Mary Meets Dolly

Radical environmentalism hides hatred for humanity

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:19:45 -0700

The movement of late that concerns me the most is radical environmentalism. It is not the zealous concern for the environment that disturbs me; it is the humans vs. the planet mentality that is sometimes hidden behind that concern for the environment.

Many environmental types truly believe that the planet would be a better place without humans and they want us gone. Some range from just asking that we voluntarily do not have children, some want to implement a one-child policy like China, and some hope for an outbreak of a virus like Ebola to get rid of what they see as a plague on the Earth.

James Lee, killed holding the Discovery Channel hostage, was a true believer in the misanthropic radical environmentalist agenda. He demands of the Discovery channel reveal a hatred for his fellow man, namely children, disguised by a concern for the environment. From MSNBC.com:

[Lee] is reputed to be behind the website, SaveThePlanetProtest.com, essentially a one-page screed against Discovery, urging the company to expose civilization "for the filth it is" and to puts its focus on "how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution...."

The SaveThePlanetProtest website list of "demands" is prefaced by this statement: "The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY."

Among the chilling demands: "All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions.

"In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it."

I think "parasitic human infants" says it all.

Lee was certainly a crazy man to take innocent hostages, but I do not think his sentiment is all that unique. I believe a milder form of his misanthropy exists among more mainstream environmentalists.

Recall a study published recently that found that those identifying themselves as "green" were more likely to more likely to steal and less likely to be kind. The authors of the study were surprised. I was not. It makes sense that people who embrace the "green" movement also believe that humans are a blight on the planet. If in their minds we are THE problem, it makes sense that such people would engage in misanthropic behavior. They are good to the planet and so do not have to be good to their fellow man who is screwing it up.

In other words its the "Green" Golden Rule: Do unto to your neighbor what you believe they are doing to the planet.

This misanthropy hiding behind environmentalism is as disturbing as it is unnecessary. We can take care of the planet without calling for the end of the human race. We can look at protecting the environment as a way to better creation AND humanity at the same time. Pope Benedict IX said in his message for the World Day of Peace:

Respect for creation is of immense consequence, not least because creation is the beginning and the foundation of all Gods works, and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind. Mans inhumanity to man has given rise to numerous threats to peace and to authentic and integral human development wars, international and regional conflicts, acts of terrorism, and violations of human rights. Yet no less troubling are the threats arising from the neglect if not downright misuse of the earth and the natural goods that God has given us. For this reason, it is imperative that mankind renew and strengthen that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying...
A greater sense of intergenerational solidarity is urgently needed. Future generations cannot be saddled with the cost of our use of common environmental resources. We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries; for this reason we have obligations towards all, and we cannot refuse to interest ourselves in those who will come after us, to enlarge the human family. Universal solidarity represents a benefit as well as a duty. This is a responsibility that present generations have towards those of the future, a responsibility that also concerns individual States and the international community. Natural resources should be used in such a way that immediate benefits do not have a negative impact on living creatures, human and not, present and future; that the protection of private property does not conflict with the universal destination of goods; that human activity does not compromise the fruitfulness of the earth, for the benefit of people now and in the future. [my emphasis]

Contracepting the Environment

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:56:15 -0700

Synthetic estrogen is a main component of birth control pills. It is held a break through for women and a personal choice. Of course the litmus test for a "liberal good" is that it doesn't do anyone else harm. Well, it seems that birth control hormones are harming the environment. From National Catholic Register:

BOULDER, Colo. (National Catholic Register) When EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado studied fish in a pristine mountain stream known as Boulder Creek two years ago, they were shocked. Randomly netting 123 trout and other fish downstream from the citys sewer plant, they found that 101 were female, 12 were male and 10 were strange intersex fish with male and female features.
Its the first thing that Ive seen as a scientist that really scared me, said then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling, speaking to the Denver Post in 2005.
They studied the fish and decided the main culprits were estrogens and other steroid hormones from birth-control pills and patches, excreted in urine into the citys sewage system and then into the creek.
Woodling, University of Colorado physiology professor David Norris, and their EPA-study team were among the first scientists in the country to learn that a slurry of hormones, antibiotics, caffeine and steroids is coursing down the nations waterways, threatening fish and contaminating drinking water.
Since their findings, stories have been emerging everywhere. Scientists in western Washington found that synthetic estrogen a common ingredient in oral contraceptives drastically reduces the fertility of male rainbow trout.
Doug Myers, wetlands and habitat specialist for Washington States Puget Sound Action Team, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that in frogs, river otters and fish, scientists are finding the presence of female hormones making the male species less male.

Not surprisingly, there is a lack of public outcry:

What the Boulder scientists discovered, however, is that few people care.
Or, if theyre worried, theyre in denial.
Nobody is getting passionately concerned about it, Norris said. It makes no sense to me at all that people arent more concerned.
When the story of his finding hit Denver and Boulder newspapers, Norris anticipated an immediate response from environmentalists, who define the politics of Boulder and are known to picket in the streets demanding ends to questionable farming practices, global warming and pesticide treatments.
To the professors surprise, however, the hormone story was mostly ignored.
Two years later, environmental groups have failed to take up the cause of saving Boulder Creek and its fish from hormone pollution.

So, no mention of birth control pills at Live Earth. I'm shocked! Here is my favorite quote:

Harden said the growing knowledge of estrogen-polluted water may expose the cultural double-standards that protect birth control from the scrutiny given to other chemicals and drugs.
Its going to start looking funny, Harden said. The radical environmentalist wont eat a corn chip if the corn contacted a pesticide. But they view it a sacred right and obligation to consume synthetic chemicals that alter a womans natural biological functions, even if this practice threatens innocent aquatic life downstream.

Going green may make you mean

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:19:44 -0700

A least that is the conclusion of researchers in Canada that found that "green" consumers were more likely to steal and less likely to be kind. From The Guardian UK:

When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to "green" type.

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. "Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours," they write.

The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it in other words, steal they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

The authors of the study were surprised. I am not. It makes sense to me because many people who embrace the "green" movement also believe that humans are a huge blight on the planet. In their minds we are THE problem. It makes sense that such people would engage in misanthropic behavior. They are good to the planet and so do not have to be good to their fellow man who is screwing it up.

In other words its the "Green" Golden Rule: Do unto to your neighbor what you believe they are doing to the planet.

Hat Tip: Meredith Jessup

Natural Family Planning: environmentally responsible behavior

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 08:23:00 -0700

In honor of Earth Day, I give you this quote from Janet E. Smith's Uncovering a String of Lies about the deceptions surrounding chemical contraceptives:

I keep hoping someone will do a study of the carbon footprint of contraceptives. Production costs are considerable, as is the cost for packaging and distributing and disposing of contraceptives. The estrogens, in particular in some forms of the pill, are having serious negative effects on the environment. Well-known are the reports of a serious disproportion between male and female fish when a water supply has too much estrogen in it. And what other effects might there be of excess estrogen in the environment? Some have conjectured that premature puberty in young girls and the increase in infertility among males may be traceable to excess estrogen in the water supply, or perhaps even in their mothers systems as they were gestated.

For my part, I believe all those who use natural family planning should get a tax credit for environmentally responsible behavior.

On Earth Day celebrate Nature's greatest gift: Life!

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 08:24:00 -0700

From CatholicVote.org:

CatholicVote.org says its time to use Earth Day to celebrate natures greatest gift human life.

Our goal is to use Earth Day to get Americans to think more deeply about what it means to truly respect the Earth and creation. Prevailing environmental attitudes too often view humans as the enemy of nature. We believe the human person is Gods greatest creation, and the Earths greatest resource. Building up a culture of life is the single most important way to build a culture that respects the environment, said Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote.org Education Fund.

The members of CatholicVote.org wanted to bring this balanced Catholic view of the environment to the streets, said Burch, and thats why weve advertising on over 50 buses in Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Respect for the Gods creation has a long history in Catholic teaching, long before it became popular with our secular culture, said Burch.

A Renewed Challenge to Those Who Support Embryonic Stem Cell Research

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:27:16 -0700

As a Catholic, I am morally opposed to all research on human embryos. Of course not all Americans agree. Some think ripping open tiny members of our species for parts is morally acceptable. To those, I have issued this challenge before and in the wake of the US Court ruling placing a temporary injunction on the use of tax payer money to fund embryonic stem cell research, I will issue it again:

There is no federal ban on research on human embryos. It is legal to conduct therapeutic cloning in most states. Companies and universities are free to create and destroy human embryos all day long. I wish that was not the case, but it is.

If you believe the hype that embryonic stem research is going to save lives and want to support embryo-destructive research, then reach for your checkbook and write a check. You are free to do so. I am sure lots of universities and private companies working with embryonic stem cells would be prefer to receive your donation than have to apply to the federal government for funds. Your donation may even be tax deductible.

I have been told that I need to respect the opinion that human embryos are just a mere clump of cells and full of promise for cures. Well, respect is a two way street. If you want embryonic stem cell research, then you pay for it.

Don't make me, and millions of people like me who find research that relies on the destruction of human embryos morally reprehensible, support it with our tax dollars. When you do, you are forcing your belief that a human embryo has no value on me.

US Judge: funding ESC research is same as funding the destruction of embryos

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:38:54 -0700

President George W. Bush was the first President to fund embryonic stem cell (ESC) research with federal dollars. To use tax payer money for such research, Bush put a restriction in place that stated that funds would only be available for embryonic stem cell lines created before August of 2001. This way funds could go to embryonic stem cell research without encouraging the destruction of more human embryos which is a necessary part of deriving an embryonic stem cell line.

Bush was attempting to fund the research without being in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, signed into law by President Clinton, which states that federal dollars cannot go to the destruction of human embryos. The Dickey-Wicker Amendment, as I have stated before, is a very important piece of legislation that stands in the way of American tax dollars being used for the creation and destruction of human embryos solely for research purposes. The Dickey-Wicker Amendment states:

SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--

        (1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
        (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [1](42 U.S.C. 289g(b)) (Title 42, Section 289g(b), United States Code).

    (b) For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

In 2009 the Obama administration, by Executive Order, removed the funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research put in place by President Bush. Our tax dollars cannot go to the actual destruction of human embryos, but Obama's policy creates an incentive for said destruction by paying for research on newly created ESC lines....from freshly destroyed embryos.

Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, today wrote a temporary injunction against Obama's funding rules saying that they are in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. From the New York Times:

The judge ruled that the Obama administrations policy was illegal because the administrations distinction between work that leads to the destruction of embryos which cannot be financed by the federal government under the current policy and the financing of work using stem cells created through embryonic destruction was meaningless. In his ruling, he referred to embryonic stem cell research as E.S.C.

If one step or piece of research of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding, wrote Judge Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.

In other words, the neat lines that the government had drawn between the process of embryonic destruction and the results of that destruction are not valid, the judge ruled....
The Obama administration said that its rules abided by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because the federal money would be used only once the embryonic stem cells were created but would not finance the process by which embryos were destroyed. The judge disagreed, writing that embryonic stem cell research necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.

Judge Lamberth is correct, funding an embryonic stem cell line that is created by necessarily destroying a human embryo is by default funding the destruction of that embryo.

Where this puts the state of the funding of embryonic stem cell research is anyone's guess. What I am sure of is a new assault on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment by lawmakers like Diane DeGette (D-Co), who, without any real evidence, is a true believer in embryonic stem cell research.

Tomorrow there will be new calls to repeal Dickey-Wicker. But without the Dickey-Wicker Amendment our tax dollars would surely go to cloning and destroying human embryos for research. It is the last defense against a taxed funded Brave New World.

Keep your eye (and your prayers) on this one! I'll make sure to let you know when it is time to contact your representative and urge them to uphold the Dickey-Wicker Amendment

The Politics of Stem Cells

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:40:32 -0700

How many times I have the read the line in the media that "embryonic stem cells hold more promise than adult stem cells" and have asked myself, "How can they know that?" Just because embryonic stem cells become every cell in the body inside a growing embryo, does not mean they can and will become every cell type in a lab. And even if scientists had already made all 200 cell types in the lab from embryonic stem cells (which they haven't), ESCs still have never been used to treat a single patient. Looking at the overwhelming clinical facts, it is adult stem cells that have more promise.

But that doesn't stop our elected representatives from trying to permanently ram the funding embryonic stem cell research down our throats by introducing legislation. Rep Diana DeGette is the worst offender. She and others have introduced HR 4808 which would turn the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research into law so that no future President can defund it.

Rep. DeGette is a true believer in ESC research, but once again, I have no idea why. I am not sure she does either. In the American Thinker today, Gene Tarne and David Prentice point out this very fact:

At that same hearing, Rep. Diana DeGette commented that "I know that these wonderful patients who are here today who have been cured by adult stem cells, mostly for blood-related diseases, would never say that somebody with diabetes or somebody with Parkinson's or somebody with nerve damage or somebody with macular degeneration -- all diseases for which embryonic stem cell research has shown promise and adult stem cells have shown no clinical promise -- no one would say those people should not be cured..."

She was zero for four. Rep. DeGette seemed embarrassingly unaware of the year-old JAMA study showing adult stem cells' efficacy for juvenile diabetes patients -- and Rep. DeGette is co-chair of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus.

Parkinson's? In 2004, both Dr. Michel Levesque and Dennis Turner, a Parkinson's patient Levesque treated with Turner's own adult stem cells, testified regarding the positive results of the treatment. Leveque subsequently published his findings in the peer-reviewed Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal.

