The end may be in sight for the debate over "harvesting" human embryos for their stem-cells in the pursuit of possible medical cures. Apparently adult stem cells--those cells gotten from human body tissues and not embryos--have the potential to be just as versatile for medical research as ESCs--but without the need to kill nascent human life. An article in Newsweek:

In June 2006, a Japanese group led by Shinya Yamanaka reported the first successful result with mouse skin cells, and between November 2007 and January 2008, Yamanaka's group and two American groups led by James Thomson and George Daley at Harvard University all reported the successful reprogramming of human skin cells into a state that is indistinguishable from human embryonic cells. Over the last several months, progress made along this new scientific path has been breathtaking. The laboratory of Rudolf Jaenisch at MIT has taken in the lead in developing therapies with this new technique in mice, demonstrating a cure for a mouse version of sickle cell anemia and alleviating the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in mice.

What these scientists can now do is essentially to take any type of cell and turn it into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell—without needing embryos or egg cells. So what exactly are these new cells? Cells are fundamentally defined not by where they come from, but by their program of gene activity. In this sense, the new cells should be called embryonic stem cells. And since they are genetically identical to the person who provided the original sample, they are technically embryonic cell clones of that person. But scientists have discovered the power of words to elicit positive or negative emotional responses. "Clone" and "embryo" are words to be avoided. And so by consensus, the new cells are being called induced pluripotent stem cells.

Researchers say more work must be done on the promising technique.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 6, 2008 | Comments (0)

An Alabama prosecutor is taking advantage of a new law to arrest mothers found to be using drugs while pregnant. “In my jurisdiction, a baby being born dead because of drug abuse is a huge deal,” district attorney, Greg L. Gambril told The New York Times.

Mr. Gambril makes little distinction between fetus and child. He said his duty was to protect both — though the Alabama law he uses makes no reference to unborn children, and was primarily intended to protect youngsters from exposure to methamphetamine laboratories.

In the last 18 months, Gambril has charged eight women in the 37,000-person county with endangering their unborn babies through drug use, "a tally," The Times says, "without any recent parallel that women’s advocates have been able to find."

The article emphasizes the county's rural, Southern culture. It says Maryland threw out two similar cases, while New Mexico's Supreme Court ruled a woman couldn't be charged with child abuse for using drugs while pregnant because the fetus was not a child.

While one local attorney called the charges “an overreaching,” The Times says, "others bring up the powerful, unspoken community sanction against the combination of drugs and pregnant women." Hopefully southern Alabama isn't the only place in America where people find drug abuse by pregnant women an especially troublesome problem.

But, The Times seems to say, what else is there to do in southern Alabama?

Covington County is an isolated rural terrain where drugs are a recreational outlet in the absence of others, where the police found nearly 200 methamphetamine laboratories in the first years of the decade, and where they made more arrests for abusing the drug than anywhere else in the state.

All of the women quoted by The Times had several other charges.

It's unfortunate that a public discussion over something as serious as drug abuse by pregnant women has to be laced with the abortion debate. On this issue, at least, isn't there enough common ground on which pro-life and pro-choice advocates can agree?

Posted by Rob Moll at March 15, 2008 | Comments (5)

Christian conservatives are often lambasted these days for fixating on abortion and homosexuality, as if we have sexual hang-ups. Tony Campolo has said for years that the Religious Right has “hijacked” the Christian faith over such issues. Yesterday at the National Cathedral, Rick Warren, who said the country needs liberals and conservatives, lamented that Christians still are viewed as only “right wing.” (I'm not quite sure how that is still possible, given that Pastor Warren is arguably the nation’s most prominent evangelical himself.) Critics point out that the call to discipleship also involves addressing things like environmental stewardship, poverty, and racism. And in that they are right.

But with the persistent push in our culture toward both abortion and homosexual marriage, what would these critics have Christian conservatives do? Earlier this month, Al Gore came out in favor of gay marriage, stating, “Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage. . ..”

Are we not allowed to answer him? To abondon the argument is to lose the argument. And we have good reasons, beyond Scripture itself. But we must make these arguments as gently and lovingly as possible, never forgetting that how we make our case counts almost as much in today's culture as the substance of our case.

Pastor Warren is calling for a “second reformation” that includes reconciliation in the church. That’s great. Let’s all stop calling each other names and agree to do whatever work that God has called us to ... with grace and truth.

