The Irish Stem Cell Foundation today called for legislation to allow human embryonic stem cell research to take place in Ireland. The Supreme Court ruled last year in R v. R (frozen embryos case) that human embryos outside the mother’s womb do not enjoy Constitutional protection. This decision, however, in no way impedes the Government from introducing legislation that protects the human embryo from destructive research or abuses in assisted human reproduction.
Responding to the Irish Stem Cell Foundation's call for legislation to allow human embryonic research, Dr. Ruth Cullen of the Pro-Life Campaign said that since its launch the Irish Stem Cell Foundation has been a staunch promoter of embryo research so it’s not at all surprising that it now seeks legislation to give it legal backing.
What is disconcerting is the manipulative way it distorts any alleged benefits of this type of research without mentioning the fact that it also involves the destruction of human life at its earliest stages of development.
The Irish Stem Cell Foundation states correctly that false claims about cures for debilitating conditions are being made by some stem cell practitioners. However, these scams occur in both embryonic and adult stem cell research and, unfortunately, are not uncommon in medical research generally. To use this, as the Irish Stem Cell Foundation does, as a cover to promote embryo research is both bizarre and intellectually dishonest.
The reality is all breakthroughs and treatments we read about in the media involve adult stem cell research, which is perfectly ethical. Embryo stem cell research on the other hand is highly controversial, unethical and has led to no valid treatments for patients.
Instead of calling for socially divisive legislation sanctioning embryo destructive research, the Irish Stem Cell Foundation should join with others in seeking to make Ireland a centre of excellence for adult stem cell research, which is extremely promising scientifically and does not lead to the destruction of human life at its fragile beginnings.
Showing posts with label unborn child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unborn child. Show all posts
Monday, May 31, 2010
Baby boy who survived abortion left to die in Italian Hospital
In ancient Rome, a newborn baby unwanted because of disability or otherwise was legally allowed to be disposed of by exposure as res vacantes, an unwanted thing.
Often they were left in the Velabrum, a busy street in the middle of the oil and cheese markets or at the columna lactaria in the Forum Olitorium.
In modern Europe, of course, such things would never happen. Certainly not. Nowadays when we are exposing a child born after an abortion has failed to kill them, they are abandoned exposed in a hospital. Much more civilised.
In southern Italy, last month, an abortion was carried out on a mother, pregnant for the first time, after a prenatal scan suggested her baby might be disabled. The baby boy, born at 22 weeks, despite the abortion procedure, was left to die by the doctors in the Rossano Calabria Hospital.
He was found 20 hours later by the hospital chaplain still alive wrapped in a sheet, his umbilical cord still attached, still moving and breathing. The priest raised the alarm and the baby was moved to the intensive neonatal care unit in a nearby hospital, but died there the next day.
This is the second case in three years in Italy of a baby aborted at 22 weeks because of suspected disability who survived the abortion living for 3 days.
Italy’s abortion 1978 law allows abortion on demand for the first three months of pregnancy but allow it on the grounds of suspected disability in the second three months, but its infanticide law imposes a legal obligation on doctors to attempt to preserve the life of a child who survives abortion. In England, however, there is no time limit at all for abortions where disability is suspected. They can be aborted right up to birth.
Since the purpose of abortion is the deliberate and direct procuring of the destruction of the life of the baby, the doctors expose babies who survive so that they will die.
Since medical ethics require that a patient be informed about the nature of the procedure to which they are to be subjected and consent to it. Are women considering abortion on the grounds of suspected disability informed by their doctor that the abortion involves inducing the birth and that if their baby survives the doctors will be hiding it away and exposing it so that it will die for lack of due care. Are the mothers asked to consent to this protocol of exposure without care where a baby is born alive after an abortion?
The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health, 2007 commissioned by the UK Government, found that 66 infants survived NHS termination attempts in hospitals in England and Wales during 2005.
Instead of dying during the abortion procedure as intended, they survived, able to breathe unaided. They were exposed without medical care, left to die, some living for half an hour, one for ten hours.
The only way to step back from this horror show is to reaffirm the first principle of medical ethics – primum non nocere – first do no harm. Do not deliberately destroy human life in the womb or after birth. Once we step away from that principle of respect for life we find ourselves sliding back down to the columna lactaria in the Forum Olitorium.
Often they were left in the Velabrum, a busy street in the middle of the oil and cheese markets or at the columna lactaria in the Forum Olitorium.
In modern Europe, of course, such things would never happen. Certainly not. Nowadays when we are exposing a child born after an abortion has failed to kill them, they are abandoned exposed in a hospital. Much more civilised.
In southern Italy, last month, an abortion was carried out on a mother, pregnant for the first time, after a prenatal scan suggested her baby might be disabled. The baby boy, born at 22 weeks, despite the abortion procedure, was left to die by the doctors in the Rossano Calabria Hospital.
He was found 20 hours later by the hospital chaplain still alive wrapped in a sheet, his umbilical cord still attached, still moving and breathing. The priest raised the alarm and the baby was moved to the intensive neonatal care unit in a nearby hospital, but died there the next day.
This is the second case in three years in Italy of a baby aborted at 22 weeks because of suspected disability who survived the abortion living for 3 days.
Italy’s abortion 1978 law allows abortion on demand for the first three months of pregnancy but allow it on the grounds of suspected disability in the second three months, but its infanticide law imposes a legal obligation on doctors to attempt to preserve the life of a child who survives abortion. In England, however, there is no time limit at all for abortions where disability is suspected. They can be aborted right up to birth.
Since the purpose of abortion is the deliberate and direct procuring of the destruction of the life of the baby, the doctors expose babies who survive so that they will die.
Since medical ethics require that a patient be informed about the nature of the procedure to which they are to be subjected and consent to it. Are women considering abortion on the grounds of suspected disability informed by their doctor that the abortion involves inducing the birth and that if their baby survives the doctors will be hiding it away and exposing it so that it will die for lack of due care. Are the mothers asked to consent to this protocol of exposure without care where a baby is born alive after an abortion?
The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health, 2007 commissioned by the UK Government, found that 66 infants survived NHS termination attempts in hospitals in England and Wales during 2005.
Instead of dying during the abortion procedure as intended, they survived, able to breathe unaided. They were exposed without medical care, left to die, some living for half an hour, one for ten hours.
The only way to step back from this horror show is to reaffirm the first principle of medical ethics – primum non nocere – first do no harm. Do not deliberately destroy human life in the womb or after birth. Once we step away from that principle of respect for life we find ourselves sliding back down to the columna lactaria in the Forum Olitorium.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Groups presssure Lancet editor to delay publication of maternal mortality research
Lancet, a leading medical journal, has just published a new study of international maternal mortality rates, which finds that the World Bank, the WHO and UNICEF statistics for maternal mortality were over 100,000 too high due to reporting and methodological problems.
But in a corrupt and brazen, and thankfully, unsuccessful, attempt to subordinate science to politics, ‘advocacy groups’ lobbied the editor of Lancet, Dr Richard Horton to delay the publication of the new study until after upcoming meetings of the UN Commission on Population and Development, the Women Deliver Conference and the next UN Assembly, which are scheduled to discuss maternal mortality.
What’s bugging these ‘advocates’? Dr Donna Harrison, President of the American Academy of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said of the new Lancet article:
"The study uses the best statistical methods currently available and clearly demonstrates that worldwide legalization of abortion is unnecessary to bring about significant decreases in maternal mortality. The American Academy of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynaecologists encourages the UN member nations to continue to develop even better statistical information by improving the identification of maternal mortality causality, especially induced abortion related mortality, which is most often underreported or misreported".
Where the UN bodies have been pushing for ‘safe’ and ‘legal’ abortion as the key to bringing improving maternal mortality rates, the new Lancet article does not. It found key causal factors improving maternal mortality – falling pregnancy rates in some countries, higher per capita income, higher education rates for women, and increasing availability of basic medical care, and in particular, ‘skilled birth attendants’.
But in a corrupt and brazen, and thankfully, unsuccessful, attempt to subordinate science to politics, ‘advocacy groups’ lobbied the editor of Lancet, Dr Richard Horton to delay the publication of the new study until after upcoming meetings of the UN Commission on Population and Development, the Women Deliver Conference and the next UN Assembly, which are scheduled to discuss maternal mortality.
What’s bugging these ‘advocates’? Dr Donna Harrison, President of the American Academy of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said of the new Lancet article:
"The study uses the best statistical methods currently available and clearly demonstrates that worldwide legalization of abortion is unnecessary to bring about significant decreases in maternal mortality. The American Academy of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynaecologists encourages the UN member nations to continue to develop even better statistical information by improving the identification of maternal mortality causality, especially induced abortion related mortality, which is most often underreported or misreported".
Where the UN bodies have been pushing for ‘safe’ and ‘legal’ abortion as the key to bringing improving maternal mortality rates, the new Lancet article does not. It found key causal factors improving maternal mortality – falling pregnancy rates in some countries, higher per capita income, higher education rates for women, and increasing availability of basic medical care, and in particular, ‘skilled birth attendants’.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Stem Cell Research in Ireland
R -v- R Supreme Court decision regrettable but creates an opportunity to unite ethics and science in favour of a win-win solution
Those who believe that human life should be protected at all stages will be disappointed with the Supreme Court decision in the R v. R frozen embryos case that was made on the 15th of December last. The Supreme Court ruled that Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution does not afford protection to the human embryo prior to implantation.
The Government must introduce legislation to protect human life at its earliest stages of development. The human embryo is not potential life - it is human life with potential. Each one of us passed through this early stage of life on our way to birth. The very basis of democracy is respect for the equal dignity and worth of every human being under the law. Our first and most important human right is the right to life.
The fact that the Supreme Court ruled that the human embryo does not enjoy protection under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution in no way impedes the Government from introducing legislation to protect early human life. There is precedent for such legislation in countries like Italy and Germany where protections for the human embryo were introduced despite there being no explicit Constitutional protection in those countries for human life at its fragile beginnings.
The Supreme Court decision marks the beginning not the end of the debate on how best to proceed. The totally unrepresentative composition of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR), which voted 24 to 1 in favour of destructive embryo research, is certainly not the basis for any legislation. Before legislation is proposed, the Government must address the glaring imbalance to date in the consultative process. We need legislation to protect the human embryo not the continued outsourcing of decision making to unaccountable quangos or to some 'regulatory body'.
We must not, as a society, pass over this opportunity to unite ethics and science in a win-win solution that could make Ireland a centre of excellence for adult stem cell research, which is ethically sound and scientifically very promising.The unfolding debate is not about those in favour of research pitched in ideological battle against those opposed to scientific advances. Pro-life supporters are just as enthusiastic about the promise of finding treatments for infertility and cures for diseases, but strongly believe this can be achieved without recourse to the taking of human life.
Those who believe that human life should be protected at all stages will be disappointed with the Supreme Court decision in the R v. R frozen embryos case that was made on the 15th of December last. The Supreme Court ruled that Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution does not afford protection to the human embryo prior to implantation.
The Government must introduce legislation to protect human life at its earliest stages of development. The human embryo is not potential life - it is human life with potential. Each one of us passed through this early stage of life on our way to birth. The very basis of democracy is respect for the equal dignity and worth of every human being under the law. Our first and most important human right is the right to life.
The fact that the Supreme Court ruled that the human embryo does not enjoy protection under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution in no way impedes the Government from introducing legislation to protect early human life. There is precedent for such legislation in countries like Italy and Germany where protections for the human embryo were introduced despite there being no explicit Constitutional protection in those countries for human life at its fragile beginnings.
The Supreme Court decision marks the beginning not the end of the debate on how best to proceed. The totally unrepresentative composition of the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR), which voted 24 to 1 in favour of destructive embryo research, is certainly not the basis for any legislation. Before legislation is proposed, the Government must address the glaring imbalance to date in the consultative process. We need legislation to protect the human embryo not the continued outsourcing of decision making to unaccountable quangos or to some 'regulatory body'.
We must not, as a society, pass over this opportunity to unite ethics and science in a win-win solution that could make Ireland a centre of excellence for adult stem cell research, which is ethically sound and scientifically very promising.The unfolding debate is not about those in favour of research pitched in ideological battle against those opposed to scientific advances. Pro-life supporters are just as enthusiastic about the promise of finding treatments for infertility and cures for diseases, but strongly believe this can be achieved without recourse to the taking of human life.
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