Free Republic

Even though the practice is a criminal offense, one pro-lifer asserts that body parts are being harvested from aborted babies and used for research purposes in the U.S. and abroad. After an investigation by Life Dynamics revealed the practice, Investigate Magazine, a New Zealand-based current affairs publication from a conservative Christian standpoint, went on to determine that a Maryland brokerage firm has been arranging the sale of parts of American aborted babies to the University of Auckland medical school in New Zealand for experiments. Mark Crutcher, founder and president of Life Dynamics, says there is no excuse for this project...

The Roman Catholic Church has called for women to be allowed to give birth to human-animal hybrids created in the laboratory. Embryos injected with animal cells, or chimeras, should be treated as human beings where they have a preponderance of human genes, the bishops say in a sumbission to a Government committee. And there should be no ban on implanting such hybrid embryos in the womb of the woman who supplied the original egg, they say in their submission on the Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill. “Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should...

UK scientists, who want to mix human and animal cells in order to find cures for degenerative diseases, have had permission for their research delayed so that the ethical issues can be subject to public consultation (Guardian Unlimited). Scientists from Kings College, London, have applied for a licence for hybrid stem cell work on motor neurone disease. A second team from Newcastle University have applied to research how different tissues grow in the body. But after consideration of whether the two research requests came under its remit, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) recently decided that there are currently...