Nerve damage? Published studies using adult stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries include a 2006 report by Portugal's Dr. Carlos Lima in collaboration with Dr. Jean Peduzzi-Nelson of Wayne State University. They published a second report in 2009 using adult stem cells to treat more spinal cord injured patients.

Macular degeneration? Far from showing "no clinical promise," University of Louisville researchers have announced plans for a human trial of adult stem cells for macular degeneration. Rep. DeGette also seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the patient who testified was treated with his own adult stem cells for heart damage, not a "blood-related disease."

In their must-read-the-whole-thing piece, Tarne and Prentice point out other lawmakers who really do not know which end is up when it comes to stem cell science and yet still feel compelled to tell us what we need to fund. My favorite is this gem from Tom Harkin:

In 2007, Sen. Tom Harkin waved away evidence for adult stem cells, saying, "Scientists have known about adult stem cells for forty years, and they still haven't provided the answer for juvenile diabetes." He said this on the very day that the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published clinical trial results using adult stem cells in a treatment that reversed juvenile diabetes in patients.

Oh the irony. But this is par for the course in Washington these days. If you say it enough times somehow it just has to be true. But what DeGette and Harkin and others like them do not realize is that while they argue that those against embryo destructive research are politically and not scientifically motivated, it is really they who are ignoring the science and pushing a political agenda.

Cloning for food is bad but cloning to live forever is good

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:39:12 -0700

Sometimes I marvel at the lengths humans go to delude ourselves. For years I have pointed out one very unusual phenomenon regarding cloning. All over the world, consuming products from cloned animals or their offspring is bad, while creating human clones for stem cells to inject into human patients is good. Cloned animals and cloned humans are both made with the process somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT. Both are genetically modified organisms, but eating cloned animal products is considered "yucky" while the idea of injecting cloned human cells directly into our bodies is "laudable." I just do not get it.

Now I am not advocating eating cloned animal products, just pointing out the strange love-hate relationship we have with cloning. But, as I have said before, if it came down to drinking milk from a cloned cow or injecting myself with cells from a dead cloned embryo, I say, "Please pass the Oreos."

Britain is particularly puzzling. This New York Times article points out the Brits uneasiness with cloned animals or their offspring getting into the food supply, meanwhile they are funding the creation of cloned human-animal hybrids with the intent to create stem cells. From the NYT:

ALBRIGHTON, England Many Europeans recoil at the very idea of cloning animals. But a handful of breeders in Switzerland, Britain and possibly other countries have imported semen and embryos from cloned animals or their progeny from the United States, seeking to create more consistently plump and productive livestock.

And although no vendor has publicly acknowledged it, meat or dairy products originating from such techniques are believed to be already on supermarket shelves.

The amounts are no doubt small, and the sale appears to be legal. But the development is noteworthy on a continent that has long objected to genetically modified crops and where many people look at animal cloning as potentially dangerous and cruel even immoral.

So animal cloning is considered immoral if it is for food supply, but making cloned animal-human hybrids for stem cell research is not. From The Guardian in 2008:

First British human-animal hybrid embryos created by scientists

· Breakthrough could pave way for stem cell supply
· Move will aid research into untreatable conditions
Britian's first human-animal hybrid embryos have been created, forming a crucial first step, scientists believe, towards a supply of stem cells that could be used to investigate debilitating and so far untreatable conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.
Lyle Armstrong, who led the work, gained permission in January from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to create the embryos, known as "cytoplasmic hybrids".

His team at Newcastle University produced the embryos by inserting human DNA from a skin cell into a hollowed-out cow egg. An electric shock then induced the hybrid embryo to grow. The embryo, 99.9% human and 0.1% other animal, grew for three days, until it had 32 cells.
Eventually, scientists hope to grow such embryos for six days, and then extract stem cells from them. The researchers insisted the embryos would never be implanted into a woman and that the only reason they used cow eggs was due to the scarcity of human eggs.

And while stem cells from human-cow hybrid embryos will probably never be injected into a human patient, I am wondering where is the outcry?

There is none and there will not be. Why? Because in our upside down society, cloning for food is bad but cloning to live forever is good.

IVF is not just for infertility but human manufacturing to specs

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:49:28 -0700

A few years ago I went shopping for a brand new house. Every model home I visited, regardless of the builder, had a gigantic master suite with a spa-like enormous bathroom where every morning you could cartwheel your way to the shower and back flip to the toilet. Down the hall, placed almost like an afterthought, were 3 or 4 tiny little bedrooms whose total square feet might add up to the space provided in the palatial master suite.

After the 5th house or so, I realized this was an indicator that society's values had shifted. Builders were building what the buyer wanted, which was clearly parental desire and comfort at the child's expense. I also knew it wasn't a good sign.

These days it is all about what parents want, not about what is best for the children. There is nowhere where this attitude is more apparent than in the assisted reproduction industry. We all heard of the Octomom, but it goes so much deeper than that. In vitro fertilization, better known as IVF, is not just about infertility anymore, it is about human manufacturing to specifications.

Recently, two stories have been in the news that illustrate my point. Gillian and Paul St. Lawrence, both fertile and in their 30's, have used IVF to create 5 embryos. They have frozen their 5 offspring until it is more convenient for them to raise children. From the Washington Post:

Our five frozen embryos, which we call our baby blastocysts, will remain in storage until we are ready to use them. Since study after study has indicated that the age of the uterus at the time the embryo is implanted is almost irrelevant to the success rate of achieving a healthy baby, we can wait 10 or 15 years: The chief consideration may well be how old I want to be when I'm raising a teenager.

Upon hearing this, my mother-in-law was quick to ask: "You don't have to wait until you are 40 to use the embryos, right?" No, we do not. We can choose to use them any time. And, of course, my husband and I are still free to have babies the old-fashioned way. We still have all the options we had prior to this project -- but now we have some insurance against future infertility.

Five human lives have been created and put in "storage" until they are ready to "use" as the St. Lawrence's "project" to provide themselves "insurance." (Her words not mine.) There was a time we used "gift" and "blessing" when referring to children but in this Brave New World, "project" and "insurance" are more appropriate. IVF is now being used for human manufacturing to specifications. In this case, ordered with delayed delivery.

What is particularly chilling (no pun intended) is Gillian's description of how she weighed the pros and cons of freezing her offspring as if she was deciding whether the lasagna she made the night before would freeze well enough to still taste good in a few months.

The second story is about an Australian couple who are complaining that they have to travel all the way to Thailand to use IVF to have a daughter. They have 3 healthy boys already (I assume made the old fashioned way) and want to use IVF and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to insure they have a girl. The problem is Australia does not allow IVF and PGD for sex selection. From the Herald Sun:

A MELBOURNE mum is so desperate to have a daughter she is traveling to Thailand so she can choose the sex of her next baby, frustrated at Australian medical authorities as they drag their feet over the issue.

Already blessed with three boys - aged 5, 4 and 1 - the 36-year-old and her husband say they have been forced to sidestep Australian laws because they cannot wait for federal medical authorities to decide if they will overturn their ban on the practice.

"At this point I would do anything to have a daughter," she said.

"It is an ethical thing we have weighed up. It hasn't been a decision taken lightly but it is one we feel we have reached and we are happy with.

"I wouldn't trade my sons for a million daughters - this is not about my sons. It is about me and my husband wanting a daughter.

At least she is honest. This is not about loving and caring for a girl, it is about her and her husband "wanting a daughter." There is a difference. If loving and caring for a girl was the goal, then adoption would certainly fit the bill. But when it is about insuring you get a genetically related female, then human manufacturing to specifications is the answer.

This woman insists it is not about her sons, but the reality of IVF and PGD is that she will create embryonic sons that she will in fact "trade" to get the embryonic daughter. She will create male offspring in the process, the clinic will just throw them out in favor of the females.

The Catholic Church had always been against IVF, even in cases of infertility. Once you create life outside the body, it naturally turns into the manufacturing of humans. We are meant to be begotten not made. And certainly not made to specifications. I think these two cases illustrate the wisdom of the Church.

In the end, I never bought a new house. I stayed in my solidly-built 1940s bungalow where the bedrooms are nearly all the same size and there is no master bath. Now that I think about it, they didn't have IVF in the 1940s...

National Catholic Reporter misleads on cloning

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:20:04 -0700

I expect the secular media to get it wrong. I expect them to relabel embryonic stem cells "early" stem cells to draw attention away from the fact that they come from embryos. I expect the secular media to insist that the product of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is not a cloned human embryo, just some ball of cells that can be harvested for any reason. I do not expect such slight of hand from a publication calling themselves Catholic.

Bill Tammeus, at the National Catholic Reporter says It's easy to be mislead on stem cell research. He is right, but he is the one doing the misleading. He insists that the product of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) also known as cloning is NOT a cloned human embryo, just a "small cluster of stem cells." The American Medical Association disagrees:

"Alternatively, stem cells have also been obtained from embryos generated from unfertilized eggs using a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Initially, SCNT technology was designed to produce embryos from which immunologically compatible stem cells could be derived for use in treating human diseases (therapeutic cloning). However, recent advances in the technology have prompted concerns about embryos formed by SCNT being misused for generating human clones (reproductive cloning)."

See many are concerned that SCNT will lead to reproductive cloning because it does in fact create a human embryo. If SCNT, the same technique that created Dolly, makes cloned sheep embryos, then it sure as sh** makes human embryos when used with human eggs and human somatic cells. (Sorry I am really angry!)

The National Academy of Sciences also refers to the product of SCNT as a blastocyst, which is an early embryo, that could grow into a fetus if placed in a uterus:

The method used to initiate the reproductive cloning procedure is called nuclear transplantation, or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). It involves replacing the chromosomes of a human egg with the nucleus of a body (somatic) cell from a developed human. In reproductive cloning, the egg is then stimulated to undergo the first few divisions to become an aggregate of 64 to 200 cells called a blastocyst. The blastocyst is a preimplantation embryo that contains some cells with the potential to give rise to a fetus and other cells that help to make the placenta. If the blastocyst is placed in a uterus, it can implant and form a fetus. If the blastocyst is instead maintained in the laboratory, cells can be extracted from it and grown on their own.

Tammeus writes:

I also know it's easy to be misled on stem cell research if you don't name and understand things properly.

Apparently he knows better than the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences. Mr. Tammeus, maybe it is you that needs some enlightening so you can learn how to "name and understand things properly."

Hat Tip: Catholic Key

Girls with Cystic Fibrosis Sing on America's Got Talent

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:57:16 -0700

I know a lot about the genetics of cystic fibrosis also known as CF. I have tested thousands of people for mutations in the CFTR gene that cause this debilitating lung disease. The majority of people that I have tested were pregnant women. I know some of those babies that were found to have CF (upon further testing) probably did not make it out of the womb. Like with Down Syndrome, there is a systematic assault on fetuses with CF. I have heard first hand accounts of women who were pressured to abort their CF baby and made to feel like they were terrible mothers if they didn't. This is truly a shame because, as I also know first hand, there are people walking around who genetically have CF, but are healthy. Some have CF and do not even know it. Even if they are not healthy, CF children are still wonderful human beings that should be celebrated.

I saw two such people on America's Got Talent. Christina and Ali were told they would not be able to sing. I am so glad they proved the doctors wrong:

Harvesting Clones: Never Let Me Go the movie

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:44:04 -0700

I have written before about the novel Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, about the life of clones created to be organ donors. I highly recommend this book because it is the future of a society that accepts the creation of human life to be harvestable biological material. We are headed down this road already creating human embryos to be harvested for research.

The following passage from Never Let Me Go explains how society came to accept the creation and harvesting of clones. It is my favorite passage from the novel because it illustrates just how slippery the slope is. Just how easy it is to label a human life as "not human" to satisfy a perceived need. Here a woman explains to a clone how it was she came to be and why her lot in life is what it is:

After the great war, in the early fifties, when the great breakthroughs in science followed one after the other so rapidly, there wasn't time to take stock, to ask sensible questions. Suddenly there were all these new possibilities laid before us, all these ways to cure so many previously incurable conditions. This is what the world noticed the most, wanted the most. And for a long time, people preferred to believe these organs appeared from nowhere, or at most that they grew in a kind of vacuum.
But by the time people came to consider...whether you should have been brought into existence at all, well by then it was too late. There was no way to reverse the process. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days?
There was no going back. However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, motor neurone disease, heart disease. So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you weren't really human, so it didn't matter. [my emphasis]

Never Let Me Go is now a movie. Here is the trailer. I really hope they left the above passage intact because it is a truth that everyone needs to hear.

The Catholic Laboratory: cars named after Catholic scientists

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:40:33 -0700

I have been meaning to blog about The Catholic Laboratory for awhile. The Catholic Laboratory is a site focused on what "the Church has done and continues to do for science." There are great podcasts, resources and all kinds of neat information about Catholics in science.

Yesterday, The Catholic Laboratory pointed out that the new electric car the Chevrolet Volt was named after Catholic scientist Alessandro Volta and the Vauxhall Ampera, is named after André-Marie Ampère.

Check em out and follow them on Twitter!

Light Posting

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:04:57 -0700

If you haven't noticed, I have not been blogging of late. I apologize. I believe that I have over scheduled myself and now something has got to give.

First, I agreed to teach 2 class of high school chemistry to 30 high schoolers in the Fall. Being that I have never taught chemistry at the high school level, only college level, I am staring down a ton of prep work.

If that was not enough, I agreed to go back to my local molecular genetics lab and work full-time for a few months while one of them goes on maternity leave.

All great opportunities that have taken me away from blogging and will continue to do so for a few more months.

