Free Republic

Have we found the ultimate stem cell? One that can deliver all the benefits of embryonic stem cells without having to destroy a potential human life to save an existing one? It's too early to tell, say stem cell researchers. While they are excited about the potential of an adult stem cell like Verfaillie's, most insist that research with embryonic stem cells must continue, because nobody can possibly know right now which option is better. And it might be worth it for more than one reason, says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania....

A scandal has erupted in South Korea over human-cloning researcher Woo Suk Hwang, bringing into sharp relief some questions about the “therapeutic cloning” agenda that have been ignored for too long. In February 2004, scientific colleagues hailed Dr. Hwang as the first researcher to prove he had used the “somatic-cell-nuclear-transfer” technique (the same technique used to clone “Dolly” the sheep) to create cloned human embryos. That first effort, starting with 242 human eggs donated by 16 women, produced 30 embryos that survived to the “blastocyst” (one-week old) stage, and yielded just one embryonic-stem-cell line. By May 2005 he had improved...

Schiavo autopsy does not alter church's pro-life stand, official says WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The autopsy results on Terri Schindler Schiavo are irrelevant to the church's stand in support of her human dignity and against removal of her feeding tube in March, a Catholic pro-life official said June 16. "Our position was not based on predictions about her likelihood of recovery," said Richard M. Doerflinger, deputy director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, in a telephone interview from Chicago. "It was based on her dignity as a human person." Schiavo, 41, died March 31, nearly two weeks after her...

The Terri Schiavo case, for all its legal and political wranglings, is also churning up spiritual questions, ones with particular relevance for Catholics during the holiest days of the church calendar this weekend. The Roman Catholic Church has taken a strong stance in the saga of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose parents are fighting to keep her alive. Her Catholic faith has been such an important issue in the case that a court ordered doctors to deliver the sacrament of Holy Communion through her feeding tube before it was removed March 18. Pope John Paul II has said feeding tubes...

When he was confirmed, Thomas Doerflinger took the name of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was martyred at Auschwitz. Doing so proved prophetic. In 1941, a monk named Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to take the place of another condemned prisoner at Auschwitz. Six decades later, a young man serving in Iraq—a soldier inspired by Father Kolbe—sacrificed his life when he volunteered to take the place of another soldier. The story of this heroic young man—the son of a dear friend of ours in Prison Fellowship—is one we should tell our children as we mark the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz...

Pope John Paul II Affirms Obligation to Feed Patients in the "Vegetative" State By Richard DoerflingerOn March 20, speaking to participants in an international congress on the "vegetative" state, Pope John Paul II profoundly changed the worldwide debate on how to respond to this condition. He issued the first clear and explicit papal statement on the obligation to provide food and water for patients in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS). Pope John Paul II profoundly changed the worldwide debate when he issued the first clear and explicit papal statement on the obligation to provide food and water for patients in...

Life Issues Forum Farming Humans for Fun and Profitby Richard M. DoerflingerJanuary 20, 2004 "Farming” fetuses for body parts. Human/animal hybrids. Putting unborn humans in animal wombs. Buying and selling human embryos. Patenting human beings. Chapter headings for a science-fiction potboiler? No. Just a typical day at the office for members of the President’s Council on Bioethics. On January 16, The President’s Council released a draft report that deserves attention from all Americans concerned about the use and abuse of science. Its title, “Biotechnology and Public Policy: Biotechnologies Affecting the Beginnings of Human Life,” is far from exciting; but its...

July 19, 2006, 8:39 a.m. Anti-Life, Anti-ScienceA Castle of confusion. By Richard M. Doerflinger It all seemed so reasonable and straightforward. Congress’s warring factions in the stem-cell debate had agreed on a civilized plan for moving the issue forward. The U.S. Senate would vote on three bills: the bill to fund stem-cell research requiring the destruction of human embryos, already approved by the House last year; a bill to ban the use of fetal tissue from “fetus farming” (implanting human embryos in human or animal wombs in order to develop them further and harvest their body parts); and a...

Last May, a stunning research paper in Science, one of the world's most respected scientific journals, instantly changed the tenor of the debate over cloning human embryos and extracting their stem cells. A team of South Korean scientists reported in the paper that they had figured out how to do this work so efficiently that the great hope of researchers and patients - to obtain stem cells that were an exact match of a patient's - seemed easily within sight. But that rosy future has been cast into doubt with the statement last month by Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, who...