Pro-life

Inside Catholic produced the above
video and as you would expect
pro-abortion types on YouTube totally miss the message and decide that
pro-lifers are saying that women are just boxes.

HELLO! I am a PERSON, not a fuggin’
box.
Good God, the anti-abortion
people really don’t think women are actual people, do they? In their
view, women are either things whose only use is to incubate babies or
too stupid to make their own decisions.

InsideCatholic has other examples of these laughable arguments from people who don’t seem to understand what
a metaphor is.

Though I can’t say I am exactly
surprised that the moral argument that you shouldn’t act on a doubtful
conscience would miss it’s mark in pro-abortion quarters.

Yesterday Wesley J. Smith announced
that their would be big stem-cell
news tomorrow and boy was he right.

Two different scientific teams have
“reprogrammed” skin and other adult
cells and reverted them back to a pluripotent stem cell state. (The
altered cells are being called “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells” or
iPS.) One of the researchers was James Thomson–the Wisconsin scientist
who first derived human stem cell lines. As he wrote in SCIENCE (no
link available):

   
The human iPS cells described here meet
the defining criteria we originally proposed for human ES cells, with
the significant exception that the iPS cells are not derived from
embryos.

You would hope that if this truly bears
out that it will finally put the ethical problems of using embryonic
stem-cells behind us.  But then again the whole debate was
always more about ethics than it was about science in the first place.
 Culture of death advocates were more thrilled at the idea
trying to define human life down then they were about cures in the
first place.  During the debate they managed to move the goal
line of pregnancy from conception to implantation for their purposes.
 This was quite hypocritical considering that they really
think that human life begins at birth.  You get the feeling
ESCR advocates might feel about this story the way many Democrats do to
good news in Iraq.



Though this will turn the debate on
it’s head in the first place.  Previously most pro-lifers
would use the fact that  ESCR has resulted in zero cures while
adult stem-cells are being used in multiple treatments.  I
always wished that it had been the immorality of using human life for
experimentation that should have been the primary and foremost
argument.  The other argument is quite secondary and not
really focused on the real problem.  Though it could be a
useful argument for those who don’t clearly see the beginning of human
life.  Now with the development of having pluripotent
stem-cells from an ethical source this argument will certainly fall out
of disuse.  Though of course we still have no real idea of
when if ever these cells will be of practical use. Just how many states
will now rush to fund this new type of research?  Will
government leaders now be telling their citizens that they must fund
this or else they we will fall into scientific backwaters as they did
previously?



It was good to see the inventor of
cloning give up and turn to more promising methods.
 Previously the research was focused into two area.
 Human cloning to develop the embryonic cells that would match
the person to be cured and then going on to use these cells to develop
cures.  What has just happened is that one area was eliminated
where now more  time, and energy could be devoted to the other
problem.  So many lies were told by so many to develop
so-called reproductive human cloning and again they turned mainly
towards rhetoric and not science to make their case.  They
never wanted to mention that without human cloning ESCR up to that
point had been a dead end that was more likely to result in tumors than
cures.  That these cures required human cannibalism of our own
clones to be effective.



The reality is of course that ESCR
promoters will continue to promote it and say that we must continue
this research.  Even if more evidence shows that the new
technique is equal to stem-cells acquired by human embryo’s I doubt if
it will curtail their advocacy.  Once again it will be back to
fighting within the public sphere as to whether we  can
finally shut down this human sacrifice on the altars of science.

Last year I subscribed to Bishop Vasa’s e-column that
sends me his weekly column in the Sentinel. Week after week he continues to
write with on important moral teaching with the clarity that you rarely see.
This week once again he has
done the same thing on the issue of the use of Plan B in the case of
rape.

…Nothing is to be done which impedes the natural
progress of a child already conceived. This principle, at least in the ideal,
is understood and practiced in Catholic hospitals. There is a huge difficulty
with Plan B. If a pregnancy is confirmed by way of a standard pregnancy test
then Plan B is neither warranted nor needed since such a readily identified
pregnancy would not be the result of a very recent sexual assault. If the
standard pregnancy test returns a negative for pregnancy then this only
proves that the woman was not pregnant prior to the assault. The critical
question, which must be answered with very great care, is whether the
assaulted woman has already conceived a child as a result of the assault.

The answer to this question may not be able to be given with certainty and I
maintain that it must be given with certainty in order to proceed with Plan
B. The utilization of Plan B without this certainty runs the unjustifiable
risk of destroying new life while ostensibly intending to prevent the assault
from engendering that life. It turns an uncaring eye to the new life which
may have already begun.

This is quite a different take than what the Connecticut Bishop’s
conference has said by maintaining that this type of certainty is not
required.

