LIFE DIGEST: Obama stem cell order ‘soon,’ adviser says
- Feb 16, 2009 - 1
President Obama’s promised executive order to lift the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) likely is near, a senior adviser said Feb. 15.
“We’re going to be doing something on that soon, I think. The president is considering that right now,” David Axelrod said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Obama guaranteed Democratic lawmakers Feb. 5 he would reverse the prohibition instituted by President Bush but did not give a timetable for the action. He also endorsed congressional action, saying a legislative measure was needed to prevent a future president from reversing the policy again.
That presidential promise was disappointing but not surprising, since Obama had endorsed rescinding the ban during last year’s election campaign, said Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
A reversal by Obama will force people “who find such research both barbaric and repugnant to subsidize it with their tax money,” Land wrote in a Feb. 11 commentary.
“Reduced to its basics, killing the tiniest human beings in their embryonic stage of development for the possible medical benefits of older and more developed human beings is quite simply high-tech cannibalism,” Land said.
Bush issued an executive order in August 2001 barring the use of federal funds in stem cell research that results in the destruction of human embryos. Extracting stem cells from an embryo destroys the donor. Congress twice approved legislation to overturn Bush’s policy, but the president vetoed both bills. Efforts to override the vetoes failed.
Stem cells are the body’s master cells that can develop into other cells and tissues, providing hope for the development of cures for a variety of diseases and other ailments.
Not only is ESCR lethal for the non-voluntary donor, but embryonic stem cells have yet to provide treatments for any diseases in human beings. They also have been plagued by the development of tumors in lab animals.
Unlike research using embryos, extracting stem cells from non-embryonic sources – such as umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat and bone marrow – does not harm donors and has nearly universal support. Such research has produced treatments for at least 73 human ailments, according to Do No Harm, a coalition promoting ethics in research.
Fifteen months ago, scientists in Japan and Wisconsin reported they had found a way of converting non-embryonic stem cells into cells that have nearly the identical properties of embryonic ones. Promising research using those induced pluripotent stem cells continues.
Bishop: Catholic hospitals will not comply or close if FOCA enacted
Roman Catholic hospitals will neither permit abortions to be performed in their facilities nor close their doors if the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) becomes law, a bishop said recently.
Robert Lynch, bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Petersburg, Fla., made those assertions after a meeting of the Catholic Health Association (CHA). Writing on his weblog Feb. 6, Lynch said the CHA reaffirmed several actions, including:
- If the federal government enacts legislation requiring health-care facilities to perform abortions, “we will not comply even if our actions constitute civil disobedience.”
- “No Catholic institution or employee of an institution can or will be made to violate the dictates of their conscience resulting from federal or state legislative or executive action.”
- “Even in the worst case scenario, Catholic hospitals will not close. We won’t comply but we will not close.”
Some Catholic leaders had said their hospitals may have to close to avoid a mandate to do abortions, according to news reports. Lynch, said, however, “Idle threats about the certain closing of Catholic hospitals if certain things happen are simply that – ‘idle.’”
FOCA, which President Obama has endorsed, would overturn all restrictions on abortion and abortion funding at all government levels, both pro-life and abortion-rights advocates have said. The measure has yet to be introduced in this Congress.
The Missouri House of Representatives approved Feb. 11 a non-binding resolution calling on Obama and Congress not to support FOCA. The House passed the measure with a 116-40 vote.
Italian woman died of cardiac arrest, autopsy shows
An autopsy showed Eluana Englaro died of cardiac arrest brought on by dehydration produced by the removal of her feeding tube.
Englaro, 38, a severely impaired Italian woman, died Feb. 9, three days after she was cut off from nutrition.
Englaro, who had been in a coma since a 1992 auto accident, was at the center of an international debate between pro-life and right-to-die advocates. Her father, Beppino Englaro, had been attempting to have food and water withheld from her so that she might die. While he had the backing of right-to-die activists, pro-lifers opposed the efforts because of their contention food and water are not extraordinary medical measures for someone who is not terminally ill.
A Vatican official defended the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to Englaro’s death by starvation and expressed concerns about public opinion polls on the issue.
In the latest polls, “we can see that the 18-25 age bracket asked for the death of Eluana, while the older the age, the more people were in favor of allowing her to live,” said Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, according to Adnkronos International. “This should ring some alarm bells.”
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued an emergency order Feb. 6 for doctors to resume feeding her, but President Giorgio Napolitano overturned it, saying it was unconstitutional, according to Reuters News Service.
Korean court affirms feeding tube’s removal
A South Korean appeals court has upheld a barrier-breaking decision to permit a family to have a member removed from a feeding tube and ventilator.
If the South Korean Supreme Court affirms the ruling, the result will be the country’s first such legal “mercy killing,” according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news service.
The appeal court’s Feb. 10 opinion endorsed a lower court’s December ruling permitting the removal of a feeding tube and ventilator from a 76-year-old woman who was declared brain dead a year ago, AFP reported. Her children requested she be taken off such sustenance, but the hospital refused.
The hospital said it would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, according to AFP.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Life, Abortion, End-of-Life Issues, Stem-Cell Research, Science, Bioethics
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comments
1 On Feb 19th, 2009, at 11:06pm, James E Reeves wrote:
Tom, I was glad to see the Pope take an interest in his professing believer Nancy Pelosi by open rebuke according to the validity of scripture. The problem with having no opinion when it comes to politicians(persons) is a vision of reclaiming the sinner (person) from the evil of their ways.
I think if someone of the caliber like Richard Land is would step out and rebuke the greed of political power and money by personally calling names out as churchmen to remind them of their moral duty, it would go far to restore confidence in the clergy of America and the Republic for which they claim to stand for.
Your brother,
James