October 14, 2014

Washington Post editorial hypes embryonic stem cells again, caught up in latest “big payoff”

Felicia Pagliuca, Ph.D.Well, you have to give the Washington Post’s editorial lauding the supposedly now-realized “potential” of embryonic stem cells, this much: they did spell the most prominent author’s name correctly. After that, not so much.

Last Thursday Dr. David Prentice explained what a group of Harvard researchers, led by Dr. Douglas Melton, actually found, as opposed to the reckless hyperbole cranked out by in-house media at Harvard and sympathetic outlets, like the Washington Post. We’ll weave his insights into our rebuttal of some of the many misrepresentations of what the Post labeled a “big payoff” in treating Type I (juvenile) diabetes.

It is true, as the Post writes, that Melton et al. “painstakingly exposed stem cells to various chemicals until they figured out which ingredients to use and in which order, finally inducing undifferentiated stem cells to become beta cells, which specialize in detecting rises in blood sugar and releasing insulin in response.”

However, as Dr. Prentice explained, there was only an incremental improvement in producing these insulin-producing cells–what Melton’s team called SC-ß cells. They produced batches of these cells from both “human embryonic stem cells (hESC, which require the destruction of a young human being) and from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC, the stem cells created from normal skin cells, without using embryos),” Prentice wrote.

Now besides not even acknowledging that there were sources other than embryonic stem cells, the clear implication of the editorial is the results from stem cells from human embryos were superior. Not so.
Dr. David Prentice
“The results were equivalent no matter the starting cell type,” Dr. Prentice explained. “So for any future production of SC-ß cells, the authors have shown that no embryonic stem cells are necessary” (my emphasis).

The Post editorial, of course, took its obligatory shot at former President George W. Bush.

After the Harvard team reported its findings in the journal Cell, its leader, Doug Melton, pointedly thanked the philanthropists who donated to his project. The George W. Bush administration, he noted, had ruled out federal funding for embryonic stem cell research except on a few lines of cells that were already in use. The Obama administration correctly reversed that policy shortly after coming to office.

Just so we’re clear. As columnist Charles Krauthammer explained back in 2009 when Obama reversed the Bush policy, seven and a half-years before President Bush had delivered a national address on embryonic stem cells that was scrupulously fair, giving the best case for both proponents of their use and opponents. (This, by the way, was during a period of time when the hyperbole about what embryonic stem cells could supposedly do was everywhere. Opponents were depicted as heartless zealots.)

President Bush “restricted” federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001),” Krauthammer wrote.
By contrast Obama’s address was unserious, unreflective, and showed total unawareness of where (in Krauthammer’s words) the “protean power of embryonic manipulation” could take us.

Finally, the Post concludes,

“Embryonic stem cells have been the ‘gold standard’ in research to date, lead study author Felicia Pagliuca explained. Scientists haven’t established that non-embryonic stem cells are as useful. ‘We don’t know what we don’t know’ about them, she said. Until they do, it is crucial that scientists preserve the flexibility to explore the huge potential of stem cell research.”

I’ll take the Post at its word that Pagliuca said (presumably to the Post), “We don’t know what we don’t know’ about them,” referring to non-embryonic stem cells; I couldn’t find that comment anywhere other than in the Post editorial.

Then there is the sentence that came before Pagliuca’s quote, which is presumably either a paraphrase of the thinking behind her quote or the Post’s own conclusion: “Scientists haven’t established that non-embryonic stem cells are as useful.” Let’s deconstruct that.

First, as the Post concedes in its opening paragraph, before the study results reported in “Cell,” while proponents have fallen all over themselves touting the great “potential” of embryonic stem cells, “[U]ntil now the scientists didn’t have many big payoffs to tout.”

But as we noted above, lost in the shuffle (as Dr. Prentice pointed out) is that Melton et al. had used bothhuman embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells. The results were equivalent no matter the starting cell type,” Dr. Prentice wrote. “So for any future production of SC-ß cells, the authors have shown that no embryonic stem cells are necessary.”

In combination with Dr. Pagliuca’s quote, this glaring omission in the Post editorial also implies that there have been no successes using human induced pluripotent stem cells. That simply isn’t true. 

Finally, the “gold standard” idiom. There are two problems.

I do not pretend to be a scientist, but I am familiar enough with Dr. Prentice’s work to know that the real “gold standard” is the capability to stop the underlying cause of Type I diabetes–your immune system attacking the insulin-secreting cells. This would allow for the regeneration of insulin-secreting beta cells by the normal pancreas.