I will try to keep posting a few things now and again and will keep tweeting on Twitter. In case you are not already following me on Twitter, I am @MaryMeetsDolly.

Have a great summer and say prayers that I do not lose my mind!

Chucking the Nuremberg Code

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:24:00 -0700

The Nuremberg Code that came out of the atrocities of experimentation in Nazi Germany clearly states, first and foremost, that it is unethical to experiment on any "human subject" without their consent. Notice the language. It doesn't say, "conscious human", or "self-aware human", or "human with central nervous system" or even "born human." Just "human subject". The human embryo, whether created by IVF or by cloning, is a complete human organism, and therefore a human subject. It cannot give consent to be experimented on. To do so would be to disregard the Nuremberg Code. I have said many times: we allow experimentation on human embryos at our own peril.

You may ask why I would even care that an embryo is experimented on without consent? It is not like an embryo knows it is being experimented on. Setting my faith aside, I do so because, drawing a line in the sand now, will prevent the future experimentation on other human subjects that cannot speak for themselves.

And who would that be you ask? Wesley J. Smith has the answer. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

In the new novel "Hunters of Dune," biotechnologists of the future create "ghoulas" -- clones made from the dead -- in breeding contraptions known as "axlotl tanks." About 100 pages into the novel, the reader is shocked to learn that axlotl tanks are really unconscious women whose bodies have been expropriated to serve the greater good as so many gestating vats.
Happily, "Hunters of Dune" is science fiction. In the real world, we have a higher sense of morality and ethics. We would never use catastrophically disabled human beings so crassly. We understand that treating people as mere things violates the intrinsic dignity of the individual and the equal moral worth of all human life.
Well, most of us do.
Unfortunately, many bioethicists would feel right at home in a world in which unconscious people are converted into mere biological machines. Indeed, some of our most prominent bioethical and philosophical thinkers have published articles in the world's most respected medical and bioethical journals proposing that unconscious patients (those diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state) be used both as vital organ donors and the subjects of human medical experimentation. [my emphasis]

It is a coincidence that the idea of experimenting on the unconscious without their consent is gaining momentum at the same time there is a huge push for experimentation on human embryos? I think not. Read the whole article. The details are very illuminating.

Male infertility and the Pill

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:54:03 -0700

The Daily Mail reports that male infertility is on the rise and some are calling it a crisis:

One in five men could suffer from fertility problems. And scientists have warned that it's just going to get worse...

There's a crisis brewing, but it has nothing to do with the economic deficit or the current political uncertainty. Scientists are warning that rising levels of male infertility have become so perilous that it is a serious 'public health issue'. And some go even further.

Professor Niels Skakkebaek, of the University of Copenhagen, describes the issue 'as important as global warming'. Last week, one science writer even suggested, in starkly terrifying terms, that if scientists from Mars were to study the male reproductive system, they would possibly conclude that man was destined for rapid extinction.
And if it continues, this trend could indicate men are on a path to becoming completely infertile within a few generations.

From USA Today

And what does the article suggest is causing this reduction in male fertility? They cite everything from red meat and obesity to traffic fumes and soy beans. The many comments on this piece ask the same question I asked, "What about synthetic estrogen?"

Women have been taking synthetic estrogen as chemical birth control (better known as The Pill) for decades and then excreting it in their urine. These synthetic hormones are not being removed from the water supply and the levels are not even being monitored. Scientists are discovering that synthetic hormones are affecting the fertility of fish. From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Birth control may be harming state's salmon
Synthetic estrogen in water seems to affect reproduction

Birth-control pills can curb the reproduction of more than just the women taking them. Western Washington scientists have found that synthetic estrogen -- a common ingredient in oral contraceptives -- can drastically reduce the fertility of male rainbow trout.

The man-made compounds are showing up in waterways around the nation -- pumped into rivers, lakes and Puget Sound with water from sewage-treatment plants.

And they're being found at levels that can harm fish, possibly even this region's struggling salmon populations....

The findings are likely to fuel concerns about the environmental effects of chemicals that aren't being filtered out by sewage plants, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides that can mimic hormones.

In frogs, river otters and fish, scientists are "finding the presence of female hormones making the male species less male," said Doug Myers, wetlands and habitat specialist for the Puget Sound Action Team, the government agency coordinating restoration of the Sound.

There are no standards for how much synthetic estrogen and other hormones can be released in sewage and wastewater, and treatment plants generally do not monitor for it.

If synthetic estrogen can affect the "maleness" of fish, it such a stretch to think that the rise in male infertility might be caused by the Pill? That synthetic estrogen in our water supply is making human males less male? That a pill that takes a normal female cycle and turns it upside down would also affect male fertility in unexpected ways? Why is that NOT one of the many possible reasons cited by this article?

I wonder how infertile men everywhere would feel if they found out that it was synthetic estrogen in their water supply that might be the cause of their problems. I wonder if that is why scientists and others are dumbfounded by the utter silence on this issue. Could it be that the Pill is, like abortion, a sacred cow that no matter the devastation it wreaks, we would not dare speak a word against it?

After all, the USA Today's celebration of The Pill's 50th birthday says that it is about equality. Could it be that women who choose to be temporarily infertile maybe causing males to be infertile as well? (That's equality for ya.)

Some people think a rise of male infertility is just fine. We need less people on this planet anyway right? Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. I have said many times that fiction often contains truth. What seems impossible in a book or movie often comes to pass and often sooner than we would think.

I am reminded of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. This book if full of gems, but the "BlyssPluss Pill" really hits the nail on the head. What is BlyssPluss? It is a pill designed by Crake, the species-splicing genius, to do three things at once. First, it would "protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases." Second, it would provide "an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess" while "eliminating feelings of low self-worth." Third, it would "prolong youth."

But that is not all. From a conversation between Jimmy, the hero, and Crake:

    These three capabilities would be the selling points, said Crake; but there would be a fourth, which would not be advertised. The BlyssPluss Pill would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all-birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level...

    "So basically you're going to sterilize people without them knowing it under the guise of giving them the ultra in orgies?"

    "That's a crude way of putting it, " said Crake.

There is just one catch. Without giving too much away, it is the BlyssPluss Pill, and components therein, that eradicates the human race. This guy thinks that scientists from Mars would conclude that is exactly where the human race is headed.

Insightful and prophetic? I think so.

Bioconversations: talking about the future of humanity

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:59:16 -0700

I have always argued that the time to discuss cutting edge technologies that will shape humanity is BEFORE they are achieved not after. As a society we need to decide NOW what kinds of limits we want to put on genetics, cloning and genetic engineering. The minute the headline reads, "Cloned human baby born" it is too late. But this requires diligence and a proactive approach to understanding what biotechnology is capable of. Most people just do not want to deal with it.

The Center for Genetics and Society, in collaboration with Mothers for a Human Future among others, has launched a website called Bioconversations that gets everyday people thinking about issues in genetics and reproductive technologies. While I do not agree with everything that the Center for Genetics and Society promotes (and wish they would do more than just ask open ended questions), I applaud their efforts to begin conversations that not many are willing to have. Their home page speaks to what I try to do with this blog:

We urge you to consider the questions presented in each video in this series, use the resources at www.BioConversations.org to learn more, talk with your family, friends, and neighbors, keep learning and talking, and get involved as you see fitas soon as you can. Time is of the essence. The technology is being developed very rapidly. We all have to work hard to ensure that Americans from all walks of life have a say in what shouldand should notbe donebefore its too late.

Why do you need to be a part of this conversation? Lightning-fast developments in genetic, reproductive, biomedical, and other technologies are driving us into new, uncharted, and potentially dangerous territory. The momentum of technological development and market dynamics is considerable. In addition, a small but vocal group of people who call themselves transhumanists is strongly promoting a future in which human beings are technologically re-engineered.

The transhumanist campaign underscores the pressing need for all citizens to get up to speedand quicklyon a wide range of technologies with profound implications for us as human beings. It also points to an urgent need for diverse voices and diverse points of view to join in the public conversation about the use of these technologies.

BioConversations is designed to bring more people into this crucial conversation. We urge you to use the resources on this site and spark a conversation about these new groundbreaking technologies by sharing these resources with your family, friends, and neighbors-and keep the conversation going.

Here is the first installment of 5 videos they have created to get us thinking about the future of our species:

Different faiths, different takes on embryonic stem cell research

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:08:54 -0700

The Center for American Progress has a list of different faiths and their stance (or lack thereof) on embryonic stem cell research. It is certainly an interesting read. Here are some highlights:

Assemblies of God: The Assemblies of God oppose embryonic stem cell research, saying, Potential medical benefits do not justify destroying human life at any stage of development. The Assemblies also oppose somatic cell nuclear transfer on the basis that it involves the creation and destruction of human life for medical research.
The Catholic Church: There is some debate among Catholic ethicists, but the Catholic Church officially opposes embryonic stem cell research, frequently citing Pope John Paul IIs plea for a culture of life, grouping the science with abortion, euthanasia and other attacks on innocent life.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: The LDS has not made a formal statement on embryonic stem cell research. Yet one interpretation of the Mormon doctrine of ensoulment states that an individual human life only begins...when the spirit joins the physical body some time following conception. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR), a Mormon, has used this interpretation to defend the research.
The Episcopal Church: The Episcopal Church supports embryonic stem cell research and was especially supportive of H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 before it was vetoed by President Bush. A letter signed by two representatives of the church reads, The Episcopal Church celebrates medical research as this research expands our knowledge of God's creation and empowers us to bring potential healing to those who suffer from disease or disability.
The Lutheran Church: Missouri Synod: The Lutheran Church: Missouri Synod does not support embryonic stem cell research because the technology, citing 2001 Resolution 6.13, necessarily involves the intentional destruction of human beings. Research on adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood is supported by the LCMS.
The Presbyterian Church (USA): The Presbyterian Church (USA) stated at their 213^th General Assembly in 2001 that, With careful regulation, we affirm the use of human stem cell tissue for research that may result in the restoring of health to those suffering from serious illness. Throughout its statement on the topic, the notion of responsibility is repeated several times, making it clear that although the church supports the research, the endorsement is not a blank check.
The Reformed Church in America: The Reformed Church in America states that different sources of embryonic stem cells call for different moral evaluations. The RCA is in favor of extracting stem cells from miscarried fetuses, but they are not supportive of the production of embryos for the explicit purpose of testing. The RCA also cautions against using a surplus of embryos that would otherwise be disposed of, since doing so could lead to the perception of humans as mere objects and a source of spare parts.
Seventh-Day Adventist Church: The Seventh-Day Adventist Church has not yet made a statement regarding embryonic stem cell research, but they have stated their support for somatic cell nuclear transfer, writing on their website, If it is possible to prevent genetic disease through the use of somatic cell nuclear transfer, the use of this technology may be in keeping with the goal of preventing avoidable suffering.
Southern Baptist Convention: The SBC is opposed to embryonic stem cell research, citing vigorous opposition to the destruction of innocent human life, including the destruction of human embryos. The Convention also encouraged Congress to maintain funding restrictions on the technology, and also encouraged existing laboratories that engage in the science to cease and desist.
Union for Reformed Judaism: The Union for Reformed Judaism supports embryonic stem cell research, saying The Jewish tradition teaches us that preserving life and promoting health are among the most precious of values. The URJ was a vocal advocate of H.R. 810.
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations: The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations supports the science of stem cell research, saying in a letter to President Bush, We believe it is entirely appropriate to utilize for this research existing embryos, such as those created for IVF purposes that would otherwise be discarded but for this research. the UOJC is, however, opposed to the creation of embryos for the specific purpose of research.
United Church of Christ: The UCC is fully supportive of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research within ethically sound guidelines...and the limitations set forth by the National Institutes of Health. They cite their belief in Jesus healing as foundational for their support of this research.
United Methodist Church: The United Methodist Church supports embryonic stem cell research, but has four ethical conditions that must be met. The embryos used must not have any future for procreation, the couples donating the embryos must have given consent to have their embryos used for research, the embryos must not have been created solely for research activities, and the embryos must not have been purchased or sold in any way.
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism: The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism supports lifting the restrictions on funding embryonic stem cell research, saying Support of stem cell research evolves from the view in Jewish law that an embryo does not have full capacity or status until it is 40 days old.

I am curious though what Catholic ethicists are debating the morality of embryonic stem cell research. Does anyone know to whom this article is refering?

Aquinas proves atheists are closer to God than they think

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:48:10 -0800

I found this piece by Brian Davies interesting. Davies is a Dominican and professor of Philosophy at Fordam and I studied under him during my time at Oxford. Very nice fellow.

Via Insidescoop.

Open letter to the clergy: we need guidance

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:14:31 -0700

I have become a popular booking for churches in my area. One church has had me speak 4 times this last year. This is not because I am the greatest speaker in the area. It is because the congregation is hungry for answers.

I have realized that there is a need; a great need for guidance from the clergy on issues of biotechnology and yet they are often silent or have nothing of real substance to say. I understand why. This is a huge and confusing field. But, your congregations need you to get educated and give them some guidance.

Case in point is this article from New Zealand about a new Anglican dean who basically has no real guidance to offer. Here are some excerpts with some harsh commentary:

Auckland's new Anglican dean, Ross Bay, wants the church to embrace
genetic engineering to cure disabilities such as Down syndrome - but he
draws the line at parents deciding they don't want a baby with red hair.
Mr
Bay, 42, vicar of St Mark's Church in Remuera, will replace Richard
Randerson as Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell in November.
He supports parents' right to abort a fetus that was diagnosed with a
disability such as spina bifida and said the same principle should
apply to new techniques that might knock out the genes for conditions
such as Down syndrome.