Some would maintain that since the intention is to prevent
a pregnancy which may result from the unjust aggression of the assault it is
legitimate to use Plan B even if the remote possibility of a pregnancy has
not been absolutely eliminated. They suggest that a lesser degree of
certainty of absence of pregnancy suffices. They suggest that even if a
pregnancy does in fact exist the lack of knowledge about that pregnancy and
the sole intention to prevent a pregnancy and not destroy one eliminates
moral wrongdoing. They fail to recognize that we may not play this kind of
roulette with the existence of a human life. It is illegitimate, even with
good motives, to directly cause the death of a pre-born child. Intervention
with Plan B without ascertaining with certainty the absence of an existing
pregnancy is a direct attack on the life of that child and this is morally
illegitimate.

There is no doubt that the intention of trauma treatment is to protect the
woman who has suffered an assault but this must not extend to the destruction
of an innocent child.

There is certainly a lack of respect in our country for pre-born human life
but we in the Catholic community and our Catholic health care facilities must
not in any way condone or cooperate in that promotion of the culture of
death.

Gregory Popcak has an editorial in the L.A. Times that is a response to Gary Wills travesty of reason published last week on abortion. Greg has done a great job in writing an informative rebuttal to Wills that starts off rather funny but then makes some serious points that is a good overview of the Church and the issue of abortion.

A reader sent me an update on the Cures Without Cloning Campaign in Missouri.  This campaign is intended to add an amendment to the Missouri constitution to undo the cloning amendments from last years change to the constitution.  As many will remember the ballot from last year was quite disingenuous in it wording by making it appear to ban cloning while in fact supporting so-called therapeutic cloning.  This has been a common tactic of embryonic stem-cell supporters to lie for our own good.<>br
With more of the same tactics the Secretary of the State has certified
a ballot title that is truly a outrageously biased version of the
ballot initiative.

Shall the Missouri Constitution be
amended to repeal the current ban on human cloning or attempted cloning
and to limit
Missouri patients� access to stem cell research, therapies and cures
approved by voters in November 2006 by:
 
� redefining the ban on human cloning or attempted cloning to
criminalize and impose civil penalties for
some currently allowed research, therapies and cures; 
and 
 
� prohibiting hospitals or other institutions from using public funds
to conduct such research?
 
This proposal could have a significant negative fiscal impact 
on state and local governmental entities due to its prohibition of
certain research activities. However, the total costs to state and
local governmental entities are unknown. 

I am surprised that they didn’t add
that it would also poke the eyes
out of kittens.



The attempt to actually create a
cloning ban is stated as a repeal to
the current ban on cloning.  What current therapies and cures
are there from ESCR in the first place?  I guess zero is a
hard number to elucidate on.  I guess we shouldn’t be
surprised by the twisting and outright lies of the ESCR supporters, but
how far they will go is amazing.



Here is the ballot title as it was
submitted before it went through the doublethink processor.

It shall be unlawful to clone or
attempt to clone a human being as that term is defined in subsection 2
of this section. Researchers may conduct stem cell research to discover
cures for disease and develop stem cell therapies and cures, provided
that the research complies with the limitations of this section and the
limitations of Section 38(d). The prohibition of this section shall be
in addition to the prohibitions of Section 38(d).
 
2. For all purposes within this article, �Clone or attempt to clone a
human being� means create or attempt to create a human embryo at any
stage, which shall include the one-cell stage onward, by any means
other than fertilization of a human egg by a human sperm.
 
3. No taxpayer dollars shall be expended:
    1. to clone or attempt to clone a human being; or

    2. to research or experiment using a human
embryo, or any part of a human embryo, derived from cloning or
attempting to clone a human being.

They are currently mounting a legal
challenge or the rewording.

If you are from Missouri you can contact Missourians
Against Human Cloning to help out.

The Cardinal Newman Society is sponsoring the Sisters of Life to speak
at Seton Hall University – Sisters of Life Co-Worker Training at Seton
Hall to Show How to Serve a Pregnant Woman with the Heart of Christ.
  This is part of an ongoing program to bring the
Sisters of Life to speak at Catholic college campuses.

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey
voters rejected a $450 million bond measure to fund stem-cell research,
a defeat for Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, who backed the proposal
with his own money and advocated on its behalf.

With 95 percent of precincts reporting, the question was defeated by 53
percent to 47 percent, according to nj.com, a Web site affiliated with
the Star-Ledger of Newark. The measure would have authorized the state
to borrow as much as $45 million annually for 10 years to fund
scientists’ work in the field.

The rejection shows voters didn’t buy Corzine’s arguments that
borrowing for investment in stem-cell research would attract economic
development and help retain business in New Jersey, home to more
pharmaceutical companies than any other in the U.S. state, said Ingrid
Reed, a political scientist at Rutgers University. The governor
personally donated $150,000 to a stem-cell advocacy group campaigning
for the measure.

“This was clearly a big defeat,” said Reed, director of Rutgers’
Eagleton Project New Jersey in New Brunswick. Voters “didn’t have
confidence that this would pay off in the short run,” she said.

This is certainly good news that even in
New Jersey the Pied Piper hymn of “cures, cures, cures” doesn’t always
work.  It would be nice to think that the total disingenuous
of ESCR supporters with their empty promises and texts of the bill that
once again tried to fool voters in concern to cloning is what did the
bill in. Most news outlets are reporting this as a case of
cost-conscious voters rejecting it for monetary reasons.
 Surely some did it on those grounds, but if the ESCR hype was
being bought this surely would not have hindered it.