As Dr. Prentice explained last week, the promise to date in this field is the use of adult stem cells, for example cord blood-derived adult stem cells.

In the meanwhile, the science is not just about dealing with diabetes, juvenile or adult. If we are talking about what is helping patients around the world now, the real gold standard among stem cells is neither embryonic stem cells nor human induced pluripotent stem cells. It is adult stem cells, isolated from many different tissues, including bone marrow, blood, muscle, fat, and umbilical cord blood.

As Dr. Prentice explained in an article written for NRL News, these cells come from a patient or a healthy donor and does not require harming or destroying the adult stem cell donor. “Over 60,000 people around the globe are treated each year with adult stem cells, because adult stem cells have a proven record at saving lives and improving health.”

You get my point. Too bad the Post—which is deeply invested in the hype over embryonic stem cells—couldn’t wait to pull the trigger.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News Today

Bioethics Push Poll to Allow Killing for Organs

Wesley SmithTo donate vital organs, a donor must be dead.

This is known as the “dead donor rule, I have been warning that utilitarian bioethicists and transplant medical professionals want to shatter the DDR to permit killing living, living profoundly cognitively disabled patients for their organs.

Now, we see what appears to me to be a push poll type question in a study measuring popular support for such a change in the law.

A push poll seeks to obtain a desired answer by the way the question is framed. Here is the question from “Abandoning the Dead Donor Rule?” in the Journal of Medical Ethics:

Jason has been in a very bad car accident. He suffered a severe head injury and is now in the hospital. As a result of the injury, Jason is completely unconscious.
He cannot hear or feel anything, cannot remember or think about anything, he is not aware of anything, and his condition is irreversible. Jason will never wake up.

As we have seen in recent stories of awake and aware patients diagnosed in a persistent vegetative state–and perhaps, the Jahi McMath brain death case–this question sets up a false premise. Few, if any, cases are this clear cut, this sure. Indeed, the more we learn about the brain and consciousness, the less we know–as demonstrated by the proven brain interactivity in some patients thought to be completely unaware.

Thus, it seems to me that the question was posed in this unrealistic way to obtain a desired result of allowing the harvest.

Back to the question:

He also cannot breathe without mechanical support, but is on a breathing machine that keeps his lungs working. Without the machine, Jason’s heart and all other organs would stop within minutes. Although he will never wake up and cannot breathe without the support of the machine, Jason is still biologically alive.
In such scenarios, a patient can already be a donor by having life support removed, and IF–it doesn’t always happen as expected–he goes into cardiac arrest, be declared dead a few minutes later and obtain organs.

But that important fact isn’t mentioned in the question posed:

Before the injury, Jason wanted to be an organ donor. The organs will function best if they are removed while Jason’s heart is still beating and while he is still on the breathing machine. If the organs are removed while Jason is still on the machine, he would die from the removal of organs (in other words, the surgery would cause Jason’s biological death).

The question then asks how many people think that would be okay, and based on the push poll nature of the question, obtain a majority support for killing for organs.

Moreover, were the dead donor rule be killed, the patients harvested would not be limited to the relatively few cases such as described above.

Polling is like statistics, you can make them say anything.

By Wesley J. Smith via NRL News Today
Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog.

October 13, 2014

Stop Suicide Advocacy to Halt Suicide Epidemic


We are in the midst of a “suicide epidemic.” Yet, rather than look at causes, many commenters go shallow to focus on methods.

For example, most suicides are by gun. Thus, at Real Clear Science, Alex B. Berezow advocates gun control. From, “To End Suicide Epidemic, Make Guns Harder to Get:”
A sensible policy to lower the suicide rate in America would be to make gun ownership more difficult. But given our current political climate, that idea is almost certainly dead in the water.
Please. The country is awash in guns. Absent a total confiscation, making guns more difficult to buy–whatever the worth of such a policy–won’t materially impact suicide rates.

Let’s connect some dots: The problem isn’t means, but culture. Media, popular entertainment, and societal decadence are making suicide increasingly acceptable. More, I believe that we are fast becoming a pro suicide culture

Think not? Look at the media tripping over themselves to extol Brittany Maynard! I mean, good grief, she has become an international celebrity–not for anything she has done in life but because she is young and pretty and has announced plans to commit assisted suicide!

Look at the terms used ubiquitously to describe her plan: “Courageous;” “in control;” “on her own terms,” “the only reason to oppose is religious,” etc..

You can’t applaud one person’s planned suicide and then tut-tut about other suicides. It won’t resonate.