I am sorry Mr. Bay, I cannot see how curing Down syndrome with gene therapy and aborting a fetus with spina bifida are even close to morally equivalent. One is about healing a person with a disability, the other is about getting rid of a person with a disability.

There is more. When asked about where the line should be drawn regarding eugenic abortion, he has this to say:

But what about the child born with red hair? What do we say about the ethics of [influencing] that?" he said.
"Those are the two extremes. There's going to be a lot in the middle.
Intelligence? I don't know that I know the answer but I'm interested."

If you are going to say that it is okay to abort certain children and not others, you dang well better know where you want to draw the line. If you don't know the "answer", find it because your congregations needs straight answers.

Unfortunately, Bay and the Anglican church are not willing to give them:

He said the church's role was to help people to think about the issues, but it did not want to lay down the law.
"Gone are the days when most people in the church want to impose an ethic on people," he said.
When couples asked him about whether to abort a child diagnosed with spina bifida, he did not tell them what to do.
"It's
a pretty tough decision for parents to make when faced with that
information about the quality of life [of their prospective child]," he
said.

"I'd hate to be a decision-maker. I wouldn't want to condemn people in those situations making a decision about abortion.

Mr. Bay, you are a leader in your church, not these couples' best friend. You can tell them about the church's stance on the sanctity of life without "condemning them." Ultimately it is their decision, but they came to you for advice, give them some!

So here is my plea to clergy everywhere. Get educated on issues of reproductive technologies, genetics, genetic engineering and biotechnology and help your flock deal with these very pressing issues. If you feel you cannot speak on such issues, find someone who can and then attend the talk. Most priests do not attend my talks. Not surprisingly, the much needed information I have to give never makes it to the pulpit.

US Catholic Conference of Bishops statement on embryonic stem cell research

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:41:29 -0700

The US Catholic Conference of Bishops have overwhelmingly agreed to issue a statement calling the destruction of human embryos for research immoral. The vote in Florida was 191 to 1. (I wanna know who was the hold out. Probably my bishop.) Click here to read the whole statement. Obviously, the argument rests on the fact that human embryos are human organisms and they therefore have inherent worth. Here is the revelant passage on the basic biology of the human embryo:

Second, some claim that the embryo in his or her first week of development is too small, immature, or undeveloped to be considered a human life. Yet the human embryo, from conception onward, is as much a living member of the human species as any of us. As a matter of biological fact, this new living organism has the full complement of human genes and is actively expressing those genes to live and develop in a way that is unique to human beings, setting the essential foundation for further development. Though dependent in many ways, the embryo is a complete and distinct member of the species Homo sapiens, who develops toward maturity by directing his or her own integrated organic functioning. All later stages of life are steps in the history of a human being already in existence. Just as each of us was once an adolescent, a child, a newborn infant, and a child in the womb, each of us was once an embryo.

Human embryos are human life. Time to get over that argument and get to the real reason we disagree on embryo destruction. Does this human life have any worth? Here is what the Bishops say:

Others, while acknowledging the scientific fact that the embryo is a living member of the human species, claim that life at this earliest stage is too weak or undeveloped, too lacking in mental or physical abilities, to have full human worth or human rights. But to claim that our rights depend on such factors is to deny that human beings have human dignity, that we have inherent value simply by being members of the human family. If fundamental rights such as the right to life are based on abilities or qualities that can appear or disappear, grow or diminish, and be greater or lesser in different human beings, then there are no inherent human rights, no true human equality, only privileges for the strong.

"Only privileges for the strong." That means if we do not uphold the worth and inherent dignity of the human embryo, when we become weak and voiceless, dependent on others, in need of protection, we can forget it. It won't be there for us.

Alternative to cloning: an unintended Trojan Horse?

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 09:13:58 -0800

After reading this great synthesis by Chip Bennett at cb.blog I realized that altered nuclear transfer (ANT) maybe a Trojan horse.

First, let me explain altered nuclear transfer. Dr. William Hurlbut of Stanford, in an effort to present alternatives to somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) better known as cloning, came up with the idea for ANT. In ANT, the somatic cell nucleus is altered before it is placed in the emptied egg, creating what Dr. Hurlbut calls a biological artifact, not a human embryo. This biological artifact could then be used to grow embryonic stem cells. I have written on ANT before.

I believe that Dr. Hurlbut should be commended for his efforts to provide an alternative to cloning to obtain "patient-specific" embryonic stem cells, but there is disagreement on whether this is ethical research. Some worry that ANT would create a crippled embryo instead of a biological artifact. And, ANT still needs eggs like SCNT.

But, I do not want to discuss the merits and ethical implications of ANT right now. I want to discuss how ANT is being used as a way to pave the way to SCNT, instead of diverting the road away from it as intended.

Awhile back, I was alerted to this approach by a reader who sent me an editorial in a Catholic diocese newspaper. (Thanks Charlie!) I can't print it here as it was by subscription only, but I will relate the upshot. The Catholic paper advocated lifting their state's ban on cloning to allow for ANT research. It is true many Catholics are in disagreement over ANT, but lifting the ban on cloning would also allow for SCNT which the Church explicitly condemns. I thought that this editorial was not only strange but also utterly misleading. I just chalked it up to a misunderstanding by the author.

Enter Sen. Jim Talent, who has retracted his support for a ban on all human cloning (SCNT) in the Senate. From the Kansas City Star: (which is pretty much sick of the Clone the Truth campaign, because all of their articles have errors, this one is no exception)

Sen. Jim Talent on Friday withdrew as co-sponsor of a bill that would ban all human cloning and make it a crime for anyone to take part in the process.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Talent said the alternative research made the bill unnecessary. The new research - called altered nuclear transfer - would provide common ground for people on all sides of the issue, he said.

Like the Catholic newspaper, Sen. Talent has given de facto support to SCNT by not moving to ban it citing his support for ANT as the reason.

This is crazy! Of course, a federal ban on SCNT is still "necessary" whether you support ANT or not. Also, if Dr. Hurlbut is correct, ANT is not therapeutic cloning in the strict sense because it does not create a cloned embryo, and therefore it would not be subject to the cloning ban being debated in the Senate. And, I am sure Talent's reasoning for taking back his support for a ban on cloning was not what Dr. Hurlbut had in mind when he envisioned ANT.

Let's get a ban on SCNT which for sure creates a cloned embryo and could lead to reproductive cloning and then discuss the merits of ANT later.

Because of the widespread confusion surrounding cloning and its alternatives, I have a sinking feeling that we will be seeing more this "Trojan horse" reasoning in the future.

Review on alternatives to cloning for ESCs

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:00:13 -0800

I found this great article on TechnologyReview.com that reviews the possible alternatives to using IVF embryos or creating cloned embryos for embryonic stem cells.

Let me give the run down with commentary. Alternative #1:

Markus Grompe, director of the Oregon Stem Cell Center at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, hopes to find a way around the debate by producing cloned cells that have all the properties of embryonic stem cells -- but don't come from embryos.
His plan involves a variation on the cloning procedure that produced Dolly the sheep. In the original procedure, scientists transferred the genetic material from an adult cell into an egg stripped of its own DNA. The egg's proteins reprogrammed the adult DNA, creating an embryo genetically identical to the adult donor. Grompe believes that by forcing the donor cell to produce a protein called nanog, which is normally found only in embryonic stem cells, he can alter the reprogramming process so that it never results in an embryo. Instead, it would yield a cell with many of the characteristics of an embryonic stem cell.

And alternative #2:

Last fall, MIT biologist Rudolf Jaenisch and graduate student Alexander Meissner showed that by turning off a gene called CDX2 in the nucleus of an adult cell before transferring it into a nucleus-free egg cell, they could create a biological entity unable to develop into an embryo -- but from which they could still derive normal embryonic stem cells.

I believe that these would be part of the Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming (OAR) family of alternatives that are called altered nuclear transfer (ANT) There is debate in the Catholic community on whether these are ethical. Would these techniques create a biological artifact that is simply a ESC generator or a diabled embryo that can never fully develop? The jury is still out. I am not a fan of either of these because they still need eggs for reprogramming like SCNT (regular cloning) and as I have repeated stated that puts women at risk for exploitation.

Alternative #3:

Also last fall, researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, MA, grew embryonic stem cells using a technique that resembles something called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). PGD is used to detect genetic abnormalities in embryos created through in vitro fertilization; doctors remove a single cell from an eight-cell embryo for testing. The researchers separated single cells from eight-cell mouse embryos, but instead of testing them, they put each in a separate petri dish, along with embryonic stem cells. Unidentified factors caused the single cells to divide and develop some of the characteristics of stem cells. When the remaining seven-cell embryos were implanted into female mice, they developed into normal mice.

This one is called embyro biospy and it sounds good but it is clearly unethical. The biopsy puts the life of the embryo at risk with no corresponding benefit to the embryo. Also, creating embryos outside the unitive act of conjugal love in a petri-dish is a big no-no.

Saving the best for last, alternative #4:

And Harvard University biologist Kevin Eggan believes it may be possible to create stem cells whose DNA matches a specific patient's by using existing stem cells stripped of their DNA to reprogram adult cells.

This technique, while still early in development, seems to me to be the most ethical. It uses existing stem cells to reprogram an adult cell back to a pluripotent state, not an egg and it doesn't create anything that looks like an embryo.

The article ends on a chilling note. Some question why, with the common pratice of IVF, would we even try to find an alternative to real embryos for ESCs?:

"We've already decided as a society that it's perfectly okay to create and destroy embryos to help infertile couples to have babies. It seems incredible to me that we could say that that's a legitimate thing to do, but we can't do the same thing to help fight diseases that kill children," says David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.

I am afraid he has a point. Once again, the Church's teaching on reproduction without sex, i.e. IVF, has far reaching wisdom.

Spinal Confusion is not confused

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:05:27 -0800

I love Steven's blog Spinal Confusion. Read this entry on alternatives to cloning for embryonic stem cells and you will see why.

(And no, it is NOT because of the nice things he has to say about me!)

O Brave New World, Please Come to Pass!

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:57:48 -0800

As I have written many times before some cloning researchers want to get around the human egg problem by creating embryos with SCNT using cow or rabbit eggs instead of human ones. Animal eggs are cheaper, more abundant and don't have the whole "exploitation of women thing" attached. Scientists in Britain have applied for permission to do just that.

As creepy as that is, Pharyngula has a better idea. PZ Myers, the blogger behind Pharyngula, wants to go even further. He wants to see someone implant a human/cow embryo into a cow's uterus. He thinks it would be great:

Don't terminate the experiment after a few days when you've got healthy, growing blastocysts. Slip the best looking ones back into the cow. Work out methods for gestating them in a non-human mammal.
I want to be there nine months later when the vet reaches into the cow's vagina and pulls out a slick, slimy, healthy human infant.
I want to see the Pope's head explode when he sees it. I want David Cronenberg there with a camera, cackling happily....
I want 100 million women to sit up and say, "What? I could outsource the nausea and bloating and pain and stretch marks and episiotomy to a cow? Sign me up!"...
I want gay men to rejoice, and become the primary market for this procedure....
When all this comes to pass, then I'll be content. We'll be ready to have a real discussion about the biotechnology. It will be fun and exciting.

Of course PZ is being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but just a bit. What is apparent in his entry and in the comments is a complete abhorance for anyone that might want to stop and ask if this research is ethical.

See for PZ, and many scientist like him, the only time a "real discussion about biotechnology" can happen is after the fact. It has to be accomplished first before we can discuss whether or not we should. A bit "bass ackwards" no?

Let us make animal-human hybrids or else...

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:55:09 -0800

Scientists in the UK are upset the government wants to prevent them from using cow or rabbits eggs instead of human ones in their cloning experiments. After all human eggs are expensive and hard to get and a hydrid embryo would only be .1% animal. From Scotsman.com:

VITAL research into devastating diseases could be put in jeopardy because of government opposition to plans to create part animal-part human embryos, it was claimed yesterday.
A white paper published at the end of last year voiced doubts about research involving chimera embryos - which would be 99.9 per cent human and only 0.1 per cent rabbit or cow.
But scientists hoping to use the technology to create treatments for serious illnesses such as Alzheimer's and motor neurone disease say they must be allowed to continue their work.
Professor Ian Wilmut, from Edinburgh University, leader of the team that created Dolly the sheep, was preparing his application for chimera research when the government said such work should be outlawed - at least initially. Yesterday, he joined scientists from London and Newcastle, who have submitted proposals for similar work, to call for a rethink by the government and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which issues licences for such studies.

Cures at any cost is the mantra these days. Scientists "must be allowed to continue their work" or people will die.

What else can I say? Although, one commenter on this article I thought was right on. I'll let RF say what I couldn't:

So, when a group of mad scientists are peeved that they still have not convinced either the government or joe public that they are up to any good with their crack-pot experminents, what do they do? They complain about negitive press and respond with a load of extreme hype. Part-humans are needed to save the lives of millions? My a***! This news article only goes to prove that these guys are scarily desperate.

