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PORTLAND, Oregon, October 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Oregon Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied a father's appeal to keep his six frozen embryos alive, and ordered that the embryos be destroyed by thawing, as ordered by his ex-wife.  The court also ruled that the embryos' fate fell under the issue of "property rights."The court unanimously agreed that the father, orthodontist Dr. Darrell Angle, had no right to "impose a genetic parental relationship" on his ex-wife, pediatrician Dr. Laura Dahl, who did not wish to be considered the mother of the preborn children in the event that they were carried...

Think being the next president would be a brutal job? Imagine being a transplant surgeon. You can't tell the parents of a dying kid when to pull the plug, but you have to be there, ready, the minute he expires. You have to wait until he's dead, but not so long that his organs become useless. You can give him drugs to keep his organs healthy, but you mustn't technically revive him. And you can't remove and restart his heart until it's been declared kaput. Pick up a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, and you'll see...

Schwarzenegger signs euthanasia measure into law California moved a step closer to legalized mercy killing on Sept. 30, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law the “California Right to Know End-of-Life Act of 2008.” The governor’s signature came in a flurry of bill signing on Tuesday evening, just hours before the statutory deadline for him to either sign or veto legislation. The governor’s press office announced he had signed the euthanasia bill at 7 p.m. The bill, AB 2747, by longtime assisted suicide advocate Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, could force Catholic physicians and other doctors in California who oppose mercy...

"Obama said oops on 6 state Senate votes by Peter Wallsten" reports, During his eight years in state office, Obama cast more than 4,000 votes. Of those, according to transcripts of the proceedings in Springfield, he hit the wrong button at least six times. ...Obama was the lone dissenter on Feb. 24, 2000, against 57 yeas for a ban on human cloning. "I pressed the wrong button by accident," he said. Now imagine this buffoon in the Oval Office: OOPS! I PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON!

LifeNews.com Note: Ken Conner is a pro-life attorney who was intimately involved in the fight to save Terri Schiavo and is the former president of the Family Research Council. He is now the chairman of the Center for a Just Society.A waste. A burden. That is how influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock views people suffering from dementia. Lady Warnock, a prominent adviser to the British government, told the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine that people suffering from dementia should be allowed to kill themselves rather than continue to burden their families and Britain's National Health Service. Sadly,...

He says question about when a baby is entitled to human rights is ‘tough’

-"As president, John McCain will strongly support funding for promising research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research and other types of scientific study that do not involve the use of human embryos". - www.johnmccain.com

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Joe Biden, Barack Obama's pro-abortion running mate, is coming under fire for comments he made today attacking vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. After attacking her on abortion, Biden then slammed Palin on the birth of her son, who has Down syndrome. During her acceptance speech last week, Palin promised the parents of disabled children that she would be their advocate in the White House. Biden questioned that commitment by attacking Palin's stance on the issue of embryonic stem cell research, which has never helped a single patient. "I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are...

No particular Republican is named but it’s no mystery whom this is aimed at. Was Joe Biden referring to Sarah Palin, a mother of a child with Down syndrome, when he made this comment? “I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there’s joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don’t you support stem cell research?”...

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, an attorney for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and a leading monitor of bioethics issues such as assisted suicide, euthanasia and human cloning. File this in the “As If We Don't Already Have Enough to Worry About” file: Leading members of the organ transplantation community—backed by some bioethicists—have been waging a quiet campaign for more than ten years to do away with the “dead donor rule,” a crucial ethical protection that requires donors of non paired vital organs to have died before their...

I now know what Barack Obama was thinking when he said he wouldn't want his daughters "punished with a baby" if they "ma[d]e a mistake" and had premarital sex.How pathetic that Obama obviously had his own tribe, liberals, in mind, who sure know how to mete out punishment with vicious aplomb at such times.Thanks to a Daily Kos blogger, who falsely accused Sarah Palin of faking her pregnancy with now 4-month-old son Trig to cover for his real mother, her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, the Palin family was forced to announce Sept. 1 that unmarried Bristol is five months pregnant.Besides the...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Weeks ago, pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama infamously said the question of when human life begins is “above my pay grade” as a seeker of the White House. Judging from Obama’s evasive answer on the question of assisted suicide, it appears euthanasia was above his pay grade as well.In a March interview with the Mail Tribune, Obama wouldn’t give a clear answer about whether he supports assisted suicide or Oregon’s first-in-the-nation decision to legalize the grisly practice. “I am in favor of palliative medicine in circumstances where someone is terminally ill,” he said. “… I'm mindful...