And look what is not being said in her case: “Suicide prevention;” “medical care can preserve quality of life,” “suicide is wrong,”etc..

The suicide virus is catching, particularly when the media make it glamorous and turn a suicidal woman into a heroine.

If we want to reduce suicide, we need a societal milieu in which it is a distinctly disfavored action–not for some, but for all. 

Absent that, we had better get used to high suicide rates–both of those approved of by the zeitgeist, and those which all still find appalling.

October 12, 2014

Couple celebrates brief life of baby born with anencephaly, gave him a lifetime of memories –his “bucket list”–before he was born

Priceless hours with son ... Jenna Healy with Shane. His every move inside her womb was followed by more than 794,800 people on Facebook. Picture: Prayers for Shane Source: Facebook
Priceless hours with son … Jenna Healy with Shane. His every move inside her womb was followed by more than 794,800 people on Facebook. Picture: Prayers for Shane Source: Facebook
Okay, before you read this, please make sure you have a box of Kleenex nearby. The story of Jenna Gassew and Dan Healy and their son Shane Michael will make you cry but it will also make you marvel that a couple this young could be so wise beyond their years.
Perhaps you’ve already heard something about Shane Michael. Forgive me if you have, but most have not heard about a little baby whose parents shared with him a lifetime of joy—“memories,” as Dan said–before he was even born.
Imagine being happily pregnant, and then finding out that your baby has a brain malformation so severe he will live just a few hours, a day or two, at best? That’s exactly what happened when Jenna was three months pregnant.
She was in a minor car accident, went to the hospital to check up, just in case, and then got the news.
“I got a text from her saying ‘call me.’ I knew something was wrong,” Dan told WPVI in Philadelphia. Shane had anencephaly, a severe malformation of the baby’s skull and brain in which much of the brain is missing. The couple told Lauren Enriquez:
“We were in shock to say the least and didn’t want to believe that all of this was happening. It was in the car that day that we both agreed that God was blessing us with such a special baby for a reason greater than we could understand and that no matter how hard it was to feel the way we did, that we had to keep the faith and believe in His plan for our lives. We wanted people to never question how proud we were to be Shane’s parents and that we were thankful and felt blessed that God chose us to bring him into the world. Shane is our son and we are so proud of him and he’s had such a positive impact on the lives of so many people that have heard his story.”
“He’s still our little boy and even though he’s been given such a short life expectancy … we wanted to make sure that we gave him a lifetime worth of adventures and love while he’s with us,” Dan told ABC last month. “One thing we would want people to take away is that each human life is so valuable and that it’s important to live each day to its fullest potential.”
baby-shane-2Their hundreds of thousands of followers (they have nearly 900,000 “likes” on Facebook) were then given continued updates on the “bucket list” of activities they intended to complete (#shanesbucketlist updates). Besides being taken to the top of the Empire State Building, the couple took their unborn son to some of their favorite childhood places, from New York City to sports games, concerts and classic Philadelphia landmarks such as Geno’s Steaks. They completed their list on Sept. 6.
Shane was born Thursday; Jenna’s labor was chronicled by Dan. First, “Baby Shane is here!!.. Mom and Baby are doing well! .. more details and pictures to come!”
Then
“Today at 6:15AM, after meeting his entire family and being baptized into the Catholic faith, baby Shane died peacefully in his Mother’s arms .. we are so grateful for the time that we were blessed to hold and hug our son .. the support and prayers we have received from all of you have been amazing and we want to thank each of you with all our hearts .. Shane spent his entire life in the arms of people that loved him unconditionally and I don’t think you could ask for a more beautiful life than that .. he is home now with the Lord and will forever be our little miracle!”
Back in September, Dan told ABC 13, “Most families wait until their baby is born to start making memories and traveling to places with them.” He added, ‘We understood what it was and knew that our time with our son could be very limited, so we wanted to make the most of the time that we had with him.”
What a reminder to all of us, whether we are the parents of a baby who will live only a brief time or the parents of adult children building their own lives. Time is limited, but don’t use that brevity as an excuse not to continue to make memories.
Injured—severely injured—Shane was no less their son. Why would he not be? Was he not “one of us” because he was less than perfect?
Jenna and Dan certainly didn’t think so. Shane will always be a member of the family, a contributor to the family’s history.
Finally, when couples like Jenna and Dan are told their unborn baby suffers from a catastrophic malady, they are routinely told they have the “option” of “termination.” The implication is that somehow everyone—even the baby—is “better off” if the child is killed immediately rather than allowed to be born and die in his or her parents’ arms.
But it’s not better…for anyone.
Thanks to Jenna and Dan for reminding us that each of us counts; that each of us is a member of the family; that the bond we forge during the months a baby like Shane is carried will last a lifetime; and that we can blessed in ways we could never imagine.
By Dave Andrusko, NRL News

October 11, 2014

Ezekiel Emanuel’s Latest Rant

Editor’s note. This essay appeared at truedignityvt.org.