Hat Tip: Life Ethics

Ban on human-animal embryos is unacceptable, MPs say

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:52:02 -0700

From Engalnd's Guardian:

Ban on human-animal embryos is unacceptable, MPs say
· Government plan is threat to UK science, says report
· Ministers accused of using flawed consultation

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday April 5, 2007
The Guardian

Government plans to outlaw the creation of embryos which are part-human, part-animal are "unacceptable" and threaten to undermine Britain's leading position in stem cell science, MPs will say today.
A report by the Commons science committee calls on ministers to scrap the proposed ban and accuses the government of basing its opposition to the research on a "deeply flawed" consultation.
The committee's demands - which follow a letter to the prime minister signed by 223 medical charities and patients' groups supporting the research - leave the government increasingly isolated in its intention to prohibit the experiments.
Many scientists believe the research will pave the way for new treatments of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cystic fibrosis. They want to create animal-human embryos to understand the molecular minutiae behind such conditions. The researchers would pluck a cell from a patient and insert it into a hollowed cow or rabbit egg and stimulate it with a jolt of electricity. The two cells then fuse to make an embryo which is 99.9% human and 0.1% animal.

Stop and read that headline again, and again if need be. Has the world gone crazy? Even 10 years ago the above headline would have been unthinkable, absolutely unthinkable.

But the slippery slope keeps getting steaper and more slippery. So now instead if the headline reading that it is unacceptable to make animal-human embryos for research, some are saying that it is unacceptable NOT TO.

Is there any question where this is heading? Once we get comfortable destroying existing human life for parts, we can start creating human life for the same purpose and now we will genetically engineer that human life anyway we see fit.

But, it is all for curing disease so it is okay, RIGHT? WRONG! Creating an animal-human embryo to be used as a research subject cheapens the value of all human life. I will quote some very forward thinking men who see the writing on the wall:

"People who oppose embryonic stem-cell research want a cure as much as you want a cure, but they do not believe that you can pick healthy fruit from a poisoned tree." -- Rabbi Gellman
"Though curing disease is a noble cause, it can never take precedence over who the cause is attempting to cure. The end-game is not to merely cure diseases, but to improve human life. We cannot improve our lives if in the prevention of disease we have destroyed human dignity." --Ric Olsen, Lead Pastor The Beacon

Update: Threat to science? How about a threat to humanity?

Let the chimeras live say Catholic Bishops!

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:45:10 -0700

I am back. I apologize to my readers for such a long absence. The Taylor clan is considering a big move to another state to be near family and the weighing the pros and cons has been time consuming. Thank-you to Monica for bringing me back.

Well, IVF has made a lot of children since Louise Brown in the 1970s. Figuratively, IVF has also had some of her own children. Embryo-destructive research and human cloning are two. We are now becoming aquainted with another, the chimera. What is a chimera? It is an organism that is a mix of two species. A chimeric embryo would be one that let us say part mouse and part human or part monkey and part human.

Now, it is important here to distingush between a chimeric embryo and a chimeric adult. Placing animal DNA into a human embryo is entirely different from growing a human liver in a pig for transplantation into a human patient. It is different because adding animal DNA to a human embryo at the embryo stage fundamentally changes the entire organism, not just one organ.

The British Parliament is considering allowing the creation of such chimeric embryos as long as they are destroyed after two weeks. From the Telegraph:

Under draft Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year, scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such embryos for research as long as they destroy them within two weeks.
The wide-ranging draft Human Tissue and Embryo Bill, which aims to overhaul the laws on fertility treatment, will include sections on test tube babies, embryo research and abortion. Ministers say that the creation of animal-human embryos - created by injecting animal cells or DNA into human embryos or human cells into animal eggs - will be heavily regulated.
They insist that it will be against the law to implant chimeras - named after the mythical creature that was half man and half animal - into a womans womb.

If you accept the creation of a human chimeric embryo for research purposes, then seems reasonable that the law mandate that they be destroyed.

Now, here is where things get interesting and we Catholics may need to reevaluate what we think we know. In response to the possiblility of the creation and destruction of human chimeric embryos in the UK, Britian's Catholic Bishops have said that if they are created, chimeric embryos should be allowed to live.

How outrageous does that sound? Allowing a human-monkey to be implanted and born to a human or monkey mother? Have they lost their minds? No, I do not think they have.

The Bishops are very clear. Human chimeric embryos should not be made in the first place, but if they are they should be allowed to live:

The bishops, who believe that life begins at conception, said that they opposed the creation of any embryo solely for research, but they were also anxious to limit the destruction of such life once it had been brought into existence.
In their submission to the committee, they said: At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly.
In particular, it should not be a crime to transfer them, or other human embryos, to the body of the woman providing the ovum, in cases where a human ovum has been used to create them.
Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so.

I know what you are thinking...your gut is telling you this is wrong, all wrong. But, it is analogous to the reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning lesser of two evils scenario. We are told that therapeutic cloning, the creation and destruction of acloned human embryo for research is a lesser evil than creating a cloned human embryo that is implanted and becomes a cloned infant. But that is not true. All human cloning is evil, but reproductive cloning is the lesser of the two evils because it does not mandate that a human life be destroyed for research.

Will we ever see a human-monkey born to a human woman? Probably not. The image is grossly disturbing. But I think that is the point. If everyone could really understand and see the horrors of abortion with their own eyes do you think it would be legal? By bringing the possibility of the implantation of a chimeric embryo out from behind the laboratory doors the Catholic bishops have made us face the reality of what is actually going on: Scientists want to create all kinds of inter-species embryos in the name of research without any of the consequences, devaluing human life even more in the process.

The Bishops at first glance may seem like the crazy ones, but really they are a voice of sanity.

A lot to be thankful for

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 08:26:23 -0800

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday for one simple reason: I have alot to be thankful for. So how does being thankful relate to biotechnology? I am thankful that God created four bases A, G, C, and T that combine and make up the genetic code for all life on this planet. It is a code that is simple yet powerful. A code that we can decipher and use responsibly to alleviate suffering and improve lives. I am thankful for all for the cures that have come and will come from the Human Genome Project. It is easy to focus on all the abuses and unethical practices that go on in biotechnology. Today, I say thank-you for all of the good that biotechnology has done for mankind.

Australia reverses ban on therapeutic cloning

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:00:28 -0800

From the Reuters article below:

Australia will allow embryonic stem cells to be cloned for research after lawmakers on Wednesday defied conservative Prime Minister John Howard in an emotive parliamentary debate.

Parliament's lower house approved new laws that bring Australia into line with Britain, and some states in the United States, which scientists say will make it easier for Australia to attract medical researchers and allow greater international collaboration...
But Australia's lower house of parliament overturned a ban imposed in 2002 that only allowed research on embryos left over from IVF programmes.

This is very disappointing and scary for a couple of reasons. First read this passage:

But many supporters of the laws spoke of the pain of losing family members, and said Australia could not afford to continue to place limits on stem cell research, which could one day find cures for a range of debilitating conditions.

Regardless of how you feel about cloning, stop and think about that statement. We cannot afford to put limitations on stem cell research. Ask yourself if stem cell research without limitations is really best. Would society be better off if we allowed widespread fetal farming for fetal stem cells? Fetal stem cells are better than embryonic stem cells even from late term aborted fetuses. Can we afford to say no to that? I say we can't afford not to put limits on stem cell research or we all start to look like harvestable biological material.

The second point is that the Australian goverment has overturned a ban on therapeutic cloning without any major advancements in the field of SCNT. So far no one has cloned a human embryo and extracted a stem cell line from it. This decision was made purely on the political winds of change, not on any real scientific advancement.

I don't think this is the way to guide public policy. Lori B. Andrews, a reproductive rights lawyer, watched the shift in what we find acceptable and wrote this very pertinent statement about therapeutic cloning in her book The Clone Age that cannot be ignored:

"With artificial insemination, acceptance took decades; with in vitro fertilization, it took years. The attitude toward cloning shifted in a matter of months."

We need to be guided by principle, not public opinion.

Why I am opposed to therapeutic cloning

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:24:18 -0800

A reader of a Clone the Truth entry at Prolife blogs asked me a why I oppose somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) better known as therapeutic cloning. I thought it was an excellent question that deserved a thoughtful answer. Here is my response:

First and foremost, it is unethical to create a human life, cloned or otherwise to be exploited for research or therapeutic purposes. But as I am sure you do not share my view that a cloned embryo is a human life, I will set religious and metaphysical arguments aside and give you some other practical reasons why I, and many others, oppose SCNT and do not want state or federal tax-payer money to fund this research:
1. Cloning for therapeutic purposes will inevitably lead to reproductive cloning or cloning to produce children. Most of us can agree that reproductive cloning is highly unethical because of the possible genetic defects that arise form the SCNT process. There are many on both sides of the issue that believe it is absurd to pursue therapeutic cloning thinking that reproductive cloning will not result. Gregory Pence is a SCNT advocate who, in his book Cloning After Dolly : Who's Still Afraid?, wrote, "Scientists are naive to think they can ban reproductive cloning and go ahead studying embryonic [therapeutic] cloning."
Pence is correct. SCNT is the same in both therapeutic and reproductive cloning. The only difference is whether the cloned embryo is implanted. The implantation of cloned embryos would be impossible to prevent. President Bush also agrees. He stated, "Anything other than a total ban on human cloning would be virtually impossible to enforce. Cloned human embryos created for research would be widely available in laboratories and embryo farms. Once cloned embryos were available, implantation would take place. Even the tightest regulations and strict policing would not prevent or detect the birth of cloned babies."
Sen. Mary Landrieu, Democrat from Louisiana concurs and I think she said it best, "Cloning is cloning. That is why it should all be illegal."
2. It is unlikely that it will be only SCNT embryos (or "balls of cells" as some people like to call them) that are destroyed for stem cell research. Some SCNT proponents question why the cloned embryos should be destroyed at the blastocyst stage (14 days after nuclear transfer). William Saletan in his article "Organ Factory" on Slate.com suggests research into implanting cloned embryos into natural or artificial wombs then gestating them to the fetal stage and aborting them for cells which are already differentiated into the desired tissue. He writes, "But if the goal is tissue, clones aren't less useful after 14 days. They're more useful, precisely because they're differentiating into the cell types that patients need. Why stop research at 14 days? Once you say we can do this much of it, what's the difference?"   Saletan ends his piece with this chilling thought:
You can tell yourself what we already tell ourselves about unwanted in vitro embryos: They're doomed anyway. Patients' lives are at stake. We can't let personal morality get in the way of science. We can't wait. But that's the funny thing: We are waiting. Every day that we don't grow embryos beyond two weeks for their tissue, we're waiting. I wonder why.
ReNeuron, a UK company, is already researching the use of aborted fetal tissue as a source of stem cells. If SCNT in humans becomes a reality, they could create their own cloned fetuses with out the need to wait for the donation of aborted fetuses.
In fact New Jersey law, allows for the implantation of cloned embryos and allows them to be gestated for 9 months. The law requires that such a cloned fetus must be destroyed for research purposes before birth. So it is not out of the realm of possibility that such practices would result in "fetal farming" the creation of cloned embryos that are implanted, allowed to gestate and then aborted and harvested for research or therapeutic purposes. [Source: Consumer's Guide to the Brave New World by Wesley J. Smith]
I think the slippery slope here is pretty apparent.
3. SCNT needs eggs, lots of them. Egg donation is an invasive procedure that has some potentially serious side effects, including death. SCNT creates a demand for eggs, which puts women at risk of exploitation. Conservatives and liberals alike are opposed to SCNT for this reason alone.   We need only to look at the pressure applied to women researchers in Dr. Hwangs lab in South Korea to understand that such a demand for human eggs has dire implications. The proposed solutions to the egg dilemma are to take eggs from aborted fetuses, which creates a market for aborted girl babies, or use animal eggs, like those from cows or rabbits. I am not the only one that finds these alternatives unacceptable not only for ethical reasons but for patient safety as well.
The problem of the shortage of eggs makes SCNT an expensive proposition if used therapeutically. It would take millions of eggs to treat just the diabetics in the U.S. with "patient-specific" embryonic stem cells created with SCNT.    Researchers have trouble getting eggs for research let alone enough to treat millions of patients. On average women receives $2000-$4000 for less than a dozen eggs. The cost alone is prohibitive, so SCNT will probably never become a routine treatment, unless you have money.
4. Even if researchers could overcome the egg issue and successfully create a cloned embryo with SCNT and get the embryonic stem cells to differentiate properly and not cause tumors in the patient, there still is a possibility of rejection. Yes, rejection. It is a widespread misconception that SCNT creates an embryo that is an "exact genetic" copy of the patient. That is untrue. There is mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the mitochondria of the egg that is left behind when the nucleus is removed. When the somatic cell nucleus of the patient is inserted, a hybrid embryo is formed. It has the 46 chromosomes of the patient but the mtDNA of the woman who donated the egg. Because mtDNA does code for some proteins on the surface of the cell, there is the possibility that the mtDNA from the egg donor may cause rejection. David Prentice, in his book, Stem Cells and Cloning, writes, More importantly, for possible transplants, even though there are only 13 genes in human mitochondria, some of the proteins made from these genes do end up on the surface of the cell, where there is the possibility that they could trigger an immune response. The only case where this would not be a possibility is if a woman donated her own eggs for the SCNT process.
For all of the above reasons, I oppose SCNT. I instead would like to see money and effort put into discovering how to reprogram a patient's own adult stem cell back to a pluripotent state which would eliminate the need for cloning, eggs and would be the best way to ensure that rejection doesn't occur. Obviously, this mechanism has not yet been discovered, but then again SCNT in humans has also been unsuccessful to date.

For those who want to read more or are confused about some of the terminology, please see Cloning 101 and Therapeutic Cloning: Will it work? from www.MaryMeetsDolly.com

Wrongful birth and pre-natal genetic testing

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:09:18 -0800

I find "wrongful birth" lawsuits particularly disgusting. When I read about them I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness for the child and a rage at the parents. In case you are not aware, a "wrongful birth" lawsuit is where parents sue a doctor for not informing them that they had a "defective" child during pregnancy when they still had a chance to abort. Usually, there is genetic testing that fails to indicate a genetic disorder. The parents get a "defective" child and they sue for "wrongful birth" insisting that they love their "defective" child but had they known they would have killed it in utero instead.