As the election progresses, I will attempt to present the positions of the candidates on issues germane to human exceptionalism, assisted suicide, animal rights, health care rationing, in short, all of the grist we grind here at SHS. This morning, I did a quick search on Obama and assisted suicide and found this interview. It is a complete straddle, which is a disappointment given the import of the issue. In a March newspaper interview he was asked about assisted suicide. His answer from the interview: I am in favor of palliative medicine in circumstances where someone is terminally ill....

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Thomas Glessner is a constitutional attorney and the president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a public interest law firm that provides legal services to more than 1,100 pro-life pregnancy resource centers in all fifty states. His new books tackles key bioetics issues the pro-life community is increasingly confronting. In his provocative new book, Glessner discusses the ongoing cultural battle between the traditional sanctity of life ethic -- the foundation of Western Civilization and American culture -- and the modern quality-of-life ethic, which is increasingly gaining control over the hearts and minds of...

NEW YORK — Eighteen-year-old Ryan and 14-year-old Anna found each other on the Internet. Both were conceived by artificial insemination technology. After they registered with the Donor Sibling Registry online, they discovered that they shared the same in vitro fertilization clinic and “donor number.” The same anonymous sperm donor was their genetic father. They are half brother and sister. On a long weekend in May, Ryan and his mother flew from Colorado to New York to meet Anna and her mother and non-genetic father. Coincidentally, Ryan and Anna were celebrating the same birthday. Perfect strangers, they bonded instantly, according to...

I encourage you to watch the Glenn Beck Program this next Friday, August 22, at either 7 pm, 9 pm or midnight, Eastern Standard Time. The program will consist of an interview with four students and Prof. George to discuss the work that has been going on at Princeton over the last 10 years or so to create a climate that is more supportive for students interested in a college education that includes the development of moral convictions and practices. As you know Universities have years ago decided they are no longer going to instruct students on what is right...

LifeNews.com Note: Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. His current book is Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World.I have become so sick and tired of the baloney that swirls around assisted suicide advocacy like gruel in a blender. Assisted suicide is not really about the rare case when nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering--which has not been the case yet in any legalized jurisdiction from the Netherlands, to Switzerland, to Oregon. Rather, it is about establishing the right to what in essence would be death...

In a move that could lead to significant changes in medical care for older men, a national task force on Monday recommended that doctors stop screening men ages 75 and older for prostate cancer because the search for the disease in this group was causing more harm than good. The guidelines, issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, represent an abrupt policy change by an influential panel that had withheld any advice regarding screening for prostate cancer, citing a lack of reliable evidence. Though the task force still has not taken a stand on the value of screening in...

LifeNews.com Note: With a twice-weekly column appearing in over 600 newspapers nationwide, Cal Thomas is the most widely read and one of the most highly regarded voices on the American political scene. A graduate of American University, Thomas is a 35-year veteran of broadcast and print journalism. A writer of force and clarity, Thomas has authored ten books.Most inhumanities start small, like the beginning of a tsunami, but then build, as they head toward inevitable and unstoppable destruction.It is difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of the cultural tsunami that has devalued human life. Did it begin with the...

Washington, Jul. 17, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Under a policy proposed by the Bush White House, the US government would require all recipients of federal health-care payments to certify that they do not discriminate against doctors or nurses who refuse to be involved in abortions. New White House policies, circulated for comment this week, would ask all institutions receiving federal health-care grants to provide written assurance that they will not fire-- or refuse to hire-- health-care personnel who express moral objections to abortion. The proposed guidelines extend to some abortifacient drugs that are commonly identified simply as contraceptives. They regulation circulated...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 07/16/2008 Pelosi Statement on Bush Administration Effort to Redefine Contraception as Abortion Washington, D.C. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on reports that the Bush Administration’s is drafting a proposed rule that would place new restrictions on domestic family planning programs. While current law already allows health care providers and professionals to refuse to provide abortions based on their religious beliefs, this provision would threaten the funding of organizations and health facilities if they do not hire people who would refuse to provide birth control. “If the Administration...

