Health Canada is not planning to take any action against the practice of selling human ova on the internet, despite the ostensible prohibition of the practice under Canada’s Assisted Reproduction Technologies Act. Citing a loophole in the legislation, a Health Canada official says the act does not ban the advertising of human genetic materials, only their purchase. “It’s a payment to a [...]
On Feb. 16, Ontario New Democrat MPP and House Leader Peter Kormos introduced a private member’s bill that proposed to make organ donation automatic for everyone, unless the individual has previously “opted out” of the system. Kormos said the plan “will help ease the organ-donation crisis,” in which there are not enough organs donated to meet the demand for transplants. The bill [...]
When you get to the bottom of the issue of organ donation, there are two main arguments used against pro-lifers in their concerns about the practice: dying patients don’t need organs anyway and improving another person’s life is a truly pro-life position. Neither argument holds any water. Regarding the first argument, the moral principle is simple: it is never permissible to purposely [...]
The spectacular rise and fall of maverick South Korean cloning “hero,” Professor Hwang Woo-Suk, a veterinarian and professor of biotechnology at Seoul National University, is being taken as a lesson in the power of media hype. Despite the fact that most reputable specialists in cloning had believed such a breakthrough was decades away, Hwang stunned the scientific world by claiming to have [...]
Paul Tuns and John-Henry Westen The Interim U.S. researchers and a sycophantic mainstream media are trumpeting the latest embryonic stem cell “discovery” – stem cells that are derived ethically from embryos. According to the scientific magazine Nature, Massachusetts-based biotech firm Advanced Cell Technology has developed a procedure that removes single cells from early-stage embryos without always killing the embryo. Blastomere separation – [...]
LifeSiteNews.com Special to The Interim The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is the government body overseeing Canadian experiments in cloning and use of embryos for research and was the major lobbyist in favour of the unrestricted use of living embryonic human beings for destructive medical research. It will come as no surprise to many, therefore, that the CIHR has changed the rules [...]
LifeSiteNews.com Special to The Interim Human embryonic stem cells have long been known to be unstable and difficult to control. In some cases, where they have been used directly in therapeutic trials, the use of embryonic stem cells has been disastrous for patients. Now, a researcher from Johns Hopkins University, an institution that has backed the use of embryos for research, has [...]
LifeSiteNews.com