Ezekiel Emanuel, an architect of ObamaCareEzekiel Emanuel, an architect of ObamaCare
Ezekiel Emanuel has spent his life building an impressive resume and now, at age 56, he wants the world to know that by 75 he plans to stop working so hard. In fact, he says that if he is still alive at 75, his master plan is to “stop all medical treatment” with the goal of avoiding such horrors of old age as frailty and forgetfulness. Emanuel told Judy Woodruff on PBS News Hour October 3 that he doesn’t believe in assisted suicide or euthanasia, and yet he also said he doesn’t want his grandchildren to “remember me as frail, or demented, or repeating myself—that would be a tragedy.” One wonders what he will do if stopping medical treatment doesn’t bring the hoped-for results.

It is very hard to take nonsense like this seriously, even when it comes from a bioethicist –physician with impressive credentials—and one who helped develop the Affordable Care Act. His views are fleshed out more clearly, though no more reassuringly, in an Atlantic Monthly article published last month.
Unfortunately, his position has a following and must be taken seriously. Emanuel claims that he has heard from scores of people who agree with his views, and says that “at least 50 percent of them are in the health care professions.” (Now that is something to take seriously, especially if you are looking for a health care provider after age 75.)

Although he stops short of saying he thinks all people should eschew medical care after age 75, the implication is clear. In Emanuel’s opinion, once you are no longer a creative, contributing member of society, you owe it to yourself and others to check out, sooner rather than later. His definition of creative and contributing, by the way, appears to be narrow and limited. It could be argued that many of today’s able-bodied Americans would not meet his criteria, never mind those who are physically or mentally challenged in some way.

He told Woodruff that he disagrees with those who have “made a religion” out of pursuing longevity, through obsessive diet and exercise regimens, as if that extreme is the only alternative to his approach.
What about a third way? What about re-thinking the way we look at aging, and more than that—the way we treat the aged and disabled? To hear the Ezekiel Emanuels of the world tell it, the post-75 years are a frightening morass of physical and mental disability best avoided if at all possible. And yet it is easy to find countless examples in everyday life of people who live meaningful lives with the “frailties” that Emanuel wishes to avoid.

Perhaps the experience of aging is as much colored by the attitudes of the people that surround an individual as it is by that person’s objective physical and mental condition. When the people who love you actually love you and not your resume alone, when the people around you treat you as an individual of worth and not primarily a life to be judged, a burden to be carried, or a problem to be solved, you are more likely to tread more easily into the twilight years.

Each stage of life brings challenges different from the one before, and the last stages of life certainly can bring the physical and mental declines Emanuel talks about. But, not unlike the fall colors that are quickly disappearing from our landscape today, being “past peak” doesn’t mean being without value.

Discovering that meaningful life continues even when you aren’t the center of attention can be a difficult lesson for high achievers like Emanuel, but it’s one worth learning.

Journal of Clinical Nursing: Abortions of babies with “very human form” is “distressing”

unbornbaby25
In 2009, there was a crisis in New Zealand when a number of nurses refused to assist in second-trimester abortions. In the article “More nurses opting out of abortion ops,” one person interviewed commented:

[It is] an issue of nurses expressing an unwillingness to continue contributing to this particular service. It’s not an area of practice where many staff choose or are comfortable to work.

An article in the Journal of Clinical Nursing sheds light on why. According to the article:

Second trimester terminations require the woman concerned to go through an induced labour, the result of which is a fetus in a very human form. (1)

Indeed, babies in the second trimester have a “very human form.” In these abortions, the baby is injected with poison to kill him or her, and then labor is induced. The woman in effect “gives birth” to a dead baby. In the U.S., third-trimester abortions are almost always done this way – by injecting the baby with poison (usually digoxin) and then inducing labor. (This method is also used in the second trimester in the U.S., although many second-trimester abortions here are done by D&E, where the baby is dismembered in utero.)

