreal, even managed to successfully
transplant them from pigs to rats. He also said the cells only seem to go
to damaged areas once injected, saying: "They turned into heart muscle,
blood vessels and fibrous tissue."

If MSCs live up to their promise there may be no need for the
controversial harvesting of embryonic stem cells.

Annemarie Moseley, of Osiris Therapeutics in Baltimore, said: "It does go
against our common understanding of the immune system."

AMA Votes Against Abortion Disclosure

Source CNSNews.com
By Christine Hall
Staff Writer
December 07, 2001

(CNSNews.com) - The American Medical Association this week voted overwhelmingly against a proposal to inform women about the potential for birth control pills to cause the abortion of a fertilized egg.

"If [pro-life women] are using a method that can operate after fertilization as well as before fertilization, and they don't know it, they are basically being deceived by lack of information into violating their own consciences," said Walter Weber, senior litigation counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Virginia-based public interest law firm.

Weber criticized the AMA for voting against a proposal during its annual meeting that would have urged physicians to inform women about that possibility. He believes some AMA members opposed the measure because they are, to varying degrees, pro-abortion, while others were simply skeptical and perhaps uninformed about the issue.

"The strongest argument against [the proposal] is to say that the evidence is unclear to what extent, if at all, certain methods of birth control can operate as abortifacients," a substance or device used to induce abortion, said Weber.

"That's legitimate medical research, scientific debate," said Weber. "The question comes down to whether we want to let women know about it, so they can decide whether it's important or not."

The AMA has strong policies on informed consent, giving patients information about the risks associated with medical procedures and drugs, Weber noted. "So it would have been very consistent with that to adopt this policy.

"For them to reject this is really for them to say that, 'we're going to make an exception for abortifacients, we think patients have the right to know about procedures in general but not when it comes to abortions, at least in the early stages of pregnancy,'" Weber alleged.

According to some sources, common birth control devices and pills -- like estrogen/ progestin birth control bills, Intra-uterine Devices (IUDs), Norplant, and Depo-Provera - can cause the abortion of fertilized eggs. Some suggest that these methods may not only work by preventing contraception but, sometimes, by preventing the implantation of an egg that's been fertilized, effectively killing it.

Dr. John C. Nelson, a member of the AMA's executive committee and a self-described conservative, said the Alabama doctor who put forward the proposal before the AMA "believes that in the spirit of enhancing the patient/physician relationship, that information ought to be disclosed to patients to help them make choices.

I couldn't agree more," Nelson said. "That's exactly what the AMA is about. It's a cornerstone of American medicine."

However, according to Nelson, the proposal was voted down because "many people from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine... decided that they would testify, and their testimony was that there is not sufficient scientific evidence to suggest" that birth control substances can induce abortions.

"One of the foremost infertility doctors in the country [said] that's not the way it works," Nelson added. "I have no reason to doubt him."

Weber suggested the proposal might be brought up again at the 2002 AMA meeting.

Planned Hysteria: Planned Parenthood Exploits Violence for Money

From: Pro-Life Infonet

Source: National Review; June 18, 2001

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: The following article is an editorial by National
Review columnist Jaime Sneider.]

Acording to its website, "Planned Parenthood believes that knowledge
empowers people to make better choices about their health and sexuality."
But for Planned Parenthood (PP), "knowledge" clearly has its limits.
Consider its recent direct-mail campaign.

Potential donors to PP receive suspicious envelopes; the addresses appear
handwritten, and there is no return address. The pitch begins: "Sadly, a
letter like this would have to be treated with suspicion at Planned
Parenthood. While you probably opened the envelope without much thought
such haste could be deadly for the volunteer at a women's health center."

After cataloguing some incidents of clinic violence, Planned Parenthood
reports that, "the federal government won't track the leading suspects."
But this is wrong. The federal government not only tracks "leading
suspects," but also many others whom the FBI has no evidence to suspect in
bombings other than their denunciations of abortion. The existence of an
FBI database of pro-life activists and religious leaders has been the
subject of some publicity; Judicial Watch brought suit against the
Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation for being denied
related documents, even after filing a request under the Freedom of
Information Act.