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UPDATE:
Pastor Warren's remarks can be heard by clicking on the following link. They are worth listening to in full.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at January 28, 2008 | Comments (18)

Just days before the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we have a new report from the Guttmacher Institute that says the U.S. abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level since 1974. Despite fairly widespread access to the new abortion drug RU-486, the rate now stands at 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women age 15-44 in 2005, down from a high of 29.3 per thousand in 1981. The number of abortions is also down, from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.2 million in 2005 (the last year for which data are available).

While pro-choice advocates point to a lack of access to abortion providers and the success of comprehensive sex-ed programs as factors in the decline, pro-lifers say state laws have made a difference.

Bill Beckman, director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee, said he sees the national decline in abortion numbers as a victory for anti-abortion efforts.

"A number of states over the last five or six years have enhanced their pro-life laws, such as requirements for informed consent and parental notice," said Beckman. "When those laws take effect, the rate of abortion drops. I think the data they're getting is reflecting that change."

While I'm looking forward to a thorough analysis of the numbers, the answer is probably both/and rather than either/or. I believe that cultural attitudes also are changing, thanks to the persistent efforts (such as the spread of ultrasound machines) of pro-lifers to keep before the American people the undeniable fact that every abortion ends a human life. And these efforts must be working, if even pro-choicer Hillary Clinton concedes that abortion is a "tragic choice."

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Guttmacher study comes on the heels of news that the birth rate is unexpectedly booming in the United States.

An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the end of the baby boom. An examination of global data also shows that the United States has a higher fertility rate than every country in continental Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and Japan. ...

Experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.

There are cultural reasons as well. Hispanics as a group have higher fertility rates — about 40 percent higher than the U.S. overall. And experts say Americans, especially those in middle America, view children more favorably than people in many other Westernized countries.

"Americans like children. We are the only people who respond to prosperity by saying, `Let's have another kid,'" said Nan Marie Astone, associate professor of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins University.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at January 17, 2008 | Comments (7)

This fall various groups, including the National Institutes of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control, are rallying behind the radical ideas that people with Down syndrome are valuable and deserve to live. Radical? Apparently. Thanks to new genetic testing capabilities, prospective parents are aborting those unborn children merely suspected of having three copies of the 21st chromosome instead of the usual two at a staggering rate of 90 percent.

Washington Post columnist Patricia Bauer thinks that’s a tragedy:

We cherish our friends and family members and think their unexpected extra chromosome is not the most important thing about them. And we worry that the relentlessness of genetic testing is amplifying stigma and bias against the 350,000 flesh-and-blood Americans who have the condition, as well as people who have other conditions that are now or soon will be prenatally discoverable.

In recent conversations with obstetricians and gynecologists, I've found that we family members aren't the only ones with these fears. Physicians say they're disturbed by mounting demands from prospective parents for nothing less than the "perfect" child, and by lawyers who troll for lawsuits against doctors who have the misfortune to deliver nonstandard babies. Not long ago, a Florida jury awarded a couple more than $21 million when their doctor failed to detect an obscure genetic condition prenatally.

Doctors are left to practice defensive medicine, ordering expensive tests and drowning patients in mind-numbing data, while parents labor under the misapprehension that they have a duty to terminate if the tests so dictate.

Bauer, who has an adult daughter with Down syndrome, has an information-packed website on disability-related issues. May such voices multiply in a society that increasingly looks at the less-than-physically perfect as not worthy of life.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at November 19, 2007 | Comments (9)

Planned Parenthood may have the legal right to operate its new clinic in Aurora, Illinois, but the blowback from the prolife community has been staggering.

In fact, the emerging story looks to me like the rebirth of the prolife protest.

Here's the latest announcement, which arrived in my inbox about an hour ago, from the Prolife Action League:

Aurora Police Chief Threatens Arrests as Pro-Life Citizens Gear Up for Protest at Planned Parenthood. In Heated Discussion Chief Powell Tells Scheidler, “I Don’t Care What the City’s Attorneys Say, I Will Do What I Want”

Aurora, IL—On Saturday, November 17 from 9:00-11:00 AM, a protest will take place at the nation’s largest Planned Parenthood facility located at 3051 E. New York Street in Aurora, Illinois. The monthly protests, organized by the Pro-Life Action League, have seen as many as 1,200 pro-life advocates gathering at one time. Rhetoric regarding the protest has heated up this week. Despite allegations of First Amendment violations against the peaceful protestors and a pending lawsuit against the city, Aurora Police Chief William Powell has gone on the offensive, even going so far as to accuse the protestors of being “threatening” when they claim their free speech rights. However, many of the peaceful demonstrators believe it is the Chief who is doing the threatening after calling a paddy wagon to be sent out to last month’s protest. At Tuesday’s City Council meeting Powell stated, “I hope [demonstrators] will go along with what we ask them to do. If not, I will guarantee there will be arrests made.”

