LIFE DIGEST: Abortion, stem cell groups urge Obama action
- Nov 11, 2008 - comment
Supporters of abortion rights and destructive human embryo research already are calling on President-elect Barack Obama to repeal pro-life initiatives.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the country’s No. 1 abortion provider, urged Obama to reinstitute funding for a United Nations organization the Bush administration has determined is supportive of China’s coercive population control program. Meanwhile, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) called on the President-elect to rescind within his first 100 days in office President Bush’s ban on federal funding of destructive embryonic stem cell research.
In a fundraising email, PPFA President Cecile Richards told donors, “Just think, the massive amount of time, energy, and resources that the Planned Parenthood community had to spend shielding women and teens from the harm caused by the Bush administration can now be directed to expanding women’s access to [abortion],” LifeNews.com reported.
Her organization needs to urge Obama “to act on his deep commitment to women’s health and reproductive freedom by reversing the global gag rule, restoring funding for” the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Richards wrote.
It is expected Obama, who has supported unlimited abortion rights in his state and federal legislative career, will allow funding for UNFPA.
During the last seven years, the Bush administration has withheld a total of nearly $235 million designated for UNFPA by Congress. The State Department determined a grant to the organization would violate a 1985 law that prohibits family planning money from going to any entity that, as decided by the President, “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
A State Department investigation in 2002 found the UNFPA provided computers and vehicles to Chinese population control offices. China has practiced a forced family planning program for nearly three decades in an attempt to curb the birth rate in the world’s most populous country. The policy limits couples in urban areas to one child and those in rural areas to two, if the first is a girl. Penalties for violations of the policy have included fines, arrests and the destruction of homes, as well as forced abortion and sterilization. Infanticide, especially of females, also has been reported.
The federal government has not funded stem cell research that results in the destruction of embryos since August 2001, when Bush announced a ban on such grants.
“Throughout his campaign, Obama has supported stem cell research,” ISSCR said in a Nov. 6 written statement. “We now encourage him to ensure that scientists in the United States can use federal grant funds to study the many valuable human embryonic stem cell lines that have been developed” since Bush announced the ban.
It is expected Obama will permit federal funds for destructive embryonic stem cell research.
During the seven years since Bush initiated the prohibition on federal funding of such experimentation, privately funded research with embryonic stem cells has continued to demonstrate flaws, while safe, non-embryonic research has produced remarkable results. Pro-life bioethicists have praised Bush not only for protecting young human life but for helping stimulate research that is both safe and effective.
Embryonic stem cells have yet to treat any diseases in human beings and have been plagued by the development of tumors in lab animals. Extracting stem cells from embryos destroys the tiny human beings.
Meanwhile, research using stem cells from non-embryonic sources – such as umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat and bone marrow – has produced treatments for at least 73 human ailments, according to Do No Harm, a coalition promoting ethics in research.
Pro-lifers lose on initiatives in five states
Election Day proved disappointing for pro-life advocates in five states. Pro-lifers failed to carry the day on every initiative before the voters Nov. 4.
The results were:
— California voters defeated by 52-48 percent an initiative to require parental notification for girls under 18 years of age before they can have an abortion.
— Colorado turned back by a 73-27 percent margin a constitutional amendment to protect all human beings “from the moment of fertilization.”
— Michigan voters approved by 53-47 percent a constitutional amendment permitting embryonic stem cell research.
— South Dakota defeated in a 55-45 vote a measure to ban abortions, except in the cases of a threat to the mother’s life, a “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of the functioning of a major bodily organ or system,” rape or incest.
— Washington voted 59-41 percent to legalize physician-assisted suicide.
Washington health system to resist assisted suicide
Part of the Washington state medical community has signaled its refusal to take part in the physician-assisted suicide regime enacted by voters in the Nov. 4 election.
The 59-41 percent approval of Initiative 1000 made Washington only the second state to legalize assisted suicide. The practice became legal in Oregon in 1997. Legalized assisted suicide enables doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs for a patient but not to administer them.
Providence Health and Services announced Nov. 5 it would not permit doctors to aid patients seeking to commit suicide in its hospitals, nursing homes and assisted care centers, according to The Spokane Spokesman-Review. Providence, a Roman Catholic facility, is the largest hospital system in Eastern Washington.
“This position is grounded in our basic values of respect for the sacredness of life, compassionate care of dying and vulnerable persons, and respect for the integrity of medical, nursing and allied health professions,” according to a Providence statement. “We do not believe health care providers should ever be put in a position of aiding a patient in taking his or her own life.”
Bioethics specialist Wesley Smith described the resistance as an important development.
“Medical professionals must resist turning killing (which means to end life) into a medical treatment,” Smith wrote on his weblog. “None can be forced (yet) to participate. Such modeling may save lives of people who . . . will never ask for assisted suicide. And it will give courage to others to resist the culture of death that this way comes.”
The American Medical Association opposed Initiative 1000.
Swiss non-terminal assisted suicides increase
Increasingly, assisted suicides in Switzerland are being performed for people who are not terminally ill, according to a new study.
Research was performed that contrasted the reasons given for 421 assisted suicides from 2001 to 2004 and those given for 149 assisted suicides from 1990 to 2000, Reuters News Service reported.
The research showed 78 percent of the assisted suicides from 1990 to 2000 were for terminal illnesses. Those were performed with the aid of Exit, an assisted-suicide organization.
Of the 2001-2004 assisted suicides, 67 percent done with Exit’s help were for terminal illnesses, while 79 of those aided by Dignitas, another assisted suicide group, were for people with fatal afflictions, according to Reuters.
Researchers with the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences said many of those seeking assisted suicides in Switzerland had chronic and other illnesses that were not life threatening.
“Being tired of life and in very poor health are becoming more frequent reasons to seek help to commit suicide than in the past,” said Susanne Fischer, a coauthor of the study, Reuters reported.
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Further Learning
Learn more about: Life, Abortion, Stem-Cell Research