Editor's note. Please send your thoughts and comments on any or all of the three parts of TN&V to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Usually I end a week with a potpourri of items. This week I will start with two stories I had intended to get to last week but didn't. But before I forget, thank you to those who responded so positively to Megan McCrum's fine article about the NRLC Academy which ran Friday. The deadline to apply for the six-week summer training course for pro-life college students is March 27. [www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Feb09/nv022009.html]

Whatever ones position on using stem cells lethally extracted from human embryos, there is one undeniable biological obstacle built in: fetal cells are (as Scientific American points out) "designed to proliferate and give rise to new tissue, which means they have the potential to produce tumors."

Last week PloS Medicine published an article online, "Donor-Derived Brain Tumor Following Neural Stem Cell Transplantation in an Ataxia Telangiectasia Patient." Translated into English it means that a now 16-year-old Israeli boy developed a brain tumor after "fetal stem cell therapy."

You have to read carefully to realize this is not what it commonly thought of when the debate over embryonic stem cell therapy is engaged. Intended to address a rare, fatal genetic disease, the tissue came from the brains of at least two aborted babies which was injected into the young man's brain and spinal cord.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the young man's parents took him to an unknown Moscow clinic a total of three times, at ages 9, 10, and 12. At age 13, an MRI scan revealed he had tumors is several parts of the brain and spinal cord. They were removed in 2006.

What was interesting, and encouraging, was how enthusiastic Scientific American was about the work of a neurologist at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston who has "just begun enrolling patients in a study on treating adult stroke victims with their own--adult--stem cells."

Last week I wrote about "The Critical Importance of Being Vigilant," in the context of preserving our right to free speech. Ironically, later in the same day my brother sent me a story about police in Oklahoma who had pulled a man over and confiscated a sign which read, "Abort Obama, not the unborn."

Chip Harrison said the officer, who had followed him for several miles, told him the reason he was pulled over was the sign which the officer had misinterpreted as a threat against President Obama, according to a story from the McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Harrison said he told the officer he disagreed with the President's position on abortion. "Harrison said his sign was to be interpreted as saying something like: Remove Obama from office, not unborn babies from the womb."

The sign was confiscated and he was given "a slip of paper that stated he was part of an investigation." That was just for starters. The Secret Service called Harrison and said they were at his house.

Harrison said that after walking through his house and interviewing Harrison and his wife for 30 minutes, they left, "not finding any evidence Harrison was a threat to the President."

Capt. Steve McCool, a spokesman for Oklahoma City Police Department, said the officer who pulled over Harrison misinterpreted the sign. ''We had an officer that his interpretation of the sign was different than what was meant," McCool said.

"You've got an officer who had a different thought on what the word 'abort' meant."

Part Two: "A Proposal With Something to Irritate Everyone."
Part Three: "Making Information Technology Work for You and Unborn Babies."