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NRL News
Pro-Life News in Brief Heart Repaired by Adult Stem Cells A man with severe cardiac disease walked out of Osaka University Hospital in Japan after receiving treatment with stem cells taken from his own body, according to Yomiuri Shimbun. The unidentified patient, who had been waiting for a heart transplant, now has a normally functioning heart and is expected to live a normal life. “The treatment can be a good alternative to heart transplants,” Yoshiki Sawa, director of the Medical Center for Translational Research at the hospital, told Yomiuri. In March 2007, the medical team took a small amount of tissue from the patient’s thigh and obtained myoblast cells, which build muscle. They grew the cells into thin sheets, and two months later wrapped the man’s heart with three layers of the sheets, Yomiuri reported. The man’s heart began to rapidly recover. Doctors removed his pacemaker only 98 days after he received the cultivated stem cells, and on December 20 he left the hospital with a fully functioning heart. “The myoblast sheets were not transformed into heart muscle, but they apparently released substances that assist the functioning of weakened heart muscles,” Sawa told the newspaper. “We’d like to conduct further research on the treatment so we can apply the method to other cardiac diseases and to some children’s conditions.” Study Finds Serious Gender Imbalance in India Joining other Asian countries, India is facing a severe imbalance in the ratio of boys and girls. A study conducted by Action Aid and the International Development Research Centre found the largest imbalance in the state of Punjab, where there are only 527 girls for every 1,000 boys, according to Indian Express. The average ratio in the rest of the world is about 105 boys to 100 girls. “People are now planning for families with sons and preferably without daughters,” the report said, according to Xinhua news agency. “In certain social groups, more than one son is less welcome. All this, to prevent property division and huge investment in education.” Indians continue the traditional practice of giving a large dowry to the groom’s family when their daughters get married, which puts a financial strain on the girl’s parents, Xinhua reported. Many Indian families maintain their preference for boys through abortion despite laws against killing unborn children because of their gender, Catholic World News reported. Abortion on demand is legal in India, and women can easily circumvent the ban to abort girls. Doctors’ Group Seeks to Limit Conscientious Objection to Abortion The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) released a committee opinion in November that calls for limits on the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to abortion. The statement by ACOG’s Committee on Ethics makes several recommendations that would force health care workers to refer or assist in abortion despite their moral objections. Health care professionals “have a duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers if they do not feel that they can in conscience provide the standard reproductive services that they patients request,” the committee wrote. In addition, in an “emergency in which referral is not possible or might negatively affect a patient’s physical or mental health,” health care workers must provide the “requested care regardless of the provider’s personal moral objections.” Pro-life doctors condemned the statement, asserting that it “suggests a profound misunderstanding of the nature and exercise of conscience, an underlying bias against persons of faith and an apparent attempt to disenfranchise physicians who oppose ACOG’s political activism on abortion,” the Christian Medical Association said in a statement. “Many physicians had been realizing that because of their aggressive abortion lobbying, ACOG officials do not represent the values of most physicians and mainstream medicine,” said the association’s CEO David Stevens, M.D. “This statement goes a step beyond not representing our life-affirming values to actually advocating policies to prevent us from exercising those values. “ACOG’s attitude seems to be, ‘If you don’t toe the ACOG line on abortion, the “morning-after pill,” and the application of reproductive technology, then you shouldn’t be practicing obstetrics—and if you do, we’re going to do everything in our power to force you to accommodate our abortion agenda.’” Family Objects to Life Support Removal The family of 84-year-old Samuel Golubchuk is fighting a court battle to prevent doctors at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, from removing his life support. A judge issued a temporary injunction in November to keep Golubchuk alive until he renders a decision, according to the National Post. “As an orthodox Jew, it is our belief that life is paramount and one should do everything possible to maintain life and sustain it, as it is a sin to do anything to hasten death,” Samuel Golubchuk’s son Percy said in a court document, the Post reported. Golubchuk has been at Grace Hospital since October 26. He had pneumonia and an antibiotic-resistant infection, according to the Globe and Mail. Doctors placed him on a ventilator to help him breathe. Contending that he has minimal brain function, hospital officials sought court approval to remove the ventilator despite the serious objections of Golubchuk’s family. According to the Globe and Mail, the hospital’s attorney “argued that patients do not have the right to demand treatment, nor do they have a right to demand the continuation of treatment.” Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Perry Schulman heard arguments from both sides December 11, and has not yet announced his decision, Canadian Press reported. |