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed a $1 billion embryonic stem cell research bill on Monday. The measure is meant to provide the controversial research with more taxpayer money after President Bush refused to force taxpayers to fund the destruction of human life. Patrick pushed the plan through the state legislature to force the state's taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research to the tune of $1 billion over 10 years.He said he wanted the northeastern state to keep up with others like California, Illinois, and neighboring Connecticut, which have publicly funded the grisly research.   Under his plan, the state would...

How America came to accept using human embryos for research In the ten years since Dr. James Thomson at the University of Madison first procured human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), support for the prospect of using human embryos and fetuses for research purposes has gradually seeped into the American mindset to the point at which it is now broadly tolerated, if not openly endorsed, especially in the political arena, in academia, and certainly within the scientific community. [1] As we continue to advance as a nation into the age of developmental biology there is reason to fear that Americans are...

In what could signal a further shift in the global stem cell debate, lawmakers in an Australia state have rejected legislation allow the cloning of human embryos for research purposes. This week's vote in the Western Australia capital, Perth, is believed to be one of the first times the embryonic cloning issue has been considered by a legislature anywhere in the world since reports of a major research breakthrough last November prompted new questions about the need to use embryos at all. The issue will be under discussion on Capitol Hill again on Thursday, when a health subcommittee of the...

Plan for long life, without pandemic NANCY STANCILL Should doctors let people older than 85 die in a flu pandemic? A Monday news story saying a U.S. task force recommends denying lifesaving care in a pandemic or other disaster to some folks -- including healthy people above 85 -- was unsettling. They're talking about my mother, soon to be 86. My friend Karen's father, who is 92. Another friend's grandmother, 102. These people live life joyfully, with their minds and hearts intact. My mother relishes foreign travel. Karen's father loves bird watching. The 102-year-old grandmother plays a mean hand of...

The Twenty-First Century Challenge to Human Dignity This article is from the October 2006 BreakPoint WorldView magazine. Sign up today to receive the free online edition 10 times a year!In the manifesto on the “Sanctity of Life in a Brave New World” that Chuck Colson and I launched with representative Christian leaders in the spring of 2004, we addressed four key areas for Christian concern at the outset of the “biotech century.” They all converge on one concept: eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that we should weed out the sick and the diseased and favor the strong and healthy....

Most parents receive the news that they are "expecting" with joy and excitement. For some, however, the good news turns sour when they learn that their unborn or newly born child has Down syndrome or is afflicted with some other disability like cystic fibrosis. What parents are told about their child's future and how they are told it often influences whether that child is born at all. That's why Senators Sam Brownback and Ted Kennedy have co-sponsored the "Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act". The act (S. 1810) mandates that health care providers provide the mother of an unborn...

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The vast majority of people in France would support legislation to allow a doctor to end the life of a person with an incurable disease and enduring unbearable suffering, if this person requests it, according to a poll by Ifop published in Paris Match. 91 per cent of respondents would be at least partly in favour of enacting such a law. In November 2004, France’s National Assembly endorsed legislation which legalized "passive euthanasia." This concept allows doctors to withdraw life-sustaining medication from patients, but not to, for instance, administer poisons. Assisted suicide or "active...

A senior Church of Scotland minister has questioned the wisdom of spending large amounts of money keeping older people alive. The Reverend Maxwell Craig, 76, feels funding could be better spent helping the young stay out of trouble.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has provoked furious dissent from MPs and Church leaders. Hybrid embryos The Bill permits the creation of hybrid or "chimera" embryos, where human DNA is inserted into an animal cell for research. Implanting them into a woman or animal will be forbidden and embryos must be discarded after use. Pro-life campaigners and Catholic leaders are bitterly opposed. Abortion The Bill has provisions to allow amendments to the Abortion Act 1967. MPs are expected to push for a reduction of the 24-week limit to 20. Embryo screening Embryos created in fertility treatment can be screened...

