NRL News
Page 6
June 2007
Volume 34
Issue 6

Pro-Life News in Brief
By Liz Townsend

Adult Stem Cells Show Promise in Diabetes Treatment

Researchers taking two different approaches to the treatment of diabetes demonstrated that adult stem cells may successfully cure the disease. Diabetes occurs when the immune system destroys cells that produce insulin, which is needed to regulate blood sugar, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In one study, published April 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 15 patients recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes received stem cells harvested from their own bodies. Doctors at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil obtained the stem cells, then destroyed the patients’ faulty immune systems. The cells were then re-injected, helping to establish a new, disease-free immune system, the Times reported.

The treatment was successful in 13 of the 15 patients. They haven’t needed insulin injections since, with one patient being injection-free for three years, according to the Times.

“It’s the first time in the history of Type 1 diabetes where people have gone with no treatment whatsoever ... no medications at all, with normal blood sugars,” study co-author Dr. Richard Burt of Northwestern University’s medical school in Chicago told the Associated Press.

Since the patient group was small, wider study is still needed. The researchers also need to continue to follow the progress of the patients, since it is unknown if the success will continue in the long term.

The second study, published in the June issue of Cell Proliferation, showed that umbilical cord stem cells can be turned into insulin-producing cells. “This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes,” senior author Dr. Randall J. Urban of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston said in a press release.

This research is at a very basic stage, and the cells are not ready to be tested on humans yet. “It doesn’t prove that we’re going to be able to do this in people,” Urban added, “it’s just the first step up the rung of the ladder.”

Chinese Riot after Officials Brutally Enforce “One-Child” Policy

Thousands of Chinese in the southern region of Guangxi rioted May 18-19 after local officials forced women to have abortions and imposed punishing fines on parents who had more than one child, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Teams of officials came through villages the previous week to enforce China’s “family planning” policy limiting parents to only one child. If families with several children could not pay the equivalent of thousands of dollars in fines, the officials ransacked their homes and took their belongings, AFP reported.

Even more brutal, the officials forced women pregnant with their second child to have abortions, and sterilized others.

“A woman working in the sugarcane fields got caught and was told to get her tubes tied, even though her husband had already been sterilized,” a 50-year-old teacher surnamed Peng told the Los Angeles Times. “Another woman I know was six months pregnant. But they forced her to have an abortion because it was her second child and she already had a son. She was so sad she cried for a long time.”

The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, reported that 3,000 people rioted, with 28 arrested for instigating the protests. Other news reports put the number of rioters at 50,000, according to AFP.

“The farmers are weeping day by day as this tragedy has unfolded—all the people here are living under a cloud of terrorism,” Nong Sheng, a resident of Dukang township, told AFP. “We not only have no human rights, but they have taken away our right of survival and our property rights.”

Xinhua reported that in the wake of the riots the government sent teams of officials to 28 towns to “deal with their complaints.”

NAF Demands All Canadian Doctors Refer for Abortions

Criticizing the Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA) policy of allowing doctors to conscientiously refuse to refer women for abortions, National Abortion Federation president Vicki Saporta demanded in a May 9 letter that the CMA force doctors to make abortion referrals or remove them from the public health care system.

“A physician's religious and moral beliefs should not jeopardize a patient's access to needed care,” Saporta wrote. “If doctors do not wish to refer and inform patients about their comprehensive medical options, including abortion care, then they should not participate in the public system.”

CMA officials deny that the policy is unethical or endangers women. “The CMA’s policy on induced abortion does not violate our Code of Ethics,” CMA president Dr. Colin McMillan said in a statement. “Nor does it treat women unfairly or impede their access to critical health care.”

For the CMA to change its policy, there would have to be “a groundswell from the membership one way or another, a legislative review of the issue by the government or a significant decrease in access to abortions,” CMA ethics officer Dr. Jeff Blackmer told the National Post.

But while some abortion advocates argue that access is declining since “only” 15.9% of Canadian hospitals perform abortions, abortion on demand is still the law in Canada, with the government-run health care system covering it among its “benefits.”

“Now is not the time for us to be weakening the conscience protection for health care workers with the huge changes we are facing with technological capabilities,” Dr. Williard Johnston, president of Canadian Physicians for Life, said in a press release.

“Now is the time to be strengthening conscience protections so that people who find themselves uncomfortable with procedures should have their rights protected.”

California Embryonic Stem Cell Research Agency Will Issue Bonds

After the state Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling approving the program, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine will begin to issue bonds to fund embryonic stem cell research in the state.

“I’m really sad that California taxpayers are going to be funding experimental research when there’s been great strides made in adult stem cell research,” Dana Cody, attorney for groups opposing the embryonic stem cell research institute, told the Associated Press (AP).

The institute was created after voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004 pledging $3 billion for embryo-destructive research over the next 10 years. Pro-life and taxpayer groups soon filed lawsuits objecting to the process used to get the proposition on the ballot and the fact that an independent agency has oversight of billions of state dollars, the AP reported.

Because it could not issue bonds until the suits were resolved, the institute borrowed millions of dollars in order to begin the grant process. So far, $158 million in grants has been awarded for embryonic stem cell research, according to the Sacramento Bee.

The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled February 26 that the program is constitutional, and the state Supreme Court let that decision stand May 16. As a result, the state will issue its first bonds in July or August, and the proceeds of that first sale will be used first to repay the loans and then to fund more grants, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Clinic Licensed to Create Designer Baby

A British government agency issued a license to a London clinic to produce a baby without a genetically inherited squint. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) authorized the clinic to “create” the baby for a London man and his wife, screening embryos to avoid the father’s squint, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The baby would be conceived by in vitro fertilization. If testing shows that the unborn child may have visual problems, the baby would be aborted and another embryo would be implanted, according to the Daily Mail.

HFEA previously allowed screening only for genes that inevitably lead to incurable diseases, but relaxed its rules last year to include genes that may cause disease either at birth or later in life, the Daily Mail reported.

This is the first license to screen babies for a cosmetic defect. HFEA granted the license to Gedis Grudzinskas of the Bridge Centre family clinic, who told the Telegraph, “We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions.”

The squint, called congenital fibrosis of the extramacular muscles, causes the “eyes only to look downwards or sideways,” according to the Telegraph. The potential baby’s father has undergone six operations since his childhood to alleviate the condition, the newspaper reported.

However, Grudzinskas made it clear that creating a designer baby for a cosmetic condition that may require surgery is only the first step. “If there is a cosmetic aspect to an individual case I would assess it on its merits,” he told the Telegraph. “[Hair colour] can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it. If a parent suffered from asthma, and it was possible to detect the genetic factor for this, I would do it. It all depends on the family’s distress.”

Many in Britain expressed deep concern about destroying children for cosmetic reasons. “Philosophers love to deride the idea of a slippery slope, but here it is in practice,” said Dr. David King of Human Genetics Alert, according to the Daily Mail. “We moved from preventing children who will die young to those who might become ill in middle-age. Now we discard those who will live as long as the rest of us but are cosmetically imperfect.”

More Britons Traveling to Switzerland to Die

Thirty-four Britons traveled to Switzerland to commit suicide with the help of pro-euthanasia group Dignitas in 2006, almost three times more than in each of the previous three years, the Independent reported.

While euthanasia advocates used the data to call for British law to allow assisted suicide, pro-life groups instead emphasized the need for better pain management and treatment.

“The emphasis should be on caring, healing and on a truly dignified end to life for all of us,” said Paul Danon of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. “It is profoundly undignified to have one’s death hastened either by one’s own hand or with the help of another person, whether one is in Switzerland or anywhere else.”

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland as long as those helping the person to die are not acting out of self-interest. Once they determine that the person seeking to die has not been “unduly influenced by others,” Dignitas staff give the person a lethal dose of barbiturates, the Independent reported.

Dignitas, headquartered in Zurich, has “assisted” in the suicides of British citizens since at least January 2003, when 74-year-old Reginald Crew died, according to the Independent. Since then, 76 Britons have died there.

West Virginia Abortion Numbers Drop

Statistics released in May by the state health department show that the number of abortions in West Virginia dropped by 14% between 2004 and 2005. The total declined from 1,945 to 1,674, according to the Charleston Gazette.

“We’re pleased to see the numbers dropping, and our Women’s Right to Know law working,” Melissa Adkins, executive director of West Virginians for Life, told NRL News. “But abortion remains the leading cause of death for children in West Virginia, and the third leading cause of death overall. We still have work to do.”

The Bureau of Public Health released abortion numbers for the first time since a 2006 law was passed requiring them to be included in the annual report of vital state statistics, the Gazette reported.

Pro-lifers supported the law, to make public the truth about abortion in the state. “The information equips us to address the needs of women facing crisis pregnancies,” Adkins said. “It also helps us gauge how effective our legislative and educational efforts are. We can better track abortions that occur now, so we can try to lower the abortion rate by addressing the reasons women have abortions.”

Court to Review Mexico City Abortion Law

The Mexican Supreme Court agreed May 29 to review a law that legalized abortion on demand in Mexico City. The Attorney General's Office and National Human Rights Commission filed challenges to the law, which they contend violates the country’s constitutional right to life, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Mexico City legislators passed the pro-abortion law April 24. As of May 30, 230 unborn babies have been killed by abortion in the federal district, the AP reported.

In its brief to the Supreme Court, the human rights commission cited several objections to the law, according to the Miami Herald: “the local law oversteps its authority, enacting health legislation that is within the sole realm of federal authorities”; there is “legal uncertainty regarding minors seeking abortions,” since Mexican law does not consider those under 18 to have “legal capacity,” but the abortion law makes no provision for parental consent; and there is confusion about the right of doctors to conscientiously refuse to perform abortions.

Pro-life groups are urging doctors to opt out of abortion, and so far, 94 doctors have publicly agreed, according to the Los Angeles Times. But doctors are worried that the government may coerce them into becoming abortionists.

Mexican National Pro-Life Committee president Jorge Serrano Limon told Catholic News Agency (CNA) about the pressure felt by doctors at Balbuena Hospital, which so far has not opened its doors to the abortion trade. “They are concerned because they are being pressured against their will to perform abortions,” Serrano Limon told CNA, “and they are afraid of losing their jobs and that, in refusing to perform an abortion, they might be isolated from the medical community. This is a hospital in favor of human life, and [Mexico City governor] Marcelo Ebrard is pressuring them.”

The Supreme Court has not yet announced a hearing date.

Pregnant College Athletes Face Abortion or Scholarship Loss

College athletes who discover they are pregnant report that they are faced with a choice: either abort their babies or lose their scholarships. In response, officials of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCA) said they will review guidelines on pregnancy at an upcoming meeting, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Seven female athletes from Clemson University told ESPN that the fear they would lose their scholarships was a major factor in their abortion decisions.

Only a very few colleges have a written policy on pregnancy and female athletes. While current NCAA guidelines allow athletes to receive an extra year of eligibility if they take time off for a pregnancy, colleges are not required to continue scholarships.

“It’s an underground topic,” soccer star Julie Foudy, who reported on the issue in a special ESPN program, told USA Today. “There’s not much out there on this, no studies or surveys. School administrators often just don’t know. It’s not talked about, so you can see why women would assume they’d lose their scholarships.”

University of Memphis student Cassandra Harding told the AP that all athletes were required to sign a document that states that scholarships can be canceled in case of pregnancy. When she discovered she was pregnant in 2004, she seriously considered abortion so she could remain in school, but instead chose life.

Although she lost her scholarship, Harding gave birth to her daughter in July 2005, worked several jobs to pay for the next year of school, and then rejoined the track team as a walk-on. Harding now has a partial scholarship while she finishes her senior year.

“I shouldn’t have been put in that position,” she told the AP. “I’m so happy I have my baby.”

The NCAA committee on women’s athletics will discuss the issue in its July meeting, according to the AP. “We want to act judiciously here,” committee chair Janet Kittell said. “I don’t think it calls for emergency legislation, but I think it calls for a thorough discussion and thoughtful response.”