The nursing journal article goes on to say:

This event  requires sensitive management as it has the potential to cause a great deal of distress for the women involved due to the psychological and physical impact of the procedure. However, health professionals involved can also find this a distressing clinical event due to the complex nature of the management and care required. (1)

One can imagine that coming face-to-face with the baby you just had killed could be a distressing experience. The image of one’s own child, killed by one’s own choice, can haunt the woman for the rest of her life. Indeed, this is what happened to NancyJo Mann, who had a similar type of abortion, and later started Women Exploited by Abortion, one of the first groups in the country to reach out to post-abortion women.

In her testimony, she describes being lied to and given a sanitized description of the abortion procedure by her doctor:

After a quick examination, my abortionist told me that I would have to have the abortion done within the next 24-hours or I would be outside the limit of the law. Of course this wasn’t true, but I didn’t know that then. Abortions are legal throughout all three trimesters, right up to the day before birth, and I was still well within the second trimester. He just used this little lie to pressure me into making a quick decision.

The second lie [the abortionist told me] came during my “counseling session,” when I asked, “What are you going to do to me if I have this abortion?” All he did was look at my stomach and say, “I’m going to take a little fluid out, put a little fluid in, you’ll have severe cramps and expel the fetus.” “Is that all?” I asked. “That’s it.” “O.K.,” I said. It was only later, after the abortion had begun, that I was to learn that what he described as “cramps” was actually the labor process. These “severe cramps” were not just going to make my pregnancy magically disappear. Instead, I was going to go through all the motions of normal childbirth–water breaking, labor pains, etc. The only difference was that the baby I would deliver would be dead….

I was so naive. I trusted him. After all, he was a doctor. A respected and educated man. And like everyone else, I had always heard that legal abortion was “safe and easy.” It wasn’t until he had me on the table that I began to question these illusions. It wasn’t until he pulled out an enormous syringe that I became scared. The needle alone was four inches long. Suddenly I realized that this was not going to be as easy as he had implied.

Then NancyJo describes what happened to her and her daughter:

The first thing he did was withdraw 60 cc’s of amniotic fluid. At that point I started to feel afraid for my baby. I could feel her thrashing about, scared by this intrusion. I wanted to scream out, “Please, stop. Don’t do this to me!” But I just couldn’t get it out. I was petrified with fear.

After the fluid was withdrawn, he injected 200 cc’s of the saline solution–half a pint of concentrated salt solution. From then on, it was terrible. My baby began thrashing about–it was like a regular boxing match in there. She was in pain. The saline was burning her skin, her eyes, her throat. It was choking her, making her sick. She was in agony, trying to escape. She was scared and confused at how her wonderful little home had suddenly been turned into a death trap.

… There was no way to save her. So instead I talked to her. I tried to comfort her. I tried to ease her pain. I told her I didn’t want to do this to her, but it was too late to stop it. I didn’t want her to die. I begged her not to die. I told her I was sorry, to forgive me, that I was wrong, that I didn’t want to kill her.

For two hours I could feel her struggling inside me. But then, as suddenly as it began, she stopped. Even today, I remember her very last kick on my left side.

She describes seeing her daughter:

When finally I delivered, the nurses didn’t make it to my room in time. I delivered my daughter myself at 5:30 the next morning, October 31st. After I delivered her, I held her in my hands. I looked her over from top to bottom. She had a head of hair, and her eyes were opening. I looked at her little tiny feet and hands. Her fingers and toes even had little fingernails and swirls of fingerprints.

Everything was perfect. She was not a “fetus.” She was not a “product of conception.” She was a tiny human being. The pathology report listed her as more than seven inches from head to rump. With her legs extended, she was over a foot long. She weighed a pound-and-a-half, more than many of the premature babies being saved in incubators in every hospital in the country. But these vital statistics did not mention her most striking trait: She was my daughter. Twisted with agony. Silent and still. Dead.

It seemed like I held her for ten minutes or more, but it was probably only 30 seconds because as soon as the nurses came rushing in, they grabbed her from my hands and threw her–literally threw her–into a bedpan and carried her away.

Having read NancyJo Mann’s story, one can easily see why nurses might not want to assist with these abortions, and why it would be extremely traumatic for the people who have to “clean up” after them. Disposing of fully formed aborted babies is not a job many nurses like to do.