Hybrids are made using an animal egg mixed with human genes Leading charities have written to every MP urging them to support the controversial embryo research bill, the BBC has learned. Cancer Research and the British Heart Foundation are among more than 200 charities in favour of the creation of human-animal hybrids for research. The prime minister is facing dissent over the bill, from some of his Labour MPs and leading Catholic clergy. But Health Secretary Alan Johnson said an "accommodation" would be found. The letter, written by the Association of Medical Research Charities, says although there are ethical...

Cryonics. Neural implants. Designer babies. Welcome to the future of transhumanism. This energetic movement, comprising thousands of adherents, actively promotes the enhancement of humans via cybernetics, genetics, medicine, surgery, nanotechnology, and a full panoply of other scientific advancements. This enhancement would, according to Nick Bostrom's "Transhumanist Declaration," seek to advocate "the moral right for those who wish to do so to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. [They] seek personal growth beyond [their] current biological limitations" (see www.transhumanism.org). This may sound like science fiction, but the philosophy behind...

LifeNews.com Note: This editorial is a combination of two pieces. One comes from Rev. Robert Fleischmann, the national director of Christian Life Resources. The second piece comes from Michael R. Klatt, the president and CEO of the Lutheran Home Association which provides residential programs for disabled people.Prenatal testing, originally designed as a precautionary measure to identify potential problems in the early stages of pregnancy, allowed for corrective measures to be taken to ensure a healthier pregnancy and child. With the legalization of abortion in the United States in 1973, the testing took on a more sinister purpose.Some of these...

Chantal Sebire knows she's forcing people to make an agonizing decision, but agony is something she knows far too much about. The 52- year-old Dijon schoolteacher suffers from a rare disease that has left her disfigured by facial tumors, which will also damage her brain over time and eventually kill her. Her demand that French political leaders loosen laws against euthanasia has been rebuffed, so Sebire now awaits a judge's decision on whether existing legislation allows doctors to assist her in ending her pain-racked life. "I no longer accept this enduring pain, and this protruding eye that nothing can be...

· Law change could help cancer victims · embryo bill fuels impassioned debate Mps are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA. A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door open to its use in IVF treatment, ahead of a Commons vote due shortly on the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. The legislation currently allows ...#8239;so-called artificial gametes in research, but imposes a blanket ban on their use in creating a human pregnancy. The technique involves...

A Winnipeg case currently winding its way to its grim conclusion pits the children of Samuel Golubchuk against doctors at the Salvation Army Grace General Hospital. According to the pleadings, Golubchuk's doctors informed his children that their 84-year-old father is "in the process of dying" and that they intended to hasten the process by removing his ventilation, and if that proved insufficient to kill him quickly, to also remove his feeding tube. In the event that the patient showed discomfort during these procedures, the chief of the hospital's ICU unit stated in his affidavit that he would administer morphine. Golubchuk...

After reading the Personal Health column on Nov. 27 on preventing geriatric suicide, Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote: “I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage. “I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing....

British scientists are ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm, cutting men out of the process of creating life. The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are biologically their own. Gay men could follow suit by using the technique to make eggs from male bone marrow. [snip] But critics warn that it sidelines men and raises the prospect of babies being born through entirely artificial means. The research centres around stem cells - the body's 'mother' cells which can turn into any other type of cell. According to New Scientist magazine, the scientists...

U.K., February 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "'Female sperm', 'male eggs' and 'same-sex reproduction' - whether these terms fill you with hope or disgust, a reproductive revolution is already in progress," begins a recent New Scientist report on some of the most bizarre and disturbing scientific research being conducted by stem cell scientists. "In a handful of labs across the world, biologists are trying to make genetically male cells develop into eggs, and female cells into sperm. If successful, their efforts might one day allow lesbian and gay couples to have children that are genetically their own," the report continues. Scientists...

How UK scientists could make men redundant in creating babies by turning WOMEN'S bone marrow into spermBy FIONA MACRAE - More by this author » Last updated at 00:52am on 31st January 2008 CommentsBye bye baby: The new science means the biological role of the father is under threat British scientists are ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm, cutting men out of the process of creating life.  The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are biologically their own.  Gay men could follow suit by using the technique to make eggs from male...