To hear PP tell it, anti-abortion fanatics are not only getting away with
violence, they are assaulting clinics with alarming frequency. "Doctors
must wear bullet-proof vests"; "Buildings are peppered with bullets,"
reads the letter. Although plainly immoral and illegal, to say nothing
more, a total of three abortion doctors were killed from 1993-1998. This
is a tragedy, to be sure, but hardly an epidemic.

The effect of this type of hysteria is to link a small fringe with the
pro-life movement as a whole. Even though violent criminals openly
disregard the core principle espoused by virtually everyone who opposes
abortion there is inviolable dignity in every human life Planned
Parenthood scarcely deigns to distinguish among pro-life activists and
those few individuals responsible for violent attacks.

Here are the monikers that Planned Parenthood chooses to append to those
who object to abortion: "religious political extremists," "well-armed
militias," and "anti-choice fanatics." These words deliberately attempt to
cartoon intellectuals such as Robert P. George of Princeton, Nat Hentoff
of the Village Voice, or Dr. Bernard Nathanson, all pro-life, all of whom
participated years ago in a landmark symposium in First Things that
skewered the philosophical rationale proffered by those who kill abortion
doctors.

And yet, in order to raise money, Planned Parenthood stokes an environment
of nail-biting fear and paranoia. "The local police are sympathetic to the
very people who are blocking entrances and threatening clients and staff,"
asserts PP's letter. (The old "vast right-wing conspiracy" line never
fails to rally the troops).

This letter, needless to say, is not the first attempt by supporters of
abortion rights to characterize their ideological opponents as violent
thugs. Kate Michelman, the president of the National Abortion and
Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), used the murder of Dr. Barnett
Slepian to indict the entire pro-life movement. At his vigil, she said,
"Those who oppose abortion must take responsibility for their role in
creating a climate where the zealous feel justified in committing acts of
violence. They must acknowledge and admit that their words drive
unrestrained factions of their movements to commit these horrific acts.
Denials and condemnations no longer suffice."

Condemning fringe radicals who misconstrue the pacifist pro-life message
is insufficient, according to Michelman. And although she concedes that
such extremists represent "unrestrained factions," she nevertheless finds
the whole pro-life movement culpable.

Why, when radical pro-choice activists resort to violence, do we not hear
similar protestations? In 1994, a man leaving an abortion clinic with his
wife shot at a pro-life picketer who had expressed a negative view of
abortion. Carole Griffin, the president of a pro-life group in Florida,
reports that her home has been fired upon, her car windows broken, and her
pool despoiled with poisonous snakes. And in another case, abortionist Dr.
Alan J. Ross was convicted in 1985 of assaulting protesters who belonged
to the Pro-Life Non-Violent Action Project. Ross had previously been found
guilty of attacking an activist with a hypodermic syringe outside his
clinic.

Were these incidents to be cited in a pro-life fundraising campaign, in a
disingenuous attempt to indict all pro-choice activists as thugs,
pro-choicers would cry, "Slander!" and rightly so. So why is it
acceptable for PP to accuse pro-life activists of being accessories to
violence and to raise money in the process?

Adult Stem Cells Completely Cure Sickle Cell Patient

From: The Pro-Life Infonet Weekly
Subject: Adult Stem Cells Completely Cure Sickle Cell Patient
Source: CBS News; November 28, 2001

Pittsburgh, PA -- Stem cells are thought of as the Holy Grail of medicine.
One young boy agrees with that. He made medical history because he's been
cured of his life-threatening disease. The key to his cure did not come
from a human embryo, where all the controversy is, but from something that
is routinely toss in the garbage - an umbilical cord. Umbilical cords were
always considered medical waste.

Not anymore.

That's why new parents like Pam Dorne and Stephen Ayers of suburban
Chicago have decided to save their children's umbilical cord blood. Dorne
gave birth last spring to a baby boy, Kyle.

After a baby is born, there is just a 15-minute window to retrieve the
four to six ounces of blood in the umbilical cord. And in that blood are
potentially lifesaving stem cells that can be saved for future use.

