NEWS SHORTS FOR WEDNESDAY
Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of The Illinois Federation for Right to Life. They are presented only for your information.
Population reduction does not alleviate poverty, Argentinean archbishop warns
Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata in Argentina, said this week it is deceitful to claim that in order to combat poverty population levels must be decreased, since as Pope Benedict XVI has said, the data proves that "population is a treasure and not a factor in poverty."
During his radio program Keys to a Better World, the archbishop recalled a portion of the Pope's message for the World Day of Peace, in which the Holy Father said that "in 1981, approximately 40% of the world's population was under the threshold of absolute poverty, while today that percentage has been substantially reduced by half and numerous populaces that have been characterized by a notable demographic increase have climbed out of poverty."
"In other words," the archbishop said, "it is not necessary to reduce the population in order to have an entire people to progress economically, but rather the contrary. The history of nations shows that the height of great civilizations has coincided with the highest birth rates."
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15117
Fetal Stem Cells Trigger Tumors in Sick Child's Brain, Spinal Cord
Scientists are furiously trying to harness different types of stem cells — the building blocks for other cells in the body — to regrow damaged tissues and thus treat devastating diseases. But for all the promise, researchers have long warned that they must learn to control newly injected stem cells so they don't grow where they shouldn't, and small studies in people are only just beginning.
Tuesday's report in the journal PLoS Medicine is the first documented case of a human brain tumor — albeit a benign, slow-growing one — after fetal stem cell therapy, and hammers home the need for careful research. The journal is published by the Public Library of Science.
"Patients, please beware," said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in the Israeli boy's care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,495164,00.html
35 Abortion Regulations! Introduced in West Virginia Legislature
Prohibiting gender-based procedures, providing certain fetuses with anesthesia and requiring pregnancy tests are among dozens of abortion bills pending in the West Virginia Legislature this session. As of Tuesday, there were 35 bills regarding abortion listed on the Legislature's Web site. The number was fairly typical compared with other years, lawmakers said, and many were not new bills. They cover many aspects of abortion procedures, including permission, funding and intent.
http://www.dailymail.com/News/200902170705
Picture Emerging on Genetic Risks of In Vitro Fertilization
Researchers have always wondered whether there might be subtle changes in an embryo that is grown for several days in a petri dish, as IVF embryos are — and, if so, whether would there be any consequences. In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a paper reporting that babies conceived with IVF, or with a technique in which sperm are injected directly into eggs, have a slightly increased risk of several birth defects, including a hole between the two chambers of the heart, a cleft lip or palate, an improperly developed esophagus and a malformed rectum. The study involved 9,584 babies with birth defects and 4,792 babies without. Among the mothers of babies without birth defects, 1.1 percent had used IVF or related methods, compared with 2.4 percent of mothers of babies with birth defects.
http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2009/02/17/genetic_risk_ivf.html
"Abortionists' dirty e-mails"
The pro-abortion medical establishment in Madison, WI, encountered a problem last summer.
Their community's late-late-term abortionist, Dennis Christensen, announced he was retiring at year's end, and Planned Parenthood of WI would be taking over his mill.
In reality, according to e-mails obtained... Christensen wasn't retiring at all.
Christensen had some sort of contract to abort with PPWI, which shared space with him. The two simply hit a dead end resolving "issues and negotiations," according to an e-mail written by PPWI associate medical director Dr. Caryn Dutton to Dr. Laurel Rice, chair of ob/gyn at the University of WI medical school.
It appears Christensen wanted more money. Pro-lifers have spotted him entering abortion mills in Rockford, IL, and Milwaukee since "retiring."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=89241
More Proof That Assisted Suicide Activists Will Seek to Force Doctors to Participate
The culture of death brooks no dissent, I have repeatedly warned. That means the assisted suicide agenda, if it is widely successful, will one day seek to force all doctors to participate in the mercy killings of their patients--either by doing the deed personally, or referring them to a death doctor they know will write the poison prescription (or eventually, lethally inject the curare).
More proof: Barbara Coombs Lee of Compassion and Choices (formerly Hemlock Society), is in a dither about the Bush conscience clause regulation that prevents employers from discriminating against medical professionals who refuse to participate in assisted suicide (as one example) on moral grounds.
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2009/02/more-proof-that-assisted-suicide.html