Eric Scheidler, Communications Director for the Pro-Life Action League and an Aurora resident, along with other protestors, had a heated discussion with Chief Powell at the Planned Parenthood site this morning.

“Chief Powell was visibly irate as we tried to discuss the plans for the gathering tomorrow,” states Scheidler. “When I brought up that the city’s outside counsel had given us directives as to the operation of the protest, he said he didn’t care about what the attorney said, he would do what he wanted to do. At times, he was so angry that another officer intervened to calm him down.”

After months of protests, Scheidler claims the city has continued to give unclear directives as to ordinances relating to the protests. With hundreds of citizens coming out to the Planned Parenthood site on a regular basis, many are questioning why the city seems to be constantly changing the rules.

“We have sought nothing but peace with the city and cooperation with the Aurora Police,” states Scheidler. “We have continued to ask for clear, written directives as to laws for conducting these protests, but they have given none. What they have done is show up and intimidate hundreds of Aurora citizens with an armored paddy wagon, constant video surveillance and the city’s lawyer in tow.”

The opening of Planned Parenthood, scheduled for mid-September, was delayed for two and a half weeks while investigations were conducted into the seemingly deceptive process in which Planned Parenthood received their occupancy and building permits. Amid much controversy, the facility opened on October 2nd. Various investigations regarding zoning issues are still ongoing.

Scheidler vows that the monthly demonstrations will continue, “Regardless of the threats and tactics the city uses to try to keep their citizen’s voices from being heard, we will be here praying and marching until no more innocent human lives are slaughtered in our town.”

Once arrests begin to occur, prolife protests begin to take on a life of their own. Historically, some prolife protests have stretched for month after month. This situation in Aurora may become the largest stand-off between prolifers and the other side since the Terri Schiavo case.

Posted by Tim Morgan at November 16, 2007 | Comments (2)

Many have called Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani hypocritical. Robertson has compromised his position on abortion and gay marriage in order to hitch his wagon to the presidential contender.

Not so, says Naomi Schaefer Riley, in a opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal. (It deserves to be read in full.) In fact, Robertson's decision fits in a long tradition of evangelical support for an agressive foreign policy toward ideologies deemed to threaten Judeo-Christian civilization.

Riley quotes Richard land, who says evangelicals have long been interested in foreign policy. "The only part of the country that had majority support for Roosevelt's interventionist policies was the South." Then, after World War II, came godless communism. "Communism was seen as a direct threat to the Christian faith and Judeo-Christian civilization. Among Catholics and evangelical Christians, this message resonated first and with the most intensity."

For decades, evangelical missionaries returned home to their churches with stories from behind the growing menace. "Every year, we heard a speaker or two who had come from 'behind the Iron Curtain,' " says John Wilson, editor of CT's sister publication Books & Culture. They had harrowing tales to tell, sometimes first-person, sometimes not. There was a palpable sense of a world-scale conflict with godless communism."

Though some disagree that the threat of Islamic extremism equals that of communism, a similar pattern is emerging among returning missionaries. "In the past you had missionaries come back and talk about being imprisoned. Now you have reports from people about beheadings and bombings," says Timothy Shah, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The fact the Robertson's endorsement has raised such objections shows that there isn't the same kind of wide agreement on foreign policy as there was in the heydays of evangelical anti-communism. It remains to be seen both if Islamic extremism is believed to be the threat that communism was and if Giuliani can be seen as an equal opponent as Ronald Reagan was.

Posted by Rob Moll at November 16, 2007 | Comments (5)

Officials of Aurora, Illinois, have given their approval for a massive new abortion clinic run by Planned Parenthood to open today. Yesterday the county states attorney found that PP had committed no criminal wrongdoing despite hiding the true nature and ownership of the $7.5 million facility while applying for a permit. In a report in today's Chicago Tribune, PP supporters were jubilant--and unrepentant about their misdirection--while opponents promised to continue the fight:

"This is not just a victory for Planned Parenthood, but also a victory for women and families in that area who want access to health care," said Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area.

