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Americans Favor Embryo Adoption
A majority of Americans from various backgrounds told Nightlight Christian Adoption they prefer human-embryo adoption over donating them for destructive stem-cell research.
Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight, said the trend that appeared in the survey has positive implications for the life issue.
“It is because we have been successful at making people aware that the embryos are there,” he said, “and people have been thinking more about this dilemma and what to do about it.”
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Obama adviser argued for compulsory organ donation
Cass Sunstein, who was recently confirmed to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has argued for stronger efforts to enlarge the pool of organ donors, including policies that would require citizens to consent to organ donation in order to obtain driver's licenses. Sunstein argued that a policy of "routine removal"-- in which vital organs are taken from terminally ill patients even without their consent-- could be defended legally and morally.
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Utah teen not guilty for seeking to cause a miscarriage
A judge in Utah has concluded a bizarre legal case by finding that a 17-year-old girl did not violate state law by hiring a man to beat her, hoping that it would prompt a miscarriage. The judge concluded that while the incident was "shocking and crude," the girl was not subject to prosecution because an effort to end a pregnancy was covered by the state's law allowing abortion.
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Worldwide annual death toll from abortion: 41.6 million
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A new report by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute-- named after a president of Planned Parenthood-- has found that the worldwide number of abortions fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003, a decline of 8.6%.
The report found that over one in five of the world’s abortions-- 8.8 million in 2003-- occur in China. Observing that “China imposed an urban population policy of one child per family in the 1980s,” the Guttmacher Institute did not condemn the one-child policy or reports of forced abortions, but instead praised the “high degree of safety” with which abortions are conducted in the Communist nation.
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Planned Parenthood Partners with Susan G. Komen to Offer Free Breast Exams
In recognition of October as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Planned Parenthood of Delaware (PPDE) and the Philadelphia Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® are partnering together to offer free breast exams at all PPDE health centers on October 20, 2009. Women who do not have health insurance are more likely to postpone care and delay or forgo important preventive care such as cancer screenings, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. And women below the poverty level are less likely than women with higher incomes to have had a mammogram within the past two years.
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Embryo Fate on the Docket
It was barely reported in the media, but a lawsuit was filed in federal court (Sherley et al. v. Sebelius et al.) on August 19 to reverse the guidelines put out by NIH that open federal funding to more human embryo destruction.
In further developments, a hearing was held Wednesday, October 14 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on a preliminary injunction to block implementation and federal funding under the NIH guidelines. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth listened to oral arguments, and will likely issue a decision by November 1 (in the meantime, NIH has indicated that it will not permit the expenditure of any funds for human embryonic stem cell research before that date.)
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