The nursing journal article then makes reference to a bizarre practice:

…  nurses are frequently required to clean and dress the fetus, ensure transfer to an appropriate receptacle if the mother wants to see it, all the while supporting the woman as she goes through this process. This often occurs after a lengthy period when the women and nurses have been intimately connected, working through a range of decisions such as whether the mother wants to see, and perhaps name or photograph the fetus. Consequently, although women undergoing mid-trimester termination are ‘well’, this is a challenging clinical event that requires much from nurses in terms of physiological and psychological skill and expertise. (1)

Yes, some women like to see the baby in order to say goodbye to him or her. These women have come to terms with the fact that they have indeed killed their own children; they are not in any kind of denial and have even given their babies names. In some of these cases, the woman might be terminating a wanted pregnancy – wanted, that is, until it is discovered that the baby will be disabled.

Doctors can sometimes do a good job of convincing a woman that her disabled child will suffer a terrible life and that, therefore, abortion is the kindest choice. Sometimes doctors are affected by elitist beliefs that disabled children do not have lives worth living. Sometimes the coercion to abort can be blatant.
But nothing changes the cold hard fact that these abortions kill a fully developed child. The concept of taking fully formed aborted babies away from their mothers, who have just gone through a grueling process of labor, and either throwing them away like trash or dressing them in little outfits for a macabre ritual (and then throwing them away like trash) is disturbing to anyone who possesses a sense of right and wrong.

The fact that this is a “challenging clinical event” is an understatement. The emotional scars that these nurses must carry, dealing with this day after day, must be beyond belief.

(1) ANNETTE D. HUNTINGTON RGON, BN, PhD “Working with women experiencing mid-trimester termination of pregnancy: the integration of nursing and feminist knowledge in the gynaecological setting” Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2002, 11 273-279

By Sarah Terzo via NRLC

Editor’s note. Sarah Terzo is a pro-life author and creator of the clinicquotes.com website. She is a member of Secular Pro-Life and PLAGAL. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

Jennifer Garner: Permanent baby bump a testament to my children


“I am not pregnant, but I have had three kids and there is a bump,” said Garner, shooting down speculation that she and husband Ben Affleck were expecting baby No. 4 after paparazzi photos over the summer showed her with a bit of a rounded tummy….

“I get congratulated all the time by people I know. This one woman who had babysat for us said, ‘Oh, my gosh! I can’t wait for No. 4,’ and I thought, ‘What is going on?’ ” Garner said. “So I asked around and apparently I have a baby bump, and I’m here to tell you that I do!”

While Hollywood demands physical perfection, the… star says she’s fine knowing that after three children, her midsection is a little more curvaceous. And people who see her will just have to deal….
“From now on, ladies, I will have a bump, and it will be my baby bump. It’s not going anywhere,” she said. “Its name is VioletSam and Sera.”

People magazine, reporting on 42-yr-old actress Jennifer Garner’sappearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to quell the rumors, October 8

[HT: reader Denise; photo via eonline.com]

October 8, 2014

‘Saved by the Bell’ star: I would have become a father at 15, but my baby was aborted


Former teen heartthrob Mario Lopez, who skyrocketed to fame in the late '80s and 1990s playing A.C. Slater in Saved by the Bell, has revealed he is a post-abortive father.

In his newly published memoirs Just Between Us, Lopez comes clean about his hypersexual behavior, which began in childhood and cost him a child and a marriage.
Sex became his “drug of choice” early in his life, he wrote.
“I started having sex so young. The day before my 13th birthday” – something he sees as totally warped “now that I'm a dad.” He blames his early sexualization on growing up in a tough area in Southern California. “When you're growing up in the hood, everybody grows up fast.”
Lopez says when he was 15, he impregnated a girl and was ready to work full-time to support his child, but she had an abortion.
“I could have a kid who is 25 years old,” Lopez, who will turn 41 later this month, wrote.
He hit stardom as part of the tween series Saved by the Bell and went on to star in numerous television shows and movies – including performing nude scenes and in drag in the series Nip/Tuck.
His sexual antics assured that Lopez's first marriage ended nearly before it began. He married Ali Landry, a former Miss USA, in 2004, but Landry had the marriage annulled within two weeks after photographs emerged of Lopez cheating on her at his bachelor party. He has since married and had two children, Gia Francesa and Dominic.
Both of Lopez's marriages took place in the Roman Catholic Church.
He has branched out into television interviews, scoring a well-received interview with future President Barack Obama just six days before the 2008 election for Extra TV. “Senator, many voters in the Latino community have conservative values. Why should we vote for you?” he asked.
Sarah Palin told him in a later interview that she believed being a grandmother might change Hillary Clinton's views on abortion.