"This is really where, I think, so much of biomedicine is going to be
going in the 21st century," says Dr. Andrew Yeager of the University of
Pittsburgh.

For instance, when stem cells from umbilical cord blood are injected into
a person's vein, they migrate to the bone marrow and can create what Dr.
Yeager calls a blood factory, replacing diseased blood with healthy blood.
According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cells may one day be
able repair the body's tissue and muscle and cure everything from spinal
cord injuries to Alzheimer's.

"It's not just pie-in-the-sky speculation," says Yeager. "There are
studies that would suggest that other organ dysfunction - nerve damage,
heart damage, brain-cell damage - might actually be fixed."

It has the potential to make paralyzed patients walk and make Alzheimer's
sufferers remember.

That potential is what Dr. Yeager was counting on to cure a young patient
named Keone Penn.

Keone suffers from a case of sickle cell, a painful genetic blood disease.
He was diagnosed when he was 6 months old. He was 5 when his sickle cell
caused a stroke.

"All I remember is I woke up and my mama was beside me and there was a
basket beside me and a teddy bear," he says. "It was very scary, I mean,
whew."

For six years, Keone and his mother, Leslie Penn, were constantly in and
out of an Atlanta hospital to receive transfusions to stave off another
potentially deadly stroke. By the time Keone was 11, the transfusions were
becoming less effective and he had excruciating pain in his joints and
lower back.

"The pain is usually so intense that even morphine, Demerol, those
heavy-duty medicines don't really touch it," Leslie Penn says. "All you
can really do is pray that he'll just go to sleep."

Keone says he's tough, but at 15, he looks much younger. Sickle cell
stunted his growth - he's just 4 feet, 9 inches, tall - and restricted
what he could do.

"I was impaired from doing a lot of things that normal kids do, like
sports or anything or run," he says. "Couldn't play basketball. Because,
you know, some people like roughhousing when they play basketball and they
can knock you over and push you and that could really hurt me."

The odds were that Keone had, at best, only five years to live. So Yeager
decided to take a chance on a new procedure. Never before had stem cells
from umbilical cord blood been used to treat sickle cell.

"The goal here is that these stem cells, which are in a relatively high
proportion in cord blood - higher than they would be in our own bone
marrow and definitely higher than in our own circulating blood - could
then be injected and would take hold and again, make more of themselves.
And make a whole new blood factory."

Yeager told the family he wasn't sure the procedure would work.

"He just basically said, 'This is just a 50-50 chance and it's up to you
all if you want to do it, I can't offer you any guarantees.'" recalls
Leslie Penn.

Keone Penn remembers how his mother told him: "She came in the room
looking very depressed. Pulled the chair up sat beside me in the bed and
told me everything. And I almost started to cry. But she was very calm
about it. She told me everything, said, 'You got-you may - have five years
to live,' you know."

Ordinarily, patients with a severe case of sickle cell, like Keone's,
would have had a bone-marrow transplant.That's because until recently bone
marrow was the only source for stem cells.

But bone marrow transplants can be tricky because there must be a precise
match between the person donating the bone marrow and the patient
receiving it. In Keone's case, no match could be found.

Stem cells from umbilical cord blood don't need an exact match.

Dr. Yeager and his team found a match that was close enough in a cryogenic
tank at the New York Public Blood Bank, which since 1992 has slowly been
collecting donations of umbilical cord blood.

Over Christmas vacation of 1998, after intensive chemotherapy to destroy
Keone's bad blood, he was injected with the stem cells.

After a few weeks, something extraordinary happened - the stem cells
changed his entire blood system from type O to type B.

"That concept there is the one that really blows my mind," says Leslie
Penn. "The thought that your whole blood type is changed. The umbilical
cord cell's donor, he took on their blood type.

A year later, doctors declared that the sickle cells in Keone's body had
disappeared. Today, he is considered cured.

It was umbilical cord stem cells that cured Keone, not stem cells from
human embryos. While the use of embryonic stem cells has generated fierce
controversy, umbilical cord stem cells have attracted little attention and
no political debate. And now it seems, more and more new parents have
decided to bank their hopes on the stem cells in their newborn's cord
blood.