This article from New Scientist describes a case of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis gone bad:

AT THE age of 4, Doreen Flynn's first daughter, Jordan, was diagnosed with Fanconi anaemia, a rare genetic blood disorder that leaves people underweight and with a 700-fold greater chance of developing cancer. It is unlikely that Jordan will live past her early twenties.
Flynn and her husband wanted to have more children, partly because a bone-marrow transplant from a healthy sibling would be Jordan's best shot at survival. They decided to undergo pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, an IVF technique designed to ensure only healthy embryos are implanted. A Detroit-based lab, Genesis Genetics Institute, isolated two apparently disease-free embryos that would be bone-marrow matches for Jordan and implanted them at a hospital in Atlanta in early 2003. Julia and Jorjia were born 34 weeks later. Both have Fanconi anaemia.

Here is another story from the same article:

In what many are calling a "wrongful birth lawsuit", the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the right of Helen and Richard Schirmer to sue their healthcare provider, the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, for returning the wrong results of a fetal genetic test to diagnose trisomy 22, a genetic defect that causes severe mental and physical retardation. Their son, Matthew, was born with the condition in 1997.

Here is another one from the New York Times.

Of course, this is heartbreaking for the children and families. But the public needs to understand that genetic testing is never perfect. There is always the possibility that there are mutations that genetic testing test cannot detect. Different assays have limitations. And just because someone has a mutation, does not necessarily mean that they will develop the disease. Many genetic disorders just don't work that way. This is why genetic counseling is so important. I like this quote from Dr. Hurlbut from the New York Times:

Bill Hurlbut, a Stanford professor and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, asserts that a lot of genetic testing is hyped. "Genes are not like Legos," he says, mocking the idea that the results of an amniocentisis, often delivered to parents as a neat picture of 23 chromosome pairs, can tell you who a child will be. "Our genes mix with whole societies of molecular interactions, including our environment. It's not just nature-nurture; it's cycles of momentum that get going. A lot of very sophisticated people believe there is a straight line from a gene to an expressed trait, and that is just wrong. We're going to regret we had this phrase, 'It's in our genetics."

So, I ask:

How far has the Culture of Death permeated our lives that it is okay for parents to sue saying that had they known better, they would have aborted their child? If a woman has a "right" to abortion, than do parents have a "right" to a "perfect" child? Can a disabled child be a "wrongful" birth? Should they ever be labeled as such?

I say no!

I particularly abhor the argument that says that I could not possibly judge these parents because I do not have a severely disabled baby.

I say every child has worth, no matter how disabled.

I say that mutations in our DNA do not makes us any less human, any less worthy of life and love.

It infuriates me that we will see more and more of these "wrongful birth" lawsuits. It breaks my heart to know the pain it will cause those who have disabilities when they see courts agree that those like them should have been aborted. And, it scares me to know that this is our future.

Cloned embryo is an unfertilized egg?

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:17:13 -0800

Jivin J and Wesley J. Smith have been all over the Alliance for Medical Research. The Alliance objective:

The Alliance for Medical Research objectives are to provide a non-biased, non-partisan education program and materials about the science of various medical research topics, including but not limited to Regenerative Medicine, which is designed for:
Members of the general public who may lack expertise in biomedical science, and
Public officials who may need clarification of biomedical and biotechnology concepts, definitions, and research and that may be introduced in state and/or federal legislation.

Non-biased education. Clarification of concepts. Really? Their pro-cloning, pro-embryo destructive research website is disgraceful, by anyone's standard. I needed only to look at their page on SCNT which states the following:

SCNT is a laboratory procedure in which the nucleus of an unfertilized donor egg is replaced with the patients own DNA from a somatic cell; a cell from the patients skin, heart, or muscle never a sperm cell. The unfertilized egg divides in a Petri dish to become a source of stem cells in vitro, which can be coaxed into becoming the type of cells needed to cure the patient.

According to the Alliance for Medical Research, the product of SCNT or therapeutic cloning is an "unfertilized egg" and that unfertilized egg divides to become a source of stem cells.

Huh. All this time I was under the impression that an unfertilized egg was an ovum, a haploid gamete cell. Haploid means that it only has 23 chromosomes. If an unfertilized egg is all stem cell researchers needed to make embryonic stem cells then why do they need to need to add the 46 chromosomes from a donor patient? Why even perform somatic cell nuclear transfer?

Why? Because they really need a cloned embryo to develop and make stem cells, not an "unfertilized egg". So I ask myself, are they just ignorant of basic biology, or are they trying to confuse the public?

I got my answer later on the page when they clearly describe an unfertilized egg having only 23 chromosomes and when they quote Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, of the Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA who states that a "cloned embryo" is formed during the cloning process.

Could it be that the Alliance for Medical Research realizes that if the public knew that the product of SCNT was a cloned embryo and not just any "unfertilized egg" they might hesitate to support such research? Could it be that they call a cloned embryo an "unfertilized egg" up front and then hide the "cloned embryo" part amongst scientific jargon about imprinting?

Could it be that this website isn't really about non-biased education and clarification of concepts?

Or they could just not know about SCNT. Either way, I would be embarrassed if I was the Alliance for Medical Research.

Discussion of Oryx and Crake

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:01:56 -0800

I have just finished Oryx and Crake a wonderful novel about genetic engineering by Margaret Atwood. It is one of the three books in the Women's Bioethics Project Book Club. I have already read and discussed Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go here.

Oryx and Crake was a great choice. It is gritty, well-written and full of imaginative genetically engineered creatures that are sure to send a shiver down your spine.

To point out what I thought was so interesting about Oryx and Crake, I am going to give away some of the plot, so if you want to read it without knowing how it ends, stop reading here.

This book if full of gems, but I especially liked the idea of the "BlyssPluss Pill". What is BlyssPluss? It is a pill designed by Crake, the species-splicing genius, to do three things at once. First, first it would "protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases." Second, it would provide "an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess" while "eliminating fellings of low self-worth." Third, it would "prolong youth."

But that is not all. From a conversation between Jimmy, the hero, and Crake:

These three capabilites would be the selling points, said Crake; but there would be a fourth, which would not be advertised. The BlyssPluss Pill would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all-birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level...
"So basically you're going to sterilize people without them knowing it under the guise of giving them the ultra in orgies?"
"That's a crude way of putting it, " said Crake.

Wow, the BlyssPluss pill sounds like a San Francisco liberal's dream. (I know because I lived there for much of my short life.) How could the Catholic message of the beauty of conjugal love and its procreative aspect ever compete with a BlyssPluss Pill?

There is just one catch. Without giving too much away, it is the BlyssPluss Pill, and components therein, that eradicates the human race.

Insightful and prophetic? I think so.

Rhythm method kills embryos?

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:43:11 -0700

From Science Daily:

The "rhythm method" may kill off more embryos than other contraceptive methods, such as coils, morning after pills, and oral contraceptives, suggests an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. The method relies on abstinence during the most fertile period of a woman's menstrual cycle. For a woman who has regular 28 day cycles, this is around days 10 to 17 of the cycle.
It is the only method of birth control condoned by the Catholic Church, because it doesn't interfere with conception, so allowing nature to take its course.
It is believed that the method works because it prevents conception from occurring. But says Professor Bovens, it may owe much of its success to the fact that embryos conceived on the fringes of the fertile period are less viable than those conceived towards the middle.
Is it not just as callous to organise your sex life to make it harder for a fertilised egg to survive, using this method, as it is to use the coil or the morning after pill, he asks?

Am I getting smarter or are supposedly smart people getting dumber? What has happened to fundamental education when so-called medical ethicists confuse the word "killing" with the word "dying." From Dictionary.com:

Kill: To put to death
Die: To cease living; become dead; expire

I suppose the distinction between "active" and "passive" is lost on these people. I am guessing that logic was not one of the courses in Prof. Bovens graduate curriculum. One more time:

It is the only method of birth control condoned by the Catholic Church, because it doesn't interfere with conception, so allowing nature to take its course.

Oldie but Goody: The Stem Cell Quiz

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:32:41 -0700

You know how some films stand the test of time even though they are old? Well in the fast paced world of biotechnology 3 years is an eternity. But this stem cell quiz is as fun now as it was then:

Can IVF affect your grandchildren and great grandchildren?

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:57:37 -0700

I have reported before that IVF embryos may be at risk for major disease later in life. Because IVF embryos are conceived in a laboratory, outside their natural environment, epigenetic changes can occur. Epigenetics is the study of how and why genes are turned on or off. Conception in a dish affects the genes that are turned on or off in an embryo. Studies have shown that IVF babies are as 3 to 9 times more likely to suffer from Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome, a disorder which can be caused by epigenetic changes. This UK Times Online article explains how IVF babies may be at risk for other diseases:

Scientists have discovered that the DNA of babies conceived through IVF differs from that of other children, putting them at greater risk of diseases such as diabetes and obesity later in life....

The changes are not in the genes themselves but in the mechanism that switches them on and off, the study of which is known as epigenetics.

These epigenetic differences have the potential to affect embryonic development and foetal growth, as well as influencing long-term patterns of gene expression associated with increased risk of many human diseases, said Professor Carmen Sapienza, a geneticist at Temple University in Philadelphia, who jointly led the research....

In their findings, published in the Human Molecular Genetics journal, Sapienza and his colleagues took blood samples from the placenta and umbilical cords of 10 IVF children and 13 children who were naturally conceived.

They studied the DNA of cells taken from the blood to see if there were differences in the level of methylation. This is the process by which molecules known as methyl groups are attached to genes to shut them down when they are not needed.

The results showed that the level of methylation in the cells taken from IVF babies was significantly lower implying that some genes were becoming active at the wrong times.

We have shown that in vitro conception is associated with differences in gene methylation and that some of these differences may affect gene expression, said Sapienza.

Evidence shows that IVF causes epigenetic changes. Most people assume that these changes are not inherited. Watching Ghost in Your Genes, a NOVA special on epigenetics, I realized that these epigenetic changes caused by IVF maybe inherited by subsequent generations.

Of course, we will not know for sure until IVF children age and have their own children, but evidence suggests that epigenetic changes are not wiped out in offspring but are inherited from one generation to the next. Mouse studies have shown that epigenetic changes in mice are inherited by the following generation. In the following video, Wolf Reik describes epigenetic changes in IVF embryos and his discovery that the epigenetic changes of his mice were inherited:

Further on in Ghost in Your Genes, scientists discuss how famine in grandparents affected the life span of grandchildren in a remote area of northern Sweden and how a single exposure of a pregnant rat to a toxin caused epigenetic changes that were seen 4 generations later.

The upshot? Conceiving your children in a dish may not just affect them, but your grandchildren and possibly your great-grandchildren as well.

For more information on epigenetics watch the entire Ghost in Your Genes special. Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 and Part 5.

Vatican puts its money where its mouth is

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:16:59 -0700

From New American:

The Vatican will help fund a research study into the potential use of adult stem cells to treat intestinal and possibly other diseases, officials announced April 23. The research study, now in a preliminary stage, is being carried out by a group of American and Italian scientists led by the University of Maryland's School of Medicine.

The university said that the Vatican had already agreed to donate 2 million euros ($2.7 million) for the project. Cardinal Renato Martino said the exact amount would be decided in future meetings.

The Vatican views adult stem-cell research as a viable alternative to embryonic stem-cell research. The Catholic Church is opposed to embryonic stem-cell research because, unlike adult stem-cell research, it involves the destruction of human life (embryos).

Cardinal Martino said the adult stem-cell research project enjoys Vatican support due to its respect for the life of the embryo. "This research protects life," the Cardinal asserted during a meeting with Italian and American scientists and health officials to outline the project. "I want to stress that it doesnt involve embryonic stem cells, where one helps oneself and then throws the embryo away and kills a human life."

Incarceration and forced sterilization in China

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:18:01 -0700

Lately it seems that some people are having a love affair with China's draconian policies. From Diane Francis who wrote the following in the Financial Post:

The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days....
China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet.

To Thomas Friedman who wrote this in the NY Times:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.

I am wondering if Francis and Friedman are referring to this story in the UK Times Online about China's "enlightened" "smart policy" that is incarcerating and forcibly sterilizing people for violating the one-child rule:

About 1,300 people are being held in cramped conditions in towns across Puning county, in Guangdong Province, as officials try to put pressure on couples who have illegal children to come forward for sterilisation.

The 20-day campaign, which was launched on April 7, aims to complete 9,559 sterilisations in Puning, which, with a population of 2.24 million, is the most populous county in the province.

A doctor in Daba village said that his team was working flat out, beginning sterilisations every day at 8am and working straight through until 4am the following day.
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Zhang Lizhao, 38, the father of two sons, aged 6 and 4, said that he rushed home late last night from buying loquats for his wholesale fruit business to undergo sterilisation after his elder brother was detained. His wife had already returned so that the brother would be freed.

Mr Zhang said: This morning my wife called me and said they were forcing her to be sterilised today. She pleaded with the clinic to wait because she has her period. But they would not wait a single day. I called and begged them but they said no. So I have rushed back. I am satisfied because I have two sons.

Thousands of others have refused to submit and officials are continuing to detain relatives, including elderly parents, to force them to submit to surgery. Those in detention are required to listen to lectures on the rules limiting the size of families.

