Bioethics

Embryo experimentation and the Indian rope trick

Despite overwhelming support from MPs in the House of Commons, and from people across the United Kingdom, Enoch Powell’s Unborn Children (Protection) Bill failed to reach the Statute Book. In introducing his Bill Mr. Powell stated that he had felt “s deep and instinctive sense of repugnance” when he read the Warnock Report’s recommendation that Parliament should legalize experiments on human embryos [...]

2009-07-23T13:48:57-04:00December 23, 1985|Abortion, Bioethics, Politics|

Alberta: Controversy surrounds ethics symposium

In October, the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine hosted a major symposium on “Human Embryo Experimentation and Childhood Cancer: The Right to Die.”  The two panels of experts included medical doctors, lawyers, ethical philosophers and representatives from the media. All the distinguished experts on the panels were in favour of the right to die and human embryo experimentation. Their comments and [...]

2009-07-23T08:37:31-04:00December 23, 1985|Abortion, Bioethics|

New Brunswick: Moncton Clinic sidesteps parents’ rights in issuing the pill to teenagers

The Moncton Hospital’s Reproductive Clinic is prescribing the birth control pill and, in some cases, a “morning after” pill to under-age teens – without parental knowledge or consent. At least one 15-year-old girl was given the “morning after” pill when she went to the clinic by herself after having intercourse without using contraception.  She was also offered a prescription for the regular [...]

2009-07-22T09:29:51-04:00November 22, 1985|Bioethics|

Birth Control Victims Association

It has been 10 years since I first decided the IUD was the best possible form of birth control.  The Pill, in my mind, was just another medication and all medications have side-effects.  Hence, for me, the Pill was out. When I made my decision, I was assured by statistics and the medical profession that the IUD would work.  When I asked [...]

2009-07-22T07:34:54-04:00October 22, 1985|Abortion, Activism, Bioethics|

Value judgements and kidney dialysis

It seems that the “quality of life” ethic now encompasses more groups of people than the “unwanted” unborn, handicapped and elderly.  In Britain, the Oxfordshire District Health Authority decided that a 44-year-old would no longer receive life-saving kidney dialysis treatment because “he would have died within weeks or months from his hypertension.” Both the British Kidney Patients Association and Labour MP Lewis [...]

2009-07-22T07:18:21-04:00October 22, 1985|Bioethics, Euthanasia|

Council of Europe debates ethics in fetal experiments

        Rumours have circulated for some time that human embryos from abortions are being sold to industrial firms to be used for cosmetic products.  The first time that I was confronted with such rumours was some months ago.  A journalist told me that after a road accident in the north of France, a lorry had turned over and lost [...]

2009-07-21T13:42:10-04:00October 21, 1985|Abortion, Bioethics|

Cancer and fetal x-ray

    Exposing an unborn child to x-rays more than doubles the chance that the child will contract cancer before reaching adulthood, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine on February 27.   An unborn child “may be especially sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiation,” say the authors, who compared sets of twins who did [...]

2009-07-21T13:38:10-04:00October 21, 1985|Bioethics|

Inaccurate spina bifida test

    John Jenkinson, whose British parents were advised to abort him when a prenatal blood test showed he had spina bifida, is today a healthy two-year-old.  His parents, a Rotherham, Yorkshire, couple are so dissatisfied with medical and Health Authority answers to their questions that they have now written to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, asking her to find out why a [...]

2009-07-21T13:35:59-04:00October 21, 1985|Abortion, Bioethics|

A funny thing happened on the way to the Toronto School Board

        Three years ago, in 1982, a large number of parents and parent groups approached the Toronto School Board about its sex education programme.  Some of the materials recommended in the Board’s guidelines, these parents felt, do not reflect community standards of sexual morality.  The message that seems to come across is that sexual morality is purely a matter [...]

2009-07-20T08:09:27-04:00October 20, 1985|Bioethics, Issues, Society & Culture|

Alternate Medicine List

    The following is a list of alternate brands.   UPJOHN BRAND                          ALTERNATE MEDICINE                       Kaopectate…...                                               Pepto Bismol                       Cheracol…                                          Robitussin, Triaminic                                                              Cleocin….                       Lincocin…                                         Other antibiotics     Trobicin…                                                                               Cortef…                                             Decadron, Aristocort Medrol…..                                                                            Halcion…                                            Dalmane/Restoril                                     Xanax……                                          Tranxene/Valium                       Neo-cortef...                                        Cortisporin                       Tolinase…                                           [...]

2009-07-20T07:47:14-04:00October 20, 1985|Activism, Bioethics, Pro-Life|

Upjohn boycott

    Delegates at the recent annual general meeting of Alliance for Life passed a resolution urging all Canadian pro-lifers to join the Upjohn boycott, initiated by National Right to Life in the U.S.   Upjohn is the first modern pharmaceutical company to turn from making life-saving drugs to producing drugs whose only purpose is to kill.  Their Prostin F2 alpha is [...]

2009-07-20T07:42:45-04:00October 20, 1985|Abortion, Bioethics, Society & Culture|

Appalling news from Britain’s labs

In Britain, experimentation on dead aborted babies and on “spare” embryos created by in vitro fertilization has been going on for some time.  Publicity on these experiments followed the blocking in parliament of a private member’s bill (put forward by Mr. Enoch Powell) that would have prohibited experiments on embryos.  Powell’s bill, in turn, was prompted by release of the government-appointed Warnock [...]

2009-07-16T08:34:31-04:00September 16, 1985|Bioethics, Politics|

DPT vaccine causes concern

The Canadian medical establishment has consistently told parents that benefits of immunization far outweigh any risks that may be associated with vaccination. But a growing number of parents are concerned with the possible side effects from vaccines. More and more cases of disabled children are getting publicity now, especially when the parents of these children are seeking compensation from the government for [...]

2009-07-14T11:50:40-04:00August 14, 1985|Bioethics|

Sterilization and the mentally retarded

Involuntary sterilization of the mentally retarded is stirring bitter controversy and resentment among mentally handicapped people. The recent sterilization of “Infant K,” a ten-year-old mentally handicapped British Columbia girl, appalled the Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded. In an effort to protect the mentally handicapped and their right to have children, the association has gone to the Supreme Court of Canada. The [...]

2009-07-14T09:12:29-04:00August 14, 1985|Bioethics, Equal Rights|

Natural family planning: why and what

Natural Family Planning is not simply “a better form of birth control.” Behind NFP lies an integral vision of the human person. Behind contraception lies the fragmented vision of the contraceptive mentality. The two are worlds apart. As Pope John Paul II noted in his brilliant document on the family: The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the [...]

2009-07-14T08:16:33-04:00August 14, 1985|Bioethics, Marriage and Family|
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