Lopez told Newsweek he goes to church “every week” but says he is working when the confessional is open.
“I confess every night in my head,” he said, “because if I waited all week, it’d be too much. God would be overwhelmed.”
Source: LifeSiteNews by Ben Johnson

October is Breast Cancer Awareness, But Will Anyone Tell Women of Abortion’s Link?

I wanted to take a few minutes to address all that pink you’ve been seeing in stores, on athletes and on your TV screen. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and it has never hit home harder for me than this year.

“We did find cancer cells in your breast biopsy,” said the doctor matter-of-factly.
Cancer!!! I was stunned, shocked senseless with words I never thought I would hear!
gayleatteburyCancer happens to other people, not to me! The doctor’s words were droning on: ”…we need to start treatment right away; do you have a surgeon, or would you like me to recommend one?” Treatment! Am I going to die? My mind raced.

The thought of heaven was a peaceful one in this sin-filled, trouble-wracked world. But am I ready to leave my family just now? How could I find someone to take my job quickly? My mind darted to all of the things I needed to do before I die. The doctor’s voice was assuring me that she would have the surgeon call and set up an appointment quickly. I hung up the phone.

My mind bounced from thought to thought, but before much time elapsed, anger welled up inside of me…anger at abortion! While I knew that abortion was not the cause of my cancer (ten years of hormonal replacement therapy is a likely culprit), it is a fact that women choosing abortion have a significantly higher chance of abortion than women who do not. My anger grew as I next thought of Planned Parenthood, who vehemently denies the abortion-breast cancer link, all the while pocketing millions of dollars annually as the nation’s largest abortion-provider.

My mind focused next on a gentleman who sat in front of my desk two years previously as a result of an article I wrote condemning the Susan G. Komen Foundation for giving donations to Planned Parenthood affiliates around the nation. As head of the Oregon affiliate of the Komen Foundation, he was asking me to relent of my words.

Even though the Oregon affiliate had not given to Planned Parenthood, he could give me no promise, no policy, no principle, that would prevent it from giving to Planned Parenthood in the future. He even attempted to defend the practice. I told him I found it unconscionable that an organization whose sole purpose was to find a cure for breast cancer would donate to an organization whose main action was one that could cause the cancer they were trying to heal.
breastcancerOver 60 epidemiological studies conducted in countries throughout the world show an increased risk of breast cancer in women who have had abortions. Patrick Caroll, Director of Research for the UK Pension and Population Research Institute, says“legally induced abortion is found to be the best predictor of British breast cancer trends.”

Dr. Janet Daling, pro-choice researcher with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found in a 1994 study that “among women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50% higher than among other women.” Daling also found that “teenagers under age 18 and women over 29 years of age who procure an abortion increase their breast cancer risk by more than 100%.”

Her most alarming find was that “teenagers with a family history of breast cancer who procure an abortion face a risk of breast cancer that is incalculably high. All 12 women in her study with this history were diagnosed with breast cancer by the age of 45″. [Janet R. Daling et al., “Risk of Breast Cancer Among Young Women: Relationship to Induced Abortion,” 86 Journal of the National Cancer Institute; (1994);1584]

My breast surgery in late September revealed the cancer has spread. Fear, uncertainty, chemo treatments. I do not wish these things on any woman. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women. Over 232,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2014, and 40,000 women are projected to die of it. Many factors put women at risk for breast cancer, most of which women are beginning to be made aware of. However, the abortion-breast cancer link is the one risk factor that is covered over for “politically correct” reasons. It must be added to list so that women choosing abortion will have full knowledge ahead of time. Women who have had abortions must be more alert and diligent to get regular mammograms.

Abortion has become a “sacred right,” protected by abortion advocacy groups who would rather protect abortion rights than the women they claim to represent. Women are suffering a tremendous disservice in order to protect the pocket books of abortion providers. We are living in an age proud of its “full disclosure” for every decision. Shouldn’t every woman contemplating an abortion be given all the information she needs to make an informed choice? We certainly owe her that much.

Consider making a donation to help towards the end breast cancer to: The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. Please, schedule your mammogram appointment today! For more information on the ABC link, see www.abortionbreastcancer.com.

LifeNews Note: Gayle Atteberry is the Executive Director of Oregon Right to Life

The abortion industry’s looming RU-486 legal crisis

RU-486 mifepristone abortion pillPolitico article today about new abortion cases that could reach the Supreme Court gave bare mention of its potential review of RU-486 regulation.

But due a circuit court split on laws regulating the administration of RU-486, such a review looks likely - and promising for the pro-life side.

