For the past year, there has been an increased push by some in the healthcare system, the media and political circles to convince Canadians to sign their organ donor cards. For others, such information campaigns are not enough, so Ontario MPP Peter Kormos (NDP) went so far as to draft a private member’s bill that, if put into effect, would presume consent [...]
Researchers at the Institute of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University in Salem, N.C. have discovered a type of cell that floats freely in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women and has many of the traits of embryonic stem cells, suggesting a potentially ethical source of pluripotent cells – cells that scientists believe can grow into any other human cell and thus [...]
When Margaret Smith discerned her calling to teach the Creighton system of natural family planning, she declared, “If, by becoming a practitioner, I prevent even one abortion, then I’ve done my job.” Adamantly pro-life, the former palliative care nurse and sometime missionary is now an integral part of the Marguerite Bourgeoys Family Centre Fertility Care Programme, which held its annual general meeting [...]
By the narrowest of margins (51 per cent to 49 per cent) voters in Missouri passed Amendment 2, ostensibly a constitutional amendment that would permit embryonic stem cell research and ban human cloning. But Amendment 2 permitted human cloning by redefining it – allowing “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (cloning) to create human embryos for research purposes – and outlawing cloning only for [...]
A U.S. research team has released a report showing that embryonic stem cells injected into the brains of Parkinson’s patients have a serious risk of forming tumours. Steven Goldman and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York wrote in the journal Nature Medicine that human embryo cells injected into the brains of rats showed signs of forming [...]
At a White House ceremony on July 19, President George Bush explained his decision to veto a bill to fund embryonic stem cell research. He pointed out: “Embryonic stem cells come from human embryos that are destroyed for their cells. Each of these human embryos is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value.” To underline this point, [...]
Interim Staff The Interim is often asked which Canadian charities support embryonic stem cell research – research that destroys human beings at the embryonic stage of life. Compiling this information is an ongoing and arduous project and we thank LifeSiteNews.com for maintaining a page (http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/060918a.html) listing such charitable agencies and societies. As LifeSiteNews states: “This is an ongoing project and this list [...]
Marketing experts understand the value of “branding,” the creation of a mental connection in the mind of a consumer between the product and its name, slogan and advertising design scheme. A successful marketing campaign creates an indelible symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a product. The news media’s manipulation of the public debate around abortion and embryonic stem cell research [...]
Interim Staff On August 23, Advanced Cell Technology, a private, Worcester, Mass.-based biotechnology firm, announced to the world that it had developed a means of acquiring embryonic cells that would put to rest ethical concerns about this type of research. In a study published online in the journal Nature, ACT researchers claimed to have retrieved single cells of two- to three-day-old human [...]
In a press conference at the Ottawa Hospital June 27, doctors announced the first-ever non-heart beating organ donation (NHBD) procedure preformed in Canada. The procedure, also known as donation after cardiac death (DCD), typically involves a person who requires a ventilator and, although he has measurable brain function, is determined to have no hope of recovery. The doctors remove the ventilator from [...]
A prominent fertility doctor, who provides sex-selection of tourists’ embryos, considers himself to be working in “the happiest field in medicine, where we’re basically helping couples achieve dreams that otherwise they might not be able to achieve.” For the past five years, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg’s Fertility Institutes of Los Angeles and Las Vegas have offered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for the purpose [...]
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has announced that it will allow the creation of living human embryos specifically for research purposes. Although pro-life advocates working to kill the Liberal government’s 2002 Assisted Reproduction Act predicted that embryonic stem cell research with “fresh embryos” would be the next move, even though the bill purported to protect against this type of research, [...]
On July 19, 2006 days, George W. Bush used his veto power for the first time. The issue on which he finally took out his pen to thwart the excesses of Congress was important: embryonic stem cell research. After the House of Representatives passed a bill that would have mandated federal funding of stem cell research - which requires the killing of [...]
I was at the Ninth National March for life in Ottawa recently, walking along in front of the Parliament buildings, when I spotted a familiar face pushing a small wooden white cart in front of him through the crowds on the sidewalk. He wore an oversized T-shirt emblazoned front and back: “I’M PRO-LIFE.” I called out to him: “Hey! What are you [...]
Tissue engineering breakthrough might be a solution to the organ donation shortage Complete urinary bladders grown from patients' own cells have been transplanted and functioning for as long as four years, reports a group of researchers in The Lancet. Dubbed the "neo-bladders," the new organs have been working fine and have significantly improved the health of seven young patients aged four to [...]