Here is an excellent essay by Robert George entitled “Are Human Embryos Human Beings? Here is the conclusion: “The pro-life view depends on an undisputed scientific fact plus a moral principle that explains and vindicates the worth of infants and the cognitively impaired, and affirms the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of […]
Category: Human embryos
Paul Stark has brilliantly woven in a new analogy (pizza making) to make clear the fundamental distinction between the construction of things and the development of life. (The German Constitutional Court in 1975 and 1993 supported this distinction. That support can be found via one of the articles linked in Stark’s piece.) Unborn children aren’t […]
Students at Harvard University Law School have organized into Law Students for Life. Their first event was a talk by Robert George on the humanity and personhood of the embryo. The discussion was respectful, displaying a diversity of opinions. This, the willingness to engage a difficult and controversial subject or at least to engage an uncomfortable […]
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in Great Britain has given approval for the Francis Crick Institute in London to begin altering the DNA in embryos. The embryos will be acquired through in vitro fertilization procedures and are to be killed after 14 days of life. Such callous disregard for human life reveals the inhumanity of in vitro fertilization procedures […]
On April 29th Marquette Students for Life and Marquette University Faculty for Life sponsored a lunch and evening talk by Melissa Moschella, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Catholic University of America and Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. She spoke on the detrimental physical, psychological, social, and spiritual effects of IVF on the […]
As I was preparing for the upcoming issue of ProVita, I ran across this book on Amazon: Embryos Under the Microscope: Ths Diverging Meanings of Life, by Jane Maienschein. The author claims to be giving a history of the human knowledge of embryology so that ethical decisions can be based on accurate scientific information. What I found […]
Recently journalist Linda Greenhouse’s criticized for-profit companies seeking to be exempt from the HHS contraceptive mandate in a guest opinion column in the New York Times called “Doesn’t East, Doesn’t Pray and Doesn’t Love.” In response, Donna Harrison, MD, Executive Director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, writes “Emergency Contraception Can Cause […]
Shirley Darby Howell, Professor of Law at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama, wrote “The Frozen Embryo: Scholarly Theories, Case Law, and Proposed State Regulation” for the Human Life Review (Spring 2013) and DePaul Journal of Health Care Law (Vol. 14.3:407). She looks at possible state laws that would resolve disputes about […]
Top researcher: iPS cells ‘probably’ already embryos, have already made cloned animals An iPS cell is an induced pluripotent stem cell. They had been thought by many to be ethically safe to destroy during research and therapy. New research is calling that into question. (Via LifeSiteNews.com.)
Here is a link to Pope Benedict’s recent speech on stem cell research. The Pope spoke to participants at a conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture on this theme– Adult Stem Cells: Science and the Future of Man and Culture. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2011/november/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20111112_stem-cells_en.html While extolling the promise of scientific research, Pope Benedict emphasized the need to protect […]