Quick history of RU-486

In an unprecedented move the FDA approved the abortion pill RU-486 (now known as mifepristone/mifeprex) in 2000 to sell in the U.S. using a fast-track process reserved only for drugs to combat life-threatening diseases, like AIDS.

RU-486 abortion pill NOW mifepristoneIt seemed obvious at the time, and was later confirmed, that “the Clintonadministration pushed the abortion pill through the approval process to appease the abortion lobby,” reported Judicial Watch in 2006 after reviewing newly released documents that showed “the RU-486 approval process was infected by raw politics.”

But pro-lifers have recently begun turning the abortion industry’s political ploy on itself.

Importantly, with the FDA’s fast-track approval came “restricted use,” meaning the agency discourages “off-label” administration of RU-486.

In 14 years the FDA has never deviated from its recommended protocol for RU-486, which requires three doctor visits and specific dosages and routes of administration, all within 49 days from the beginning of a pregnant mother’s last period:
  • Day 1: administer three 200 mg tablets (600 mg total) of RU-486 orally to kill the baby
  • Day 3: administer two 200 mcg tablets (400 mcg total) of Cytotec (misoprostol) orally to expel the baby
  • Day 14: check-up to ensure the abortion was completed

Violating FDA protocol at every step

But abortion clinics violate FDA protocol in every possible way. A survey of National Abortion Federationmembers showed only 4% follow FDA guidelines, and Planned Parenthood is the biggest culprit. It owns158 of 175, or 90%, of all known chemical abortion facilities in the U.S.
Telemed abortion of RU-486 mifepristoneAccording to court documents, Planned Parenthood commits RU-486 abortions up to 63 days from the first day of a pregnant mother’s last period.

It gives only one 200 mg tablet orally at the abortion clinic, then instructs the woman to take one 200 mcg Cytotec at home by letting it dissolve under her tongue (getting into the system faster than if swallowed).

Worse, Planned Parenthood has lately been trying to do all this via telemed – dispensing chemical abortion drugs via remote computer, so the abortionist never comes in contact with the patient.

The pro-abortion claim that “off-label” use of drugs is commonplace is disingenuous, because the pathway by which RU-486 was approved placed it in a restricted category.

Abortion industry’s cash cow

RU-486 is the abortion industry’s new cash cow business model, as verified by the surge of Planned Parenthood’s chemical abortion business. A 2014 Guttmacher report indicated that while abortion dropped 13% in 2011, the percentage of chemical abortions increased by 20% from three years earlier, to account for 22.6% of all abortions.

Abortion clinics are obviously trying to cut corners. And safety be damned because, as Americans United for Life attorney Mailee Smith noted:
Eight. That’s the number of women who have died from a severe bacterial infection following use of RU-486. In all eight cases, the women were instructed to use the abortion drugs in a way that has not been approved by the FDA.
Zero. That’s the number of women who have died from a severe bacterial infection after using RU-486 in the way approved by the FDA.
AUL has written model legislation that forces abortion clinics to comply with FDA protocol on RU-486 drug administration.

Four states have thus far passed legislation based on AUL’s language: ArizonaNorth DakotaOhio, andOklahoma.

The abortion industry has sued to block all four laws. To date the federal 5th and 6th Circuit Court of Appeals have both ruled in our favor, and the 9th Circuit has ruled in the other side’s favor.
This gives us a “circuit split,” making it more likely the Supreme Court will weigh in.

Supreme Court precedent satisfied

Smith cited three reasons AUL is “confident” the language AUL has encouraged states to adopt falls well within Supreme Court precedent for both the Casey and Gonzales decisions:
  1. The first so-called right at issue is the right of a woman to make the ultimate decision to have an abortion, and the regulation of chemical abortion does not interfere with that.
     
  2. The court has said state legislatures are given wide discretion to legislate when there is medical uncertainty over a procedure or regulation. Here we know the unapproved use of RU-486 regimen has been tied to eight deaths. The other side argues that the off-label use did not cause those deaths. What’s important here is the cause is unknown. That is what creates the medical uncertainty.
     
  3. In Gonzeles the court upheld the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban in part because there were other commonly used methods still available. If the regulation of chemical abortion means a woman cannot have one because she’s past gestational dates, she still has the option of surgical abortion. Surgical abortion is the most common method, and there is peer-reviewed evidence it’s safer than chemical abortion.
Were SCOTUS to uphold chemical abortion regulations, more state legislatures would be encouraged to regulate them, making abortions harder for the industry to commit.

[Screenshot of telemed abortion in Iowa via LifeSiteNews.com]