Moments after Pam Dorne gave birth to a baby Kyle, his cord blood was
sealed, packed in dry ice, and given to a courier. Within hours, the
package was on a plane bound for Tucson, Arizona, where the largest
privately run cord blood bank in the country is located.

There, a child's umbilical-cord blood is stored in a cryogenic tank at a
temperature of minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dr. David Harris, laboratory director of the Cord Blood Registry, says it
takes only a small vial of cord blood to change a person's entire system.

So far, Cord Blood Registry has collected about 30,000 samples from
families willing to pay a $1,300 flat fee and $95 a year to analyze and
privately store their baby's cord blood. The company has taken in over $40
million so far, selling a kind of biological insurance.

"Part of the issue when people bank," says Harris, "it is because they
have a family history or they work or live in a place where there is a
potential for cancer. But part of it is for peace of mind."

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, that peace of mind isn't
worth the money. The academy says the chances a family will ever need to
use its frozen cord blood are very small. What they say makes more sense
is to donate cord blood to a public bank, the kind where Keone Penn got
his stem cells.

That is something Pam Dorne, an obstetrician, says she understands in her
professional life. But her own personal choice was a private bank, she
says, for one reason.

"If the American Academy of Pediatrics could tell me that none of my
children would ever have a problem," she says. "Or that if they had a
problem, I would be guaranteed that there would be enough donors and
somebody would match them, that would be perfectly reasonable. But I don't
think anybody has that crystal ball."

What saved Keone Penn's life, Dr. Yeager says, is a public blood bank and
the umbilical cord blood from an anonymous donor.

"If they wish to pay, that's absolutely fine." He says of patients. "But
to look at a larger, greatest good for greatest number, I would contend
that a volunteer donation to a public blood bank would make the most
sense."

Meanwhile, Keone, a pioneer, is doing things he's never done before.

"I discovered the other day that I like playing basketball, " Keone says.
"I never played basketball, 'cause I've always been disabled to play it
and to have fun."

Keone, who one day hopes to become a chef, still has some major health
problems as a result of infections that occur in most stem-cell
transplants. Because of steroids and other medication, he has arthritis,
walks with a limp and will need joint replacement in his hips and knee.
But the good news is the sickle cell that was killing him is gone.

"I love stem cells," he says. "I mean they saved my life. If it weren't
for them I wouldn't, you never know, I probably wouldn't be here today."

Keone doesn't know where the cord blood came from or who is the owner. He
says he would like to know, just so he could say, "Thank You."

American Nurse Who Exposed Infanticide Fired

[Source: Chicago Tribune]

CHICAGO, September 4, 2001 (LSN.ca) -A nurse who exposed her hospital's
practice of allowing aborted children to slowly die after premature
delivery has been fired from her job of eight years. Jill Stanek said that
when she returned to work Friday she was told that she had been fired and
was escorted from the building.

Two years ago Stanek drew national attention to Christ hospital, affiliated
with the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America, when she documented an abortion procedure known as "induction of
labour." The practice often leaves babies alive, after which they are
refused treatment, food and water until their deaths.

In July Stanek had testified on the issue before the U.S. House Judiciary
Committee, and just two weeks before her dismissal a newspaper article had
highlighted the history of her protests against the hospital's abortion
procedure. "It couldn't be coincidence this happened right after the
article," Stanek said. Hospital officials denied the firing had anything to
do with the delivery room nurse's abortion views.

RU 486 Abortion Drug Linked With Birth Defects

Source: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf

Washington, DC -- Failed attempts in other countries to induce abortion
using an ulcer drug called misoprostol may be causing an epidemic of birth
defects around the world. Misuse of the drug is increasingly common as it
is improperly used as part of the RU 486 abortion drug process.

In Colombia, Brazil and the Philippines, the drug is readily available. An
informal survey by the British magazine New Scientist has also revealed
that abortions with the drug are taking place in the Dominican Republic,
Argentina, Spain, Nigeria, South Africa and Indonesia.

In Britain and the US, those dispensing the abortion drug RU486 also give
misoprostol to induce contractions to expel the dead unborn child,
although it is not licensed for this purpose. Searle, the maker of
misoprostol, has condemned its use in chemical abortions methods.

Searle, a unit of Pharmacia Corp. sent a letter to doctors last year
warning that misoprostol has been approved only to prevent ulcers caused
by aspirin and similar drugs, not to help induce abortion. They warned
women would face severe medical problems if the drug was misused as a part
of the RU 486 chemical abortion process. It is legal, however, for doctors
to prescribe FDA-approved drugs for unapproved uses -- so called "off
label" use.

The Searle letter noted: "Serious adverse events reported following
off-label use of Cytotec in pregnant women include maternal or fetal
death; uterine hyperstimulation, rupture or perforation requiring uterine
surgical repair, hysterectomy or salpingo-oophorectomy; amniotic fluid
embolism; severe vaginal bleeding, retained placenta, shock, fetal
bradycardia and pelvic pain."

Taking misoprostol on its own only induces abortions about 40 per cent of
the time, so many babies are born after failed abortion attempts. Several
studies in Brazil, where up to 75 per cent of abortions involve
misoprostol, suggest the drug causes birth defects such as fused joints,
growth retardation and a condition known as Mbius syndrome, which is
characterised by paralysis of the face.

One recent study found that out of 93 children with defects associated
with Mbius syndrome, 34 percent of those infants had been exposed to
misoprostol, compared with just 4.3 per cent of the 279 infants in a
control group.

Another revealed that 49 percent of infants born with Mbius at seven
hospitals in Brazil had been exposed to misoprostol, whereas only 3
percent of 96 infants born with neural tube defects had been exposed to
the drug.

"I think [these results] are real. Statistically they are highly
significant," says Fernando Vargas of the University of Rio de Janeiro,
who took part in both studies. Because the abortion drug is used secretly,
it is hard to find out how many birth defects might be caused by it,
Vargas adds.

RU-486 Deception and corruption we haven't heard the last of

From: Christian Medical Fellowship UK

By: Greg Gardner, General Practitioner in Birmingham

The US Food and Drugs Administration has recently approved the use of Mifepristone (RU-486) to procure abortions up to 49 days gestation (BMJ 2000; 321;851). RU-486 was developed by the French drug company Roussel Uclaf, a subsidiary of Hoechst. Hoechst was itself derived from IG Farben, the chemical giant who made the stabiliser for Zyklon B gas used to kill millions of Jews during the holocaust.

In response to boycotts of Hoechst products by the American pro-life community, Roussel announced in 1994 that it was giving up its patent rights to RU-486 and would cease manufacture even though pressurised by the FDA to apply for a product licence. The FDA broke its own rules repeatedly and facilitated transfer of the patent rights to the strongly anti-natalist Population Council (www.nrlc.org).

RU-486 is not very effective unless used with prostaglandins or analogues such as Misoprostol. Searle Laboratories, the manufacturers of Misoprostol, have objected to its use as an abortifacient and in their literature they advise against its use in pregnancy. There have also been isolated reports of possible teratogenicity. In a series of 2121 women given the Mifepristone/Misoprostol regime, 106 failed to attend follow up (N Eng J Med 1998; 338 (18): 1241-7). It is possible that some of these may have had continuing pregnancies. The population control lobby like Misoprostol because it doesn't have to be refrigerated, a major advantage (to them) in the developing world.

The Population Council could not find a source for RU-486. Recent reports mention a contract with the Hua Lian company in Shanghai. This is a source of much of the Mifepristone used in China where coerced abortion is widespread (www.nrlc.org). Some of the other drugs made at this plant were found to be contaminated with the cytotoxic agent Fluorouracil. Despite this and other serious issues, the FDA rescinded earlier advice on safety and granted the product licence.

In the UK, RU-486 is being promoted by the RCOG in their abortion 'guidelines' but hasn't found favour with the private sector. It is not very profitable because of the need for three visits, placing it in a different category from traditional assembly line abortion. The history of this drug is a long tale of deception and corruption on several continents. We haven't heard the last of it.