If this is "smart" and "enlightened," I will take dumb and in the dark any day of the week.

What I found almost as disturbing as the article are the comments where people seem to think that forced sterilization, especially of the less worthy members of society, is not just morally acceptable, but a GOOD idea:

Good idea - we could do with some of that on a council estate near here....there are some families that have never worked, they have children who will never work and they breed like mice to enable the rest of us to keep them in the double council houses with free tax perks and the like -

Sounds like a good idea to me - 1st of all I would sterilise all of the people who want Gordon Brown to run another term as PM. If they cannot see that once the election is over he will be back to ignoring what the people who elected him want, taxing us to the hilt and wasting it on more social engineering, and breaking all manifesto pledges they are not intellegent enough, and under any other Darwinian society would not be fit to breed the next generation.

Whilst I cannot agree to the chinese approach on this issue, I must say that it should be applied to some in the UK. Those living off the state should be limited so the rest of us do not have to pay for their irresponsibility.

People should not have as many children as they want. That is selfish. You may not want the state to interfere but I'll bet that you want the state to pay. There has been one large familiy in the news recently who should be sterilised.

Hello!? Do we need to be reminded that the eugenics movement of the United States in the early 20th century that resulted in forced sterilizations of many Americans also lead to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany? Eugenics is back in vogue. Be careful what you wish for people because you just might get it.

Hat Tip: Jivin J

Adult stem cell therapy for HIV

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:47:04 -0700

From the AIDS Beacon:

Long touted as a potentially powerful weapon against HIV, stem cell therapy may be moving one step closer to reality. Researchers may soon begin using stem cell therapy in clinical trials for patients not responding to antiretroviral drugs (see related AIDS Beacon news)....

Meant for individuals no longer responding to the traditional regimen of antivirals, Berkhouts proposed stem cell therapy holds promise for long-term, effective results after a single treatment.

This therapy would offer an alternative for HIV-infected patients that can no longer be treated with regular antivirals, said Professor Berkhout in a press release. Instead, the patients own immune system would battle the virus....

To battle HIV, the proposed stem cell therapy involves harvesting the patients own stem cells from the bone marrow. After extracting the cells, doctors purify them, insert antiviral DNA into the cells, and reintroduce them back into the patient.

Once back inside the patient, the cells new antiviral DNA goes to work interfering with HIVs DNA and hindering the virus ability to reproduce itself.

If the therapy is successful, then the antiviral DNA is passed to every generation of immune cells born from the modified stem cells, which means only one treatment would be necessary....

Researchers are now seriously looking at stem cells as a potential avenue to a cure a way of freeing HIV patients from the burden of a lifetime of medications to manage the disease as a growing body of research is developing around this topic (see the related article in The Body).

Berkhouts research team hopes to begin clinical trials within three years. So far, very promising results have been obtained in the laboratory, and we are now testing the safety and efficacy in a pre-clinical mouse model, said Professor Berkhout.

Gene patents and the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:27:00 -0800

You are probably not aware that about 25% of all human genes are patented. What does that mean? It means that a company or university owns the genetic code that makes up that gene. They own genes that you have and use in your body everyday.

Patents have traditionally been awarded for inventions, so how patents can be awarded for a naturally occuring gene is beyond me. Michael Crichton, in his new book Next, likens the patenting of genes to the patenting of noses.

You may also not be aware that the patenting of your genes affects you directly. Taking Crichton's nose analogy, any company that makes anything that has to do with noses would have to pay a royalty to the company who owns the patent for noses. Which means any eyeglass manufacturer, or nasal spray makers would have to pay money to the owner of the patent on noses.

In the genetic arena, this means that if a company owns a gene, any other company that makes a drug that regulates the expression of that gene has to pay royalites. Sometimes the royalites are so high that some scientists won't do research on anything related to that gene.

In the case of genetic testing, my lab is limited on what genes we can offer tests for because of gene patents, which limits the choices we can offer patients. We also pay royalities to the companies that own the genes which drives up the cost of the genetic test.

Many people argue that without the patenting of genes, genetic research will come to a halt, because medical research companies will not longer be able to make money. I disagree, and so do many others like Michael Crichton. I have no problem with companies patenting a novel process to test a certain gene, or a way to alter a particular gene, but it makes no sense to be able to patent a gene that naturally occurs in my body or yours. From Crichton's opinion piece on gene patents:

You, or someone you love, may die because of a gene patent that should never have been granted in the first place. Sound farfetched? Unfortunately, it's only too real.
Gene patents are now used to halt research, prevent medical testing and keep vital information from you and your doctor. Gene patents slow the pace of medical advance on deadly diseases. And they raise costs exorbitantly: A test for breast cancer that could be done for $1,000 now costs $3,000.
Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does. Couldn't somebody make a cheaper test? Sure, but the patent holder blocks any competitor's test. He owns the gene. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you can't even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without permission. The gene may exist in your body, but it's now private property....
A gene's owner can in some instances also own the mutations of that gene, and these mutations can be markers for disease. Countries that don't have gene patents actually offer better gene testing than we do, because when multiple labs are allowed to do testing, more mutations are discovered, leading to higher-quality tests.
Apologists for gene patents argue that the issue is a tempest in a teapot, that patent licenses are available at minimal cost. That's simply untrue. The owner of the genome for Hepatitis C is paid millions by researchers to study this disease. Not surprisingly, many other researchers choose to study something less expensive.
But forget the costs: Why should people or companies own a disease in the first place? They didn't invent it. Yet today, more than 20 human pathogens are privately owned, including haemophilus influenza and Hepatitis C. And we've already mentioned that tests for the BRCA genes for breast cancer cost $3,000. Oh, one more thing: If you undergo the test, the company that owns the patent on the gene can keep your tissue and do research on it without asking your permission. Don't like it? Too bad.

I believe that I am interpreting the Catholic Church teaching correctly by saying that the Church would agree that is unethical to patent a naturally occuring gene. Patents can be awarded for inventions, like novel approaches to testing or manipulating the gene, but not for the gene itself.

Recently, U.S. lawmakers have introduced H.R. 3967, the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act. It states that it would:

amend title 35, United States Code, to provide for noninfringing uses of patents on genetic sequence information for purposes of research and genetic diagnostic testing, and to require public disclosure of such information in certain patent applications.

Like the Genetic Nondiscrimination Bill this legislation is one to watch. Patents on genes found in nature need to become a thing of the past.

Update on gene patents

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:58:00 -0700

Believe it or not there is one issue out there where the mainstream media and the Catholic Church do not collide. What is it? The granting of patents for naturally occurring human genes. You are probably not aware that about 25% of all human genes are patented. This means that a company or university owns the genetic code that makes up that gene. They own genes that you have and use in your body everyday.

You also may not be aware that the patenting of your genes affects you directly. Because a company legal "owns" a gene sequence, they control who is able to test that gene or research that gene. In the case of genetic testing, labs are limited on what genes they can offer tests for because of gene patents, which limits the choices they can offer patients. Labs that are allowed to test a patented gene pay royalties to the companies that own the genes which drives up the cost of the genetic test.

In the case of some genes like the breast cancer genes BRCA I and BRCA II, one company, Myriad, owns the gene and only Myriad offers the test for variations that signal a high risk of breast or ovarian cancer. This means that if a patient wants a second test run by another company to confirm the test result and test interpretation before they have radical surgery, they are out of luck. Many women simply cannot afford the $3000 test that could give them the information to save their life. And because of gene patents, they cannot go anywhere else.

The ACLU has taken on gene patents and it is suing Myriad and the US Trademark and Patent Office. Here is a clip from 60 Minutes on the progress of this lawsuit:

I believe that patenting naturally occurring gene sequences is unethical. It is hard to find official Church teaching on gene patents, but I did find this quote from John Paul II in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences:

The ability to establish the genetic map should not lead to reducing the subject to his genetic inheritance and to the alterations that can be made to it. In his mystery, man goes beyond the sum of his biological characteristics. He is a fundamental unit, in which the biological cannot be separated from the spiritual, family and social dimensions without incurring the serious risk of suppressing the person's very nature and making him a mere object of analysis. By his nature and uniqueness, the human person is the norm for all scientific research. "He is and he ought to be the beginning, the subject and the object..." of all research (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, n. 25).

On this subject, we rejoice that numerous researchers have refused to allow discoveries made about the genome to be patented. Since the human body is not an object that can be disposed of at will, the results of research should be made available to the whole scientific community and cannot be the property of a small group.

I believe that I am interpreting John Paull II correctly by saying that is unethical to patent a naturally occurring gene. Patents should be be awarded for inventions, like novel approaches to testing or manipulating the gene, but not for the gene itself.

Hat Tip: Biopolitical TImes

More reasons you might be aborted

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:20:07 -0700

Joe Carter at First Things has an excellent post titled Four Reasons You Might Be Aborted: An Open Letter to Fetal Humans. This clever piece advises fetuses against four things that might get them aborted:

To my fellow humans who are entering that most precarious stage of human development.

Let me begin by congratulating you on making it through the embryonic stage. Too many of our fellow humans dont even make it as far as you have now. Many died of natural causes. Others were cut down prior to implantation by an abortifacient. Still others are trapped in the freezers of IVF clinics, in suspended animation awaiting their fate.

You have made it to the second stage of life. But youre not out of the woods, as they say, until youre out of the womb. In America there are roughly 250 abortions for every 1000 live births, which means that you have (all other things being equal) a one in five chance of still being aborted. Here are four reasons you might be aborted and what you can do to avoid this gruesome fate.

#1. Dont be the unlucky third in series of IVF induced triplets

...To save money on in vitro fertilization, couples can implant several embryos at one time in order to increase the changes of pregnancy and reduce the cost of multiple procedures. Although it lowers the cost, it increases the chances of multiple pregnancies, which increase the risks to both mother and children. As the Washington Post noted several years ago, Carrying three babies to term would more than double the womans risk of developing the most severe diseases of pregnancy, such as preeclampsia. The average triplet is born two months premature, significantly raising the risk of disabilities such as cerebral palsy and of lifelong damage to the infants lungs, eyes, brain and other organs.

Unlike embryos, money cant be created in a Petri dish. Which is why it is less costly (in economic if not in human terms) to just kill you rather than pay for another round of IVF. They euphemistically refer to this as selective reduction your parents have selected to reduce your chances for survival to zero....

#2 Dont be anything other than chromosomally normal

May our Lord have mercy on your poor fetal soul if you have the misfortune to possess a chromosomal abnormality. Once you make it out of the womb you can be filled to the brim with bileindeed you can rape, pillage, plunder, and murderand youll have people defending your right to live. But right now if they measure the fluid behind your neck using a nuchal scan and discover you have too muchwell, youre as good as dead. Such a test reveals that you may have the unforgivable condition of Down syndrome....

#3 Dont be a girl
Speaking of chromosomes, be sure you have a Y chromosome to go along with the X. If you have the misfortune of being of the homogametic sex you have an increased risk of being killed. It may not be a concern if your parents are white, black, or Hispanic. But if youre parents are Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or Filipino you may be in trouble....

#4 Dont squint
Several years ago in England, doctors were given permission to create a baby free from a genetic disorder which would have caused the child to have a severe squint. According to the Daily Telegraph, the license was granted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to Prof Gedis Grudzinskas. The good professor said he would seek to screen for any genetic factor at all that would cause a family severe distress....

I would like to add to Joe Carter's list of what-not-to-do or-be as a fetus:

#5 Do not have cystic fibrosis.

Even though the average life expectancy of someone with CF is now 37.4 years old with many people living into their 40s and beyond (not to mention the possibility of improved treatment in the coming decades), many fetuses with CF are aborted. (I personally know a child with CF that has no symptoms of the disease.) Even so many parents of CF fetuses (including the aforementioned child) are pressured to abort. So if you are a fetus with CF watch out!

#6 Do not have a club foot, webbed fingers or toes, or cleft palate.

Even though these conditions are easily corrected with surgery, stories of later term abortions in England indicate that having any of these conditions puts your life in jeopardy.

#7 Do not have a genetic predisposition for adult onset disease.

There are genetic factors that put some people at risk for breast or colon cancer, even obesity. More and more fetuses are being aborted for a genetic predisposition to a disease they may not get until they are an adult and even then may have a cure by then. So even if you may never develop breast or colon cancer or become obese, you may still be aborted. Lori B. Andrews, a well-known reproductive rights lawyer, reports that one study has as many as 12% of parents reporting they would abort their fetus if they had a genetic predisposition to obesity.

#8 Do not get implanted in the wrong uterus.

If you started your life as an IVF embryo and you get implanted in a uterus other then your mom's, watch out. Last year a woman aborted another couple's last embryo when it was implanted into her uterus by mistake.

3 parent human embryos created in the UK

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:18:22 -0700

Previously, I blogged about 3 parent monkeys that were created to "cure" mitochondrial disease. I warned that there was a push to create 3 parent human embryos for the same purpose. Well less than a year later, scientists in the UK announced they have created human embryos with 3 genetic parents.

Why would scientists want to engineer an embryo with the genetic material from 3 people? To "prevent" the inheritance of mitochondrial disease. Not all of our DNA that we inherit is in the nuclei of the egg and sperm that join at conception. In the cytoplasm of our mother's egg are mitochondria. Mitochondria have their own DNA called mtDNA. We inherit our mtDNA only from our mother because sperm's mitochondria are dumped at conception. There are genetic mutations that cause disease in mtDNA and a woman with a such a mutation cannot help but pass this mutation on to her children.

