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Ethically-sound adult stem cell research cures paralysis in human patients

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There are two kinds of stem-cell research. The first kind is called embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR). This kind is opposed by pro-lifers because it kills unborn persons by extracting their stem cells for use in medical research. The second kind is called adult stem-cell research (ASCR). This kind is supported by pro-lifers.

You may be surprised to know that ESCR doesn’t work as nearly as well as ASCR. Despite all the advocacy from left-wing Hollywood actors, ESCR has not helped a single patient. But ASCR in being used for 73 different kinds of therapies, and it keeps getting better and better. Here’s the latest scientific discovery in ASCR.

Story from Wayne State University, which made the discovery. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

A new study by a Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher details the outcome of adult stem cell grafts in spinal cord injuries and how the procedure led to increased mobility and quality of life for patients.

Associate Professor Jean Peduzzi-Nelson of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology conducted the study, “Olfactory Mucosal Autografts and Rehabilitation for Chronic Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury,” which was published online in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.

The process involves the use of adult stem-like progenitor cells in the patient’s own nasal tissue. The use of a person’s own stem cells, Peduzzi-Nelson said, lessens the problems of rejection, tumor formation and disease transmission.

In the study, 20 patients with severe chronic spinal cord injuries received a treatment combination of partial scar removal, transplantation of nasal tissue containing stem cells to the site of the spinal cord injury and rehabilitation. All of the patients had total paralysis below the level of their spinal cord injury before the treatment.

More here.

Wesley J. Smith notes that ASCR is getting more and more efficient:

A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has developed a method that dramatically improves the efficiency of creating stem cells from human adult tissue, without the use of embryonic cells. The research makes great strides in addressing a major practical challenge in the development of stem-cell-based medicine…

The new technique, which uses three small drug-like chemicals, is 200 times more efficient and twice as fast as conventional methods for transforming adult human cells into stem cells (in this case called “induced pluripotent stem cells” or “iPS cells”). “Both in terms of speed and efficiency, we achieved major improvements over conventional conditions,” said Scripps Research Associate Professor Sheng Ding, Ph.D., who led the study. “This is the first example in human cells of how reprogramming speed can be accelerated. I believe that the field will quickly adopt this method, accelerating iPS cell research significantly.”

See below for other breakthroughs in ASCR, as well as the political implications.

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Democrats try to force Catholic college to cover abortion in medical plans

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Here’s an alert from the Becket Fund. (H/T Gateway Pundit via ECM)

Excerpt:

Belmont Abbey College is a small, private, Catholic college located in North Carolina. For 130 years, it and the Benedictine monks who run it have been dedicated to handing on the Catholic faith.

But the Obama Administration is now trying to force them to abandon that faith or go out of business.

You see, the Administration at Belmont Abbey College removed contraception, abortion, and voluntary sterilization from its faculty’s health care policy after discovering it had accidentally been a part of existing plans.

Employees of the school who objected to this change in policy brought a complaint against the school accusing them of “gender discrimination.”

If God does not exist, then there is no such thing as God-given inalienable rights, such as the right to religious liberty. The secular left is always going to side with the feelings of their favored minority groups who vote to elect them. And they hope that religious people won’t notice that their rights are being trampled on.

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MUST-READ: Pro-abortion thugs arrested at McGill University pro-life event

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After action reports from pro-life speaker Jose Ruba’s event at McGill University. (H/T Andrew) This is the same event that the student society voted to shut down, but that the Provost refused to shut down.

Mcgill Pro-Life Presentation Shut Down by Protesters – Two Arrested (LifesiteNews).

Excerpt:

As Ruba began his presentation, about 20 students, including members of SSMU, began protesting, chanting, and singing children’s songs such as Old MacDonald and the hokey pokey.  They bombarded the stage, blocked the screen, and one protester even grabbed at Ruba’s written materials, before being stopped by campus security.

The police arrived and eventually warned the protesters that they would be taken away by force if they did not get off the stage.  Two resisted and were arrested, while others joined the audience and continued to heckle Ruba after police had left, until the designated time had run out and Choose Life ended the event.

Ruba told LifeSiteNews that he was able to present about half an hour of his presentation, but there was no moment where he was able to speak clearly.

Click here to read the whole thing (there’s more).

Here’s a more detailed story from the campus paper (McGill Daily).

Excerpt:

Ruba had hardly finished the first sentence of his lecture when a protester near the front of the room stood up and announced that she believed he had no right to deliver his speech at McGill. The protesters proceeded by singing various songs, at one point completing an entire rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

Protesters held their arms, jackets, and signs in front of Ruba’s video projections, which included photographs from biology textbooks, videos of the early stages of an abortion, and images of the Holocaust.

[…]Ruba told the protesters he was open to discussion, and that Choose Life had asked for a pro-choice speaker to engage in debate.

[…]In the midst of the confusion, Ruba explained to The Daily why he felt it was important for protesters to hear his message.

“[The protesters] have accused us of all these things, and frankly they haven’t heard this presentation yet. When people pre-judge someone based on heresy and rumours, that’s called prejudice,” Ruba said. “We don’t mind protests; that’s what free universities and free societies do. But they don’t censure people simply because they disagree or prevent people from sharing their ideas. That’s no longer what protests should be about. That’s censorship.”

They won’t debate with Mr. Ruba, because they would lose. Violence, then, is the only option they have left. A one-sided, public school, cradle-to-job indoctrination doesn’t really prepare students for open debate. (Especially when coupled with binge-drinking, irresponsible sex and drug use). When a fanatical true believer encounters facts and arguments, their response can only be disbelief, rage and violence.

I doubt that any of these students will ever be exposed to books like Dr. Francis J. Beckwith’s magnum opus “Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice“, published by Cambridge University Press. Or maybe Princeton University professor Robert P. George’s book “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life“. Pro-abortionists have never been exposed to an academic case for the pro-life position. That’s why they rage and attack.

And it leads to cases like this, where peaceful pro-lifers are shot and killed or nearly killed by being run over with SUVs. After all, if a person is willing to kill a helpless baby, why should they be concerned about killing grown-ups? Only pro-lifers are consistently pro-life. Only pro-lifers oppose taking the lives of innocent people at all stages of life, born and unborn.

More news stories, with photos:

UPDATE: (from commenter Andrew)

I was present when the most fundamental rights of Mr. Ruba, the invited speaker from the Canadian Centre of Bio-Ethical Research and the rights of the students who actually wanted to listen to him were infringed upon. The anti-free speech mob refused the offer of a civilized debate and thus made it abundantly clear that they don’t espouse the same democratic values as the majority of Canadians.

To see this sad spectacle which took place at McGill, go to:

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