Opponents said they intend to continue to fight the clinic in court, at the City Council, and with round-the-clock protests and prayer vigils.

If all this facility provides is health care, I wonder why PP had to resort to stealth tactics to get it approved. What would supporters say if a bar, a casino, or a strip club moved into their neighborhood using such methods? I'll bet they wouldn't be crowing about "access."

Posted by Stan Guthrie at October 2, 2007 | Comments (7)

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, is attempting to open a humongous, 22,000-square-feet abortion clinic in Aurora, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. No problem, right? Abortion's legal and all that.

Well, not so fast. Today U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle denied the organization's request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the clinic to open. It seems that PP didn't disclose to city fathers that it owned the building--after applying for permits under another name--nor that abortions would be performed there. Not only is the clinic's opening delayed, now the county's states attorney is looking into whether any laws were violated.

Abortion-rights supporters, such as Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, applaud what PP did--calling it "creative subterfuge"--to sneak a "reproductive health clinic" into Aurora. Zorn writes:

Well of course Planned Parenthood representatives didn’t tell the truth to Aurora city officials while they were building a new clinic in the western suburb.

They hid behind the name of a subsidiary company, Gemini Office Development, and were misleadingly vague when asked along the way about the identity of prospective tenants for the $7.5 million facility.

Their goal was straightforward: To open a reproductive-health clinic on land zoned for such purpose.

But they had to use a certain amount of stealth because abortion is one of the services Planned Parenthood offers. And foes of abortion rights, longtime losers in the battle for public opinion, traditionally raise all kinds of rukus [sic] when Planned Parenthood comes into a community.

The foes not only picket construction sites, but they also send picketers out to harass subcontractors at their homes and businesses, try to spread alarm and disgust in the immediate neighborhoods and attempt to browbeat civic officials into implementing just the sort of craven, politically motivated delays we’re now seeing in Aurora.

Then when Planned Parenthood is revealed to have tried to prevent such pressure tactics by using a little creative subterfuge, the opponents of abortion-rights carry on indignantly, as though the deceptions were an effort to skirt the law.

Let me see if I have his reasoning down correctly: (1) the ends justify the means, if the ends are to promote abortion; and (2) it's all the fault of pro-lifers, anyway.

Such situational relativism may work on "24," but it doesn't work in the real world, Eric. Also, if you pro-choicers have really won in the court of public opinion, why do you have to resort to deception to get a clinic without the public's knowledge?

And what would you say if pro-lifers engaged in a little "creative subterfuge" of their own? It seems to me that they have been (unfairly) pilloried by abortion supporters because they don't advertise the fact that their crisis pregnancy centers don't offer abortions. They are criticized for not advertising a service they don't offer. Of course, who does? But in this instance, PP is not advertising a service they do offer. I wonder why?

This whole episode highlights a persistent problem for abortion-rights advocates: an aversion to telling the truth about abortion, which has taken the lives of 50 million unborn children since 1973.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at September 20, 2007 | Comments (3)

A movement to pass legislation that would give birth certificates to women who deliver stillborn babies is provoking opposition from pro-choice groups.

The New York Times reports,

The birth-certificate laws, often referred to as “Missing Angels” bills, occupy uncertain territory, skirting the abortion debate while implicitly raising the question of fetal personhood.

Many antiabortion groups say the laws fill a need for parents. But some abortion rights supporters see the push for these laws as a barely disguised political move to undermine abortion rights.

In some states, local chapters of abortion rights groups have opposed the legislation. But at the national level, some abortion rights groups are comfortable with the laws, if they are drafted carefully to cover naturally occurring fetal death and not late-term abortion.

One woman recounted receiving a death certificate after her daughter was stillborn. "When I called and asked for my daughter’s birth certificate, the woman asked how she died, and when I told her, she said I didn’t have a baby, I had a fetus, and I couldn’t get a birth certificate.”

Posted by Rob Moll at May 22, 2007 | Comments (2)

A bumper sticker on my car, which posted next to several others gives anyone driving behind me ample reason to keep their eyes off the road (and once got me out of ticket), repeats those words above: Pro-Woman, Pro-Life. It's from the group Feminists for Life, which was the focus of attention during Justice John Roberts's confirmation hearings because his wife had been affiliated with the group.

