Tag Archives: Abortion

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Wesley J. Smith’s top 10 issues in bioethics

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Wesley J. Smith blogs at Secondhand Smoke, but he also works for the Discovery Institute. And he’s written a post about the top 10 issues in bioethics.

Here are the top 10 recent bioethics stories:

  1. The ascendance of an anti-human environmentalism.
  2. The growth of biological colonialism.
  3. The increase in American pro-life attitudes.
  4. The struggle over Obamacare.
  5. Legalization of assisted suicide in Washington.
  6. The success of adult-stem-cell research.
  7. “Suicide tourism” in Switzerland.
  8. In vitro fertilization (IVF) anarchy.
  9. The Bush embryonic-stem-cell funding policy.
  10. The dehydration of Terri Schiavo.

Do you know what “suicide tourism” is?

Here’s what it is:

Over the last decade, Switzerland became Jack Kevorkian as a country, its suicide clinics catering to an increasingly international clientele — mostly from the United Kingdom — with the victims ranging from the terminally ill, to people with disabilities, to even a double suicide of a terminally ill elderly woman and her frail husband, who wanted to die rather than be cared for by others. Alas, as was the case with Kevorkian in the 1990s, audacity was rewarded. In the face of a wave of high-profile suicide-tourism stories, England’s head prosecutor published guidelines that, in essence, decriminalized family and friends’ assisting the suicides of the dying, disabled, and infirm. Others mimicked the Swiss. In the U.S., the Final Exit Network appears to have created mobile suicide clinics, leading to the indictment of several of its organizers. Meanwhile, the Australian “Dr. Death,” Philip Nitschke, traveled the world holding how-to-commit-suicide clinics. Still, as the decade came to a close, there was a sense that the tide could be turning: The Swiss government appears poised to shut down the suicide-tourism industry, perhaps even — although this is less likely — outlawing assisted suicide altogether.

Actually, the UK is considering cashing in on suicide tourism, as well.

News

British boy becomes first in the world to have stem cell transplant

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Science Daily explains what the scientists did.

Excerpt:

Dr Mark Lowdell, Director of Cellular Therapy at Royal Free Hospital and a senior lecturer at UCL Medical School, received the donor trachea from Italy and some bone marrow from the patient at the beginning of surgery.

They stripped cells from a donated trachea, used it to replace the entire length of the damaged airway, and then used the child’s own bone marrow stem cells to seal the airway in the body.

He and his colleagues prepared two different types of stem cells from the bone marrow together with some growth signalling chemicals and returned them to GOSH with the donor trachea.

Professor Paolo Macchiarini, from Careggi University Hospital, who is an Honorary Consultant at GOSH and Honorary Professor at UCL, applied the cells and the growth factors to the trachea in the operating theatre.

Martin Elliot, Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UCL and Director of the Tracheal Service at GOSH, led the operation to repair the damaged aorta and implant the new trachea.

The application of this technology — which has never been used on a child before — should reduce greatly the risk of rejection of the new trachea, as the child’s stem cells will not generate any immune response.

Now, it seems to me that the pro-abortion lobby is always asking for laws and subsidies to push for more and more embryonic stem-cell research. And no wonder, since they want to protect their profitable abortion business from public disapproval. But where are the real cures coming from? It seems to me that adult stem cell research is leading to all the significant medical breakthroughs. (Here’s another one from Science Daily, for example)

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News

McGill University and University of Calgary censor pro-life students

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The headline should be that these Canadian universities both continue to censor pro-life students.

Remember how students at McGill shouted down a pro-life debater and how the police arrested pro-life students at the University of Calgary? (See related posts below) There is no such thing as free speech in Canada, because the secular left has decided that they cannot stand to hear anything that offends them and so they will just censor and/or coerce anyone who says anything they disagree with.

Life Site has the latest from McGill University:

The Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) has reinstated the club status of Choose Life, the campus pro-life club, but only after forcing them to submit to special requirements that restrict the club’s ability to share the pro-life message.

The SSMU Council voted April 1st to reinstate the club, but also required them to attach an appendix to their constitution in order to “facilitate their compliance” with SSMU’s equity policy.

Natalie Fohl, Choose Life’s president, said that she was pleased with the return of their status, but denounced the special restrictions on their pro-life voice.  “I think it’s a double standard, and it’s very disappointing that they think that this is justified, and I hope that at some point it will be rectified,” she told LifeSiteNews (LSN).

In particular, SSMU has banned Choose Life from “advocat[ing] or lobby[ing] for the criminalization of abortion through the use of SSMU resources.”  According to Fohl, this means that they will not be permitted to do so in the Student Union building.

[…]SSMU has also disallowed the presentation of graphic images, such as those depicting aborted babies, in open public spaces.  Even in closed spaces, the document demands that such images never be shown “without the ability of the copyright owner to demonstrate that all images were legally obtained.”

“We don’t want [Choose Life] to be going around … trying to shame or shock students with graphic imagery,” said Dooley.

Life Site also covered the latest from the University of Calgary:

On Thursday, Campus Pro-life, the University of Calgary’s pro-life club, set up a pro-life display on campus – the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).

Last year, the university charged the pro-life students with trespassing for erecting the same display, which has been displayed on campus peacefully and without incident twice per year since 2006.  The crown prosecutors withdrew the charges prior to trial, however.

But in an e-mail sent to the students’ lawyer Thursday, the university against stated that it “requires that Campus Pro-Life turn the Genocide Awareness Project signs inward so that the University community does not have to view them,” and threatened the students with sanctions for non-academic misconduct.

The pro-life students say that at Thursday’s event campus security initially appeared as if they would not intervene, simply standing on site as the group’s exhibit went ahead without incident.  However, in mid-afternoon that changed when U of C security went around the exhibit handing out notices to pro-life students, indicating that if they refused to turn their signs inwards, they could be subject to a fine up to $2,000 ($5,000 for further trespass), arrest, civil action, or non-academic misconduct.

Campus Pro-Life (CPL) president Leah Hallman remarked that, “To our knowledge, no other group has ever been asked to turn its signs inwards.”

Montreal (McGill) is one the most leftist cities in Canada, and Calgary is the most conservative. But the universities are all liberal to some degree or other. The academic left uses the power of the lectern and the grading marker to impose their views on generations of students. They use techniques like speech codes, expulsions, degree denials and promotion denials. The secular left is intolerant of other points of view. They don’t want to debate, they want to suppress. Hearing other points of view is too difficult for those on the academic left, so they put their hands over their hears and scream for the police.

It happens in New Zealand, which like Canada, is dominated by the fascist left.

What can we do to stop it?

This 15-minute podcast from Jennifer Roback Morse came out a while back and it talked about free speech on campus and the work of the Alliance Defense Fund to defend free speech rights from the academic left. I’ve listened to it twice, and I found it good. You young law students should consider going to work for firms like the ADF – they do good work. Canada has nothing like the ADF. And remember, Canadians trust the government because they depend on the government for their health care and other social programs. Purchasing health care privately is illegal in Canada. It’s really hurt their sense of individual rights and freedoms.

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