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NRL News
Pro-Life
News in Brief Abortion Legalized in Victoria, Australia Despite strong opposition from pro-lifers, the state Parliament in Victoria, Australia, legalized abortion on demand in the first six months of pregnancy October 10. Australian abortion law differs from state to state, and Victoria now has the most liberal of them all, according to The Age. “It is a betrayal of our shared humanity, a betrayal of women, a betrayal of the innocent unborn child that we would ease the way to the destruction of 20,000 unborn children annually,” said Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, according to AAP. “For the time being the battle is lost in the legislature. But not in the hearts and minds of good people.” The bill allows abortion on demand up to 24 weeks; allows abortion up to birth after the abortionist and another doctor consider “all relevant medical circumstances” and “the woman’s current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances”; and allows pharmacists and nurses to prescribe abortion-causing drugs. In addition, the bill requires all health care workers who object to abortion to refer a woman seeking one “to another registered health practitioner in the same regulated health profession who the practitioner knows does not have a conscientious objection to abortion.” This directly violates the policies of Catholic hospitals, which refuse to perform or refer for abortions and will continue to do so despite the law’s provisions. “As I have indicated, Catholic hospitals will continue to provide medical services in a way consistent with Catholic teaching and code of ethics,” Hart said. The lower House passed the Abortion Law Reform Bill September 11 by 49–32, and the upper House followed suit October 10 on a 23–17 vote, according to The Age. The upper House voted after a long and contentious debate, in which 10 amendments were rejected that would have removed the abortion referral clause, AAP reported. Australian pro-lifers insisted they will continue to fight for the right to life. “This debate is by no means over,” said Pro-Life Victoria president Denise Cameron, according to the Herald Sun. “I think in the cold light of day when the politicians leave the rarefied atmosphere of parliament's house, they will wake up to what they've actually done.” Australian Officials Reject Residency for Family of Boy with Down Syndrome A German family who moved to Australia in response to a call for doctors in rural areas may not be granted permanent resident status after immigration officials said 13-year-old Lukas Moeller’s Down syndrome would cost the state too much money, according to AAP. “The [medical officer of the Commonwealth] has assessed that a hypothetical person with the same level and form of condition in Australia [as Lukas] is likely to result in costs to the Australian community that are significant,” an Immigration Department spokesman told AAP. “It is estimated that this would be several hundred thousand dollars [over his lifetime].” Lukas’s father, Dr. Bernhard Moeller, has practiced internal medicine in the small bush town of Horsham, Victoria, for the past three years, according to the Associated Press. Dr. Moeller, his wife Isabella, 21-year-old daughter Sarah, 17-year-old son Felix, and Lukas applied for permanent residency. The Moellers denied that Lukas’s care would cost an extravagant amount of taxpayer money, insisting that “we are absolutely able to support him and I don’t want him to rely on any government pension anyway,” Dr. Moeller told the Associated Press. “He’s well looked after. And actually he can contribute to the community here. He already is contributing to it.” The Moellers are appealing the decision, and are being supported by people across Australia, including Victoria Premier John Brumby, the Herald Sun reported. However, according to the newspaper, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said he cannot “intervene in the appeals process.” “What does it say about a country that measures the worth of its citizens in terms of financial productivity or deficit?” freelance writer Anne Gleeson wrote in The Age. “I would like to believe that the public fury expressed at this decision shows how ‘un-Australian’ such a measure is. A different measure of the worth of a community is determined by how it treats its more vulnerable citizens.” Swiss Groups Assist Suicides of Non-Terminally Ill A study released November 4 found that between 21–33% of suicides assisted by Swiss groups Dignitas and Exit are by people who do not have terminal illnesses, according to Reuters. “Being tired of life and in very poor health are becoming more frequent reasons to seek help to commit suicide than in the past,” study co-author Susanne Fischer told Reuters. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Switzerland’s permissive laws allow people to kill themselves in an assisted suicide if a doctor is consulted and the motive is not “sinister,” The Guardian reported. The researchers studied 421 suicides between 2001 and 2004. They found that only 79% of people killed with assistance from Dignitas and 67% from Exit were terminally ill, according to Reuters. Exit’s percentage decreased markedly from statistics in 1999–2000 that showed 78% of suicides assisted by Exit had terminal illnesses. Reaction from Exit’s officials seemed to confirm that terminal illnesses—often accepted by the public as the only legitimate reason for assisted suicide—were not the criteria for death. “We help only people with fatal diseases or who are very seriously ill,” Bernhard Sutter of Exit told Reuters. “For the last 12 years, the number suffering from fatal diseases has always been the same, between 65 and 75 percent. The rest, maybe a third or less, are very ill.” New Law Helps Parents of Babies with Down Syndrome Parents who receive diagnoses that their unborn children have Down syndrome or other conditions now have the right to receive up-to-date, comprehensive information about prognosis, support services, and adoption. Pro-life President George W. Bush signed the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act into law October 8. “President Bush signed into law a bill that will help an untold number of expecting parents who learn that their unborn child may be born with a disability,” co-sponsor Sen. Sam Brownback said in a statement. “This is a great victory for the culture of life we should all seek to promote. Currently, 90 percent of children prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. That number is much too high and suggests that