Thinking Catholic Gary Wills has an embarrassing op ed in the L.A. Times that makes me blush for him. Ramesh Ponnuru has done the commentary for me.

He has a long, confused op-ed on abortion in the L. A. Times. His focus on evangelicals is a little odd if all you had to go on was this op-ed, you might think they were the only people who oppose abortion.

If we are to decide the matter of abortion by natural law, that means we must turn to reason and science, the realm of Enlightened religion. But that is just what evangelicals want to avoid. Who are the relevant experts here? They are philosophers, neurobiologists, embryologists. Evangelicals want to exclude them because most give answers they do not want to hear.

What is Wills talking about? Evangelical (and other) pro-lifers are perfectly willing to turn to embryologists, regardless of those embryologists’ position on abortion policy, for confirmation of the thesis that human embryos are living organisms of the human species. There are pro-life philosophers, too, and plenty of pro-lifers cite them.

If Wills had consulted one of them, he might have avoided some of the wrong turns he takes when he tries to commit philosophy. “Harvesting carrots, on a consistent pro-life hypothesis, would constitute something of a massacre.” Okay, that’s
just embarrassing, so let’s move on.

It is certainly true that the fetus is human life. But so is the semen before it fertilizes; so is the ovum before it is fertilized. They are both human products, and both are living things. But not even evangelicals say that the destruction of one or the other would be murder. . . .

The universal mandate to preserve “human life” makes no sense. My hair is human life it is not canine hair, and it is living. It grows. When it grows too long, I have it cut. Is that aborting human life? The same with my growing human fingernails. An evangelical might respond that my hair does not have the potential to become a person. True. But semen has the potential to become a person, and we do not preserve every bit of semen that is ejaculated but never fertilizes an egg.

Wills’s skin cells and sperm cells are human, and alive, but they’re part of an organism (him). They’re not living human organisms, as a human fetus is. As for the notion that semen has the potential to become a person: Wills needs a refresher course in biology. Perhaps he should ask an evangelical for a referral to an embryologist? Catholics were discussing natural law theory long before the so-called enlightenment that was more apt to chop off heads than to make decisions based on reason and science.

Wills would be on steadier ground he if mentioned evangelicals that had abandoned natural law theory in the first place, though it is certainly making a comeback in those circles.

If it was Lent I would recommend reading Wills’ whole column.

does it exist?

Rome, Oct. 30, 2007 (CWNews.com) –
Italy’s health minister has denounced a call by Pope Benedict XVI (bio
– news) for pharmacists to refrain from dispensing abortifacient pills.
“I don’t think his warning to pharmacists, to be conscientious
objectors to the morning-after pill, should be taken into
consideration,” the health minister, Livia Turco, told the daily
Corriere della Sera. Turco was responding to the statement made by the
Pontiff on October 29, in a meeting with members of the International
Federation of Catholic Pharmacists. The Pope had said that pharmacists
should never “collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products
that have clearly immoral purposes.” If the laws allow for sales of
such products, Pope Benedict said, pharmacists must “face the question
of conscientious objection.”

Spokesmen for Italian pharmacists remarked that the country’s laws do
not provide a “conscience clause” allowing them to refuse dispensing
such pills. “The law obliges us to sell pharmaceuticals, whatever their
nature, if there is a doctor’s prescription,” Giacomo Leopardi told the
ANSA news service.

Another spokesman for a pharmacist’s group, Franco Caprino, said: “We
can’t be conscientious objectors unless the law is changed.” (Caprino
may have mistaken the meaning of the Pope’s statement, since
conscientious objection usually implies that an individual challenges
an existing regulation, accepting the legal consequences.)

CWN’s insertion of a little commentary
is mostly right.  You can be a conscientious objector within
the law where you are protected by the law to do so.  But of
course you can also be conscientious objector to protest an unjust law.
 The civil rights movement was quite effective in doing this.



What is sad though is the response of
the spokesman for the
 Italian pharmacists is that this issue had to be brought out
by the Pope, when it should have been something they should have been
fighting for from the time such a law came into place.  Using
a phrase like “whatever their nature” is rather scary when you think
about it.

“It is not possible to anaesthetise
the conscience, for example, when it comes to molecules whose aim is to
stop an embryo implanting or to cut short someone’s life,” the Pope
said.

I just love the way Pope Benedict puts
things into words.  Unfortunately so many go beyond just
anaesthetising
the conscience to having a consciencectomy to remove it entirely.



Some have seen this as a shot across
the bow for the Connecticut Bishop Conference for their latest decision
to allow Plan B in Catholic hospitals. I suspect that the Pope
has a much larger context for his statements since this applies across
the world. Though it certainly undermines the bishops decision that has
been pretty much universally condemned or called into question.



American Papist, as usual, has a good and expansive posts on this subject.