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A Friday Potpourri --
Part One
of Two
Editor's note.
I'd like to hear from you at
daveandrusko@hotmail.com.
Today's edition will be a traditional potpourri Friday.
There's a little bit of this and a little bit of that, hopefully making for
an interesting end-of-the-week blend.
First, those of you who watched the Republican presidential debate on Fox
News last night saw a spirited exchange. The back-and-forth illustrated the
candidates' style and their grasp of substance. Without taking anything away
from anyone else, NRLC-endorsed pro-life former Senator Fred Thompson was at
the time of his game. His was a very impressive performance.
Second, today the influential publication Human Events endorsed Sen.
Thompson for president. The editors cited a number of issues, but they had
this to say about abortion:
"On the issues that
matter most to conservatives, Sen. Thompson's positions benefit from their
clarity. He is solidly pro-life. He said that he was in favor overturning
Roe v. Wade because it was 'bad law and bad medical science.' As the
National Right to Life Committee said in its endorsement of him Nov. 13,
2007, 'The majority of this country is opposed to the vast majority of
abortions, and Fred Thompson has shown in his consistent pro-life voting
record in the U.S. Senate that he is part of the pro-life majority.'"
Third, I would like to thank all of you who took the time to write to me
with comments about several recent editions. For example, I'm delighted to
learn that my thoughts on the movie Juno prompted a number of readers
to see the film. [http://nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Jan08/nv010708.html]
As one woman wrote, "We saw Juno last night ….it was great. It spoke in a
language teens can relate to, as well showing through humor how even an
'immature teen' can be selfless when it come to protecting her baby. Thanks
for letting us know about this gem."
Fourth, and finally, you may have read about a "new" stem cell technique.
The Washington Post today reported that "Scientists in Massachusetts
said yesterday that they had created several colonies of human embryonic
stem cells without harming the embryos." Rick Weiss describes this as "the
latest in a series of advances that could speed development of
stem-cell-based treatments for a variety of diseases."
However, the difference between this and what we read about last November is
huge. As we reported at length here and in National Right to Life News,
teams of scientists in Japan and Wisconsin
were
able to coax ordinary skin cells to revert back to being embryonic stem
cells. No human embryos were destroyed in the process.
According to Weiss, "The
new technique involves carefully removing a single cell from a newly formed
eight-cell embryo and coaxing that cell to divide repeatedly until it forms
a self-replenishing colony of embryonic stem cells."
But although the
lead in Weiss's story might lead you to believe otherwise, in fact only
80-85% of the embryos survived the initial procedure of plucking off one of
the eight cells. And it impossible to know whether the survivors who were
grown a few days to the blastocyst stage were unharmed.
The "fundamental
ethical issue remains," Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public
Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University told Weiss--"namely, how to prove
that the approach is inherently harmless."
As far back as
1996
Congress banned federal funding of harmful experimentation on
living human embryos. More specifically, under
the
Dickey-Wicker amendment, federal funding is barred if there
is "risk of injury or death" to the embryo.
Have a great weekend. We'll
talk to you Monday.
If you have comments, please
write Dave Andrusko at
daveandrusko@hotmail.com
Part Two |