It seems the group's strategy, opposing abortion by focusing on the needs of women, is gaining a wider audience. The New York Times reports,

last month’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act marked a milestone for a different argument advanced by anti-abortion leaders, one they are increasingly making in state legislatures around the country. They say that abortion, as a rule, is not in the best interest of the woman; that women are often misled or ill-informed about its risks to their own physical or emotional health; and that the interests of the pregnant woman and the fetus are, in fact, the same.

Justice Kennedy mentioned the view that women's health is endagered by abortion in his argument supporting the partial-birth abortion ban. "While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.”

"Many, on both sides, viewed that as an invitation from a newly conservative court to pass tough new counseling and informed-consent laws intended for women seeking abortions," writes The Times. It seems that the next battle over a woman's "right to choose" will be her right to hear or refuse to hear the possible ill effects of an abortion.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 22, 2007 | Comments (9)

"Abortion rights supporters ... have had to grapple with the reality that the right to choose may well be used selectively to abort fetuses deemed genetically undesirable," reports The New York Times for the second time in the last two weeks. "And many are finding that, while they support a woman’s right to have an abortion if she does not want to have a baby, they are less comfortable when abortion is used by women who don’t want to have a particular baby."

Public opinon seems to be on the side of those who chose to abort genetically disabled babies. 70 percent of Americans agree with such a choice. Where should America draw the line between a legitmate reason for aborting a baby and an illegitimate one?

Kirsten Moore, president of the pro-choice Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said that when members of her staff recently discussed whether to recommend that any prenatal tests be banned, they found it impossible to draw a line — even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. “We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say, ‘Here’s the line, firm and clear’ because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy,” she said. “You can never make that decision for someone else.”

Unless you say that that decision to is not theirs to make.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 21, 2007 | Comments (12)

According to LifeNews.com, Catholic politicians are deeply offended that Pope Benedict wants the church to be the church. Benedict recently said that Catholic politicians who vote for policies that support abortion automatically excommunicate themselves. In response, a group of these politicians said, the penalty of excommunication "offend(s) the very nature of the American experiment and do(es) a great disservice to the centuries of good work the church has done."

God forbid that the church would do anything to question the American experiment.

Posted by Mark Galli at May 21, 2007 | Comments (2)

The New York Times reports that former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will offer an explanation of his views on abortion.

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights. ...

The campaign’s approach would be a sharp departure from the traditional route to the Republican nomination in the last 20 years, in which Republicans have highlighted their antiabortion views.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 10, 2007 | Comments (0)

The headlines were so predictable I almost didn't read the stories: "Pope Opens Trip with Remarks Against Abortion" (New York Times) and "Pope Stresses Opposition to Abortion" (Associated Press).

Is the Pope Catholic?

But there seems to be some news here. On his flight to Brazil, the Pope made some remarks that seemed to condemn not only women who have abortions and the doctors who provide them, but also the polticians who vote for legalization of abortion--as they did recently in Mexico, providing for legal abortions up to 12 weeks gestation.

Papal spokesman (when it's the Vatican, you can use the gender-specific term) Federico Lombardi immediately tried to soften the possible implication of the Pope's words. But then, well, I'll let the New York Times tell the story:

The pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, quickly issued a clarification that played down his words, but then issued a statement approved by the pope that seemed to confirm a new gravity on politicians who allow abortion.

“Legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist,” the statement said, and politicians who vote that way should “exclude themselves from communion.”

So, this turns the clock back to the 2004 election controversy over St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke telling pro-choice Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry that he should not receive communion when campaigning on Burke's turf. If memory serves, Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick tried to soften the potential impact of Burke's statements. But now that Benedict has spoken, it looks like Burke may have been right.

The automatic self-excommunication that applies to women who have abortions and their doctors also applies to legislators. This doesn't mean that priests are supposed to become the Communion police, but it does mean that the Church considers it a pretty grievous thing for a Catholic politician who has voted to legalize abortion to present him or herself to receive Communion.

Christianity Today's June 2004 editorial on the dispute between Burke and Kerry can be read in the CT Library (paid archive).

Posted by David Neff at May 10, 2007 | Comments (9)