LONDON, January 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The British government's plans to consider a presumed consent scheme for organ donations was put on the back burner this week as a government appointed taskforce recommended alternative methods to increase organ donations by 50 per cent. But the wording of the recommendations has alarmed pro-life advocates who warn they may increase threats to the lives of vulnerable patients. Elisabeth Buggins, chair of the task force, wrote, "The UK has one of the worst records for organ donation in Western Europe. The Taskforce was, however, greatly encouraged by the evidence it considered from across...

Gainesville, FL (AHN) - Dr. Jack Kevorkian surprised a crowd of over 5,000 people at the University of Florida (UF) Tuesday night when he unleashed an attack on the "made up mythology of religion," and said that while in medical school he never took the Hippocratic Oath. Kevorkian, 79, spent his time in Gainesville meeting with the UF ACCENT Speakers Bureau and speaking with students at a question-and-answer session ahead of his sold-out speech at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center, Tuesday evening. Throughout the day though, Kevorkian's theme remained focused on the often overlooked 9th Amendment and the "terrible crisis"...

"Scientists at a California company reported yesterday that they had created the first mature cloned human embryos from single skin cells ....Creation of the embryos -- grown from cells taken from the company's chief executive and one of its investors -- also offered sobering evidence that few, if any, technical barriers may remain to the creation of cloned babies." -snip- Five of the new embryos grew in laboratory dishes to the stage that fertility doctors consider ready for transfer to a woman's womb... ----snip---- "The closely held company hopes to make embryos that are clones, or genetic twins, of patients,...

The Vatican on Friday condemned the cloning of human embryos, calling it the "worst type of exploitation of the human being.""This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church's position on bioethics issues,.A U.S. company said on Thursday it used cloning technology to make five human embryos, with the eventual hope of making matched stem cells for patients.If verified, the team at Stemagen Corp., would be the first to prove they have cloned human beings as a source of stem...

A scientist has achieved a world first... by cloning himself. In a breakthrough certain to provoke an ethical furore, Samuel Wood created embryo copies of himself by placing his skin cells in a woman's egg. The embryos were the first to be made from cells taken from adult humans. Although they survived for only five days and were smaller than a pinhead, they are seen as a milestone in the quest for treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But critics fear the technology could be exploited by mavericks to clone babies and accused the scientists of reducing the...

There's new hope for the five million people in the United States who live with heart failure. Scientists say they have been able to grow a rat heart in a lab. They were also successful at getting it to start beating. About 50,000 people die each year waiting for a heart donor. But that all may change thanks to a rat heart, built by scientists at the University of Minnesota. "Everyone has cells," Dr. Doris Taylor told CBN News. "What's lacking is a way to put that together in a 3-D structure that lets you create an organ," she explained....

This is the title of an article in the current issue of Forbes. It is written by John J. Parris: Jesuit Priest and Professor of Bioethics at Boston College. The article starts with a problem. In 1999 a patient was admitted with Lou Gehrig's disease. The patient indicated she should be kept alive until she could no longer enjoy her family. She eventually became unresponsive. Her daughter refused the hospital's wish to terminate life support. A lengthy (10 month) court battle ensued. The daughter opposed but eventually was faced with the hospital taking the position (Court approved) that the daughter...

Mart Laar, two-time Prime Minister of Estonia, has been credited with lifting the small Baltic nation out of economic and social collapse under communism to becoming a prosperous, free society. Currently a member of the Estonian Parliament, Laar first became Prime Minister of Estonia at age 32. During his tenure from 1992-1994, he initiated sweeping economic reforms that included unilateral free trade, privatization, and the introduction of the world's first flat tax. Laar was re-elected in 1999 and served until 2002. Known as the Baltic Tiger, in the past two decades Estonia has experienced unprecedented economic growth and has dramatically...

All across the land this fall, people have been gathering to promote awareness and acceptance of Down syndrome. Central to their message is the idea that people with the condition are valued family members who lead happy, fulfilling lives. At the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, scientists have been meeting to develop research agendas to improve the lives of people with Down syndrome, the genetic condition that results when a person has three copies of the 21st chromosome instead of the usual pair. But in the places where medicine is practiced, a very...

Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo — a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field. All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. Until now, the only way to get such...