LIFE DIGEST: Obama tells pope he will reduce abortions
- Jul 14, 2009
President Obama told Pope Benedict July 10 he is committed to reducing the number of abortions in the United States, though his policies so far have done little to support that assertion.
Bioethics and life issues such as abortion were a significant part of the conversation when Obama met with the pope privately for about 40 minutes at the Vatican, Reuters News Service reported.
“Obama told the pope of his commitment to reduce the number of abortions and of his attention and respect for the positions of the Catholic Church,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters, according to Reuters.
Also in this edition: Congressional panels back abortion funding, Final stem cell guidelines problematic, pro-lifers say and Sperm reportedly created from embryonic stem cells.
A written statement from the Vatican said the discussion between the two men included “the defense and promotion of life and the right to abide by one’s conscience.”
The pope gave Obama a copy of a recent Vatican publication that explains the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to such practices as embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, Reuters reported.
“We know that [abortion] is a crucial theme for the pope,” Lombardi said. “There is no need to hide it. [Giving him the document] was an attempt to be clear. It was not polemical.”
Obama has talked about reducing the need for abortion and has made that a responsibility of the restructured White House faith-based office, but he has yet to endorse the Pregnant Women Support Act. That bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Lincoln Davis of Tennessee and Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, takes a multi-faceted approach to reducing abortions by seeking to provide those in crisis pregnancies with information on their unborn child and their options, as well as to offer various forms of assistance.
The president also has reversed some significant pro-life policies, such as bans on funds for both destructive embryonic stem cell research and organizations that perform and promote abortions overseas. In addition, Obama backs congressional expansion of abortion funding, including for the District of Columbia.
Congressional panels back abortion funding
Congressional committees voted July 7 and 9 to bolster federal funding of abortion and abortion-promoting organizations.
LifeNews.com reported the following actions:
- The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 15-13 July 9 against an amendment that would have restored a ban on federal and local funds for abortions in the District of Columbia. President Obama’s budget called for a repeal of the Dornan Amendment’s prohibition on funding abortions. Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., introduced the amendment.
- The House Appropriations Committee voted 33-26 July 7 to defeat a similar amendment. Reps. Lincoln Davis, D.-Tenn., and Todd Tiahrt, R.-Kan., led the unsuccessful amendment effort.
- The Senate Appropriations Committee also voted 17-11 July 9 in favor of an amendment to write into law the repeal of a ban on U.S. funding of organizations that perform or promote abortions. Obama already had overturned the prohibition, which is known as the Mexico City Policy, by executive order.
After the Senate panel’s votes, Brownback criticized both actions.
“Over 41 percent of pregnancies in D.C. end in abortion which is the highest rate in the nation by a long shot,” he said in a written statement. “That’s why I am outraged. . . . The last thing we need in D.C. is more abortions.
“On top of that, we are running over a trillion dollar per year deficit and now the Democrat majority wants U.S. taxpayer money to pay for abortions in foreign countries,” Brownback said. “This is ridiculous and offensive.”
Final stem cell guidelines problematic, pro-lifers say
The Obama administration released July 6 final guidelines on federal funding of stem cell research that destroys embryos.
The regulations, which closely follow a draft version issued in April, limit grants to experiments with cells from embryos produced by in vitro fertilization and donated by couples who no longer want them. The guidelines allow funds not only for destructive embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) opposed by most pro-life advocates but for studies using adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, two types of cells that have shown much promise without harm to a donor.
ESCR is fatal for the less-than-one-week-old human being, because the extraction of stem cells results in the embryo’s destruction.
Of the 49,000 comments received by the National Institutes of Health after the draft guidelines were released, about 30,000 expressed opposition to federal funding, Baptist Press reported
Pro-lifers saw problems with the guidelines’ failure to require the fertility doctor and the embryonic stem cell researcher be different people, according to BP. A researcher who also serves as a fertility doctor can be expected to have an incentive for more embryos in the lab, pro-lifers said. They contended a researcher/doctor might lead infertile couples to create far more embryos than needed as a result.
Sperm reportedly created from embryonic stem cells
Scientists in Great Britain announced July 8 they have created sperm from embryonic stem cells, establishing the possibility a baby could be produced without a male being involved in the process.
The research by a team of scientists at Newcastle University is ethically problematic in a variety of ways, according to Baptist Press. It could involve: (1) The destruction of a human embryo; (2) human cloning, and (3) the exclusion of men from reproduction. For example, a lesbian couple could have a baby physiologically related to both of them — one of them would provide the egg and the other one a sperm created from a cloned embryo. It could also create a scenario in which a woman has a baby using an egg and sperm that are both biologically hers.
“Human embryos are being destroyed for ‘proof of concept.’ That is, just to see if it can be done,” said C. Ben Mitchell, a consultant for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., according to BP. “The sacrifice of living members of our species on the altar of theoretical science is not something we should countenance. It is pre-modern barbarism dressed in white lab coats.”
The work of researchers at Newcastle University, which was described in the journal Stem Cells and Development, was questioned by some scientists, who said the cells had some of the qualities of sperm but would not function as sperm, BP reported.
If refined, the method could be utilized in the next 10 years for fertility treatments, scientists said, according to BP.
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, Cloning, Infertility, Stem-Cell Research, Science, Bioethics