This is where the three parent embryos come in. Here is how it works. Scientists took the nucleus out of an embryo had a mutation in its mtDNA and put it into an embryo whose mtDNA was normal, after removing the nucleus of that embryo of course. The result is one embryo with the nuclear DNA from its mother and father and the mtDNA from another embryo and its mother. Confused? Here is a simplified diagram that I made from the one in the Nature paper. (A zygote is the single celled embryo that results from conception.)

To make this work scientists destroyed one human embryo by removing its nuclear DNA and added the DNA from another human embryo to make a third recombinant embryo. And they did it 80 times creating 80 embryos with 3 genetic parents.

But to hear the media talk about it, this is no more than simple tinkering to prevent disease. From the BBC:

Embryos containing DNA from a man and two women have been created by scientists at Newcastle University. They say their research, published in the journal Nature, has the potential to help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children.

The aim is to prevent damaged DNA in mitochondria - the "batteries" which power the cell - from being passed on by the mother.

IVF clinics are not currently permitted to carry out the procedure.

Around one in 200 children is born each year with mutations in the mitochondrial DNA. In most cases this causes only mild disease, sometimes without symptoms. But around one in 6,500 children is born with mitochondrial disease, which can cause serious and often fatal conditions, including muscular weakness, blindness and heart failure.

The scientists have developed a technique which would potentially allow them to replace defective mitochondria during IVF. The research, funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, used newly fertilised eggs left over from IVF treatment.

The nuclei from the father's sperm and the mother's egg, which contain the parents' DNA, were removed, leaving behind the faulty mitochondria. The nuclei were put into another egg from which the nucleus had been removed, but which retained its mitochondria. This new embryo contained the genes from both parents plus a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA from the donor egg.

"What we've done is like changing the battery on a laptop," said lead author Professor Doug Turnbull. "The energy supply now works properly, but none of the information on the hard drive has been changed.

"A child born using this method would have correctly functioning mitochondria, but in every other respect would get all their genetic information from their father and mother."

There are some very important points to make here. First and foremost, these scientists ARE NOT manipulating EGGS. They are manipulating EMBRYOS which are whole members of the human species. This is human experimentation straight up that is being likened to "changing the battery in a laptop." I ask WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?

Second, this does not prevent the inheritance of mitochondrial disease. The embryos created have inherited the defective mitochondria. Their DNA is implanted in a different embryo that has normal mitochondria. So this technique doesn't cure mitochondrial disease. Much like PGD, it doesn't fix the disease, it simply makes sure no embryo with defective mitochondria are born.

Third, there is a ban in the UK on implanting engineered embryos. To use this technique to produce children in Britain, authorities would have to repeal the ban on implanting engineered embryos. You know those animal-human hybrid embryos created by cloning with cow and rabbit eggs that they promised would never, ever see the darkness of a womb.

Needless to say even though the intention of this technique is to produce a disease free child, the Catholic Church would find it morally wrong for many reasons. First, this technique requires the embryos to be made in a lab through in vitro fertilization instead of in a womb. Second, this technique essentially destroys two embryos creating a third that is a genetic hybrid. And finally, it is a genetic manipulation that would continue to be inherited generation after generation.

Hat Tip to David Prentice at the Family Research Council Blog who has some great analysis.

Alternative to abortion for a Down Syndrome diagnosis

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:38:58 -0700

It has been estimated that nearly 90% of all Down Syndrome babies are aborted. What many people do not know is that all over the country there are waiting lists to adopt Down Syndrome babies. For any woman or couple that has been faced with a Down Syndrome diagnosis for their baby, please watch this video and know that there are people who want to help.

video platform
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If you wish to adopt a Down Syndrome child or wish to give the gift of a Down Syndrome child to a waiting family, visit The National Adoption Awareness Program website or call 1-888-796-5504. Hat Tip: Sherry Tyree

A tribute to those who save millions of babies from Rh disease

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:47:00 -0700

This is a post to thank all of those who have donated their plasma to save babies from Rh disease. Without your plasma 3 of my children may have fallen victim to Rh disease. Who are these selfless angels? The men and women who have antibodies to the Rh factor that donate their plasma to make products like RhoGAM and the Anti-D vaccine.

What is Rh disease? It is a severe form of anemia that is caused by a mother's immune system attacking a fetus. We are all either Rh positive or Rh negative. Rh is a factor on our red blood cells. If you are Rh positive you have the factor. If you are Rh negative you do not. The problem comes when a Rh negative woman and an Rh positive man make an Rh positive child. During delivery, mom can be exposed to the baby's Rh positive blood. If this happens she will make antibodies against the Rh factor. While the first pregnancy with a Rh positive child is fine, any subsequent pregnancies with an Rh positive baby for a mother with Rh antibodies can be fatal to the baby. The mom's Rh antibodies find the Rh positive red blood cells of the baby and attack. This causes mild to severe anemia in the baby and can cause stillbirth.

Up until the Rh factor was discovered in 1937, millions of women would miscarry their second, third, fourth (and so on) pregnancies. But now that we know an injection of anti-Rh antibodies can prevent a woman from producing her own antibodies to Rh factor. This is the RhoGAM injection that Rh negative mothers like me get before and after birth to prevent our immune systems from becoming sensitized to the Rh factor.

Without RhoGAM and other anti-Rh injections, millions of babies may not have survived gestation. But where do the anti-Rh antibodies come from? They come from generous donation of plasma from Rh negative people who have been exposed to Rh positive blood. These people have the anti-Rh antibodies and donate their plasma to make products like RhoGAM.

Lately, the news has picked up on the heroes that donate their plasma. I want to highlight and thank them for their selfless donations. Some of these unsung heroes are women who developed Rh sensitivity and lost babies to stillbirth. They donate so other women never have to experience their loss. From The Daily Mail:

An Australian man who has been donating his extremely rare kind of blood for 56 years has saved the lives of more than two million babies.

James Harrison, 74, has an antibody in his plasma that stops babies dying from Rhesus disease, a form of severe anaemia.

He has enabled countless mothers to give birth to healthy babies, including his own daughter, Tracey, who had a healthy son thanks to her father's blood.

Mr Harrison has been giving blood every few weeks since he was 18 years old and has now racked up a total of 984 donations.

When he started donating, his blood was deemed so special his life was insured for one million Australian dollars.

And from USA Today:

Between them, Marilyn McCarthy and Elizabeth Pascoe may have saved tens of thousands of babies over the years....

McCarthy, 72, and Pascoe, 68, don't want other pregnant women to go through what they did to build their families. So for 25 years and 30 years, respectively, the women have traveled twice a week from their Buffalo homes to a nearby lab to donate plasma, the key ingredient for a product called RhoGAM.

Before RhoGAM's debut 40 years ago, nearly 10,000 U.S. babies died of HDN each year because their mothers were Rh-negative and they weren't. Four of those babies were McCarthy's.

McCarthy delivered her firstborn in 1956, her second in 1957. "Our first two were perfectly fine," McCarthy says. "Back then, we weren't aware of the problems with Rh. We just knew some babies had to be transfused after they were born."
But in 1959 and in 1961, after the drugs she had received in labor wore off, McCarthy awoke to hear her doctor tell her husband that their sons were stillborn, and a third son was stillborn in 1963. In 1965, her next child, a girl, survived after getting six blood transfusions while still in the womb and two more after birth....

After her daughter's birth, McCarthy shared a hospital room with another Rh-negative mother, Pascoe, and, McCarthy says, "we've been friends ever since."

Pascoe's first pregnancy was uneventful, but with her second, blood tests sounded an alarm in the sixth month. "Your body is attacking your baby," her doctor said, warning that she could lose the child. Says Pascoe: "I can't tell you what that did to me."

Apparently, RhoGAM contains enough Rh antibodies to trick the mother's immune system into not attacking her fetus's Rh-positive red blood cells. At first, plasma used to make RhoGAM came from women like McCarthy and Pascoe, whose blood contained Rh antibodies because they'd carried Rh-positive babies....

There's no way, however, to reproduce the personal connection that donors like McCarthy and Pascoe have. "I think we're all put on this Earth for a reason," Pascoe says, "and I think my reason is to give back."

Thank you to all who donate their plasma to help save babies from Rh disease. There are no words that I can use to express my gratitude. All I can do is post a picture of my beautiful children, some of whom are alive because of your generosity.

English Boy Gets New Trachea From His Own Stem Cells

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:28:52 -0700

From the BBC News:

A 10-year-old British boy has become the first child to undergo a windpipe transplant with an organ crafted from his own stem cells.

It is hoped that using the boy's own tissue in the nine-hour operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital will cut the risk of rejection.

The world's first tissue-engineered windpipe transplant was done in Spain in 2008 but with a shorter graft.

Doctors say the boy is doing well and breathing normally.

He has a rare condition called Long Segment Congenital Tracheal Stenosis, in which patients are born with an extremely narrow airway.

"It is the first time a child has received stem cell organ treatment, and it's the longest airway that has ever been replaced."
Professor Martin Birchall, University College London

At birth his airway was just one millimetre across.

Doctors had previously operated to expand his airway but in November last year he suffered complications from erosion of a metal stent in his windpipe or trachea.

In order to build him a new airway, doctors took a donor trachea, stripped it down to the collagen scaffolding, and then injected stem cells taken from his bone marrow.

The organ was then implanted in the boy and over the next month, doctors expect the stem cells to transform into specialised cells which form the inside and outside of the trachea.

What an achievement! But underneath is something else I want to point out. This technique was pioneered by an Italian researcher, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, who worked on this case and 2 others. From the University College London website:

Professor Macchiarini's seminal work, together with the UCL team, has now saved the life of two adults and one child. We have shown that stem cell-based treatments can save lives and can be used in the creation of living structures which draw upon the body's own natural healing mechanisms for their support.

"The step-wise progression in technique from first patient to the present has delivered a highly streamlined, rapid process. This means that such treatments potentially can be moved out of the hands of a tiny number of specialist centres into many hospitals around the world, including those in developing countries."

As in Germany, where Americans are going for adult stem cell treatments not available in the United States, research on embryos is prohibited in Italy. Is it simply coincidence that Dr. Macchiarini, who is saving lives now with adult stem cells, comes from a country that does not allow research on embryos? Possibly. But what if Italy did allow research on embryos? Would Dr. Macchiarini be putting all of his efforts instead on destroying early human life with no real clinical benefit in sight? Instead of using his considerable talents to wield adult stem cells and treat patients now, could he instead be playing with human life in a dish?

I cannot help but wonder how much farther ahead in treating patients with adult stem cells the U.S. would be if we did not allow our scientists to conduct research on human embryos.

New studies say that diversity training doesn't work

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:25:15 -0700

Why am I not surprised that programs that focus on our differences are not successful in training us to treat everyone the same. From The Boston Globe:

If you work at a large company, and especially if you manage other people, chances are youve gone through diversity training. The vast majority of the Fortune 500 and, by some estimates, the majority of American employers offer diversity training programs for their employees. Many make such training mandatory. The amount of money spent on it in the United States runs into the billions.

The courses vary widely, in content and duration and method and philosophy: Some are short videos followed by structured discussions, some are multiday retreats, some are informational, teaching participants about their diversity circle and the difference between a generalization and a stereotype, others focus on role-playing. But they all promise to help people better navigate the fault lines of race, gender, culture, class, and sexual orientation that can divide co-workers and unsettle offices.

Such programs have always been controversial, with critics arguing that theyre unnecessary and needlessly politicize the workplace. But despite the growth and prevalence of diversity training, there have been few attempts to systematically study it.

Now a few social scientists are taking a hard look at these programs, and, so far, what theyre finding is that theres little evidence that diversity training works. A paper published last year by the psychologist Elizabeth Levy Paluck of Princeton Universitys

Woodrow Wilson School and the Yale University political scientist Donald Green comprehensively surveyed the literature on prejudice reduction measures and found no empirical support for the idea that diversity training programs change attitudes or behavior. Similarly, a 2008 literature review paper by Carol Kulik of the University of South Australia and Loriann Roberson of Columbia University found that, on the question of changing behavior, there were few trustworthy studies - and decidedly mixed results among those. And research by a team of sociologists on more than 800 companies over three decades has found that the best diversity training programs make little difference in who gets hired and promoted, and many programs actually decrease the number of women and minorities in management.

The Universe is a Quantum Computer

nospam@example.com (Rebecca Taylor) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:34:35 -0700

From New Scientist:

The universe is a quantum computer

WHAT is the universe made of? Matter or energy? Particles or strings? According to physicist Vlatko Vedral's appealing new book, it is made, at bottom, of information.

In other words, if you break the universe into smaller and smaller pieces, the smallest pieces are, in fact, bits.

With this theme in mind, Vedral embarks on an exuberant romp through physics, biology, philosophy, religion and even personal finance. By turns irreverent, erudite and funny, Decoding Reality is - by the standard of books that require their readers to know what a logarithm is - a ripping good read.
A bit is the tiniest unit of information. It represents the distinction between two possibilities: yes or no, true or false, zero or one. The word "bit" also refers to the physical system representing that information: in your computer's hard drive, for example, a bit is registered by a minuscule magnet whose north pole can point up or down....

In Decoding Reality, Vedral argues that we should regard the entire universe as a gigantic quantum computer. Wacky as that may sound, it is backed up by hard science. The laws of physics show that it is not only possible for electrons to store and flip bits: it is mandatory. For more than a decade, quantum-information scientists have been working to determine just how the universe processes information at the most microscopic scale.

So the universe is a computer, but no scientist can mention the possibility that this computer was designed in anyway because that would be "unscientific." Crazy.