we as a society are not doing everything we can to protect every human life, at every stage.” The bill also calls for the establishment of a national registry for parents who want to adopt babies with conditions such as Down syndrome, spina bifida, or cystic fibrosis, according to the Associated Press. Current registries are small and are not known to most parents who receive such diagnoses. Many parents report that doctors present a Down syndrome diagnosis with regret and the immediate assumption that an abortion will follow, according to both anecdotal accounts and two studies published in 2005. “The majority of the parents said that the information they got from their physicians was inaccurate, incomplete and sometimes insensitive,” study author Brian Skotko, a physician with Children’s Hospital of Boston, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It was in no way consistent with the advancements and possibilities and support that we’ve seen.” Parents of adopted children with Down syndrome report a love and fulfillment that counters doctors’ negative prognoses, even if the kids may face unique health problems. A family profiled in the Washington Post has adopted four children with the syndrome, including one boy from Taiwan whose birth parents sought better care for their son. Mark Li and Carol Lai, the birth parents of Justin who was adopted by Barbara and Tripp Curtis of Bluemont, Virginia, visited their son recently and were thrilled by his progress and the love and care he receives from the Curtises. “It gives me peace of mind to know Justin is doing pretty well,” Li told the Post. “He is learning. He is growing. It helps me sleep better at night.” Chemicals Used to Reprogram Adult Stem Cells The search for ethical alternatives to embryonic stem cells, touted for their ability to change into many different cell types, came closer to fruition recently, according to a report in the November 6 issue of Cell Stem Cell. Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute reported that they used chemicals to change mouse brain cells into pluripotent ones, which have the versatility of embryonic cells without destroying human life. “I think this is a very important study because it indicates that we are getting closer to being able to make stemlike cells from adult cells without the need for genes or viruses that could produce tumors or other dangerous cells,” Evan Snyder, head of the stem cell program at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, told the San Diego Union Tribune. Previous attempts to manipulate particular genes that control cell development used other genes and viruses that reprogrammed adult cells into embryonic-like ones but led to dangerous side effects. The Scripps team used chemicals called “small molecules” to act like the reprogramming genes and make the cells pluripotent, according to the Union Tribune. “Our study shows for the first time that somatic or general cell types can be reprogrammed with only two genes and small molecules, and that these small molecules can replace one of the two most essential reprogramming genes,” researcher Sheng Ding told UPI. “In this case, we replaced the SOX2 gene, which had previously always been regarded as absolutely essential for the reprogramming process.” Researchers are expected to continue working with different chemicals to see which works best, and they hope to make quick progress, the Union Tribune reported. “This paper will simply be the first, I am sure, of many over the next one, two years that will begin to crack this puzzle,” Snyder told the newspaper. Umbilical Cord Cells Grow New Heart Valves Umbilical cord blood cells harvested from newborn babies can be used to create new heart valves that could replace defective valves in the babies, according to a report given at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in New Orleans November 10. “In our concept, if prenatal testing shows a heart defect, you could collect blood from the umbilical cord at birth, harvest the stem cells, and fabricate a heart valve that is ready when the baby needs it,” Dr. Ralf Sodian of University Hospital of Munich told Press Association News. Although use in humans is still at least five years away, Sodian and colleagues reported that their early research has been very promising. Retrieving donated umbilical cord cells (harvested without any danger to the newborn babies), they grew the cells in culture for 12 weeks, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. They then put the cells onto biodegradable “scaffolds” in the shape of heart valves and watched through electron microscopes as the cells formed a tissue layer. Future treatment would allow these newly formed valves to be implanted and to replace defective ones in the babies. Eventually, the scaffold would harmlessly degrade, leaving the valve to continue working, the Times-Picayune reported. Major benefits to this approach are that the cells would continue to grow along with the child and that there will be no immune system rejection because the cells are harvested from the child’s own cord blood. Currently, doctors replace unhealthy heart valves with donated human or animal valves, or use artificially made ones. However, these valves do not grow, meaning that the children face several surgeries throughout their childhood as larger valves are implanted, according to Press Association News. “Tissue engineering provides the prospect of an ideal heart valve substitute that lasts throughout the patient’s lifetime and has the potential to grow with the recipient and to change shape as needed,” Sodian added. Baby Born to Chinese Woman in Coma Tang Yulu, a 29-year-old woman from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China, gave birth to a healthy baby boy November 5, six months after she fell into a coma as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage, Modern Life Daily reported. Tang has been in a coma since April 26. She occasionally cries or winks, but is unresponsive, according to the newspaper. The family initially talked about having the baby aborted, but realized that it would be against Tang’s wishes. “She started crying in bed when we discussed the abortion in the ward,” her mother Xiong Shaolian told Modern Life Daily. “We know she wanted to have the baby so we opted against the abortion.” Tang’s husband, Lu Bin, has been caring for his wife and unborn baby, waking up at 5 a.m. to wash her and brush her teeth and feeding them special soups, the newspaper reported. The baby was born by Caesarean section November 5, underweight but healthy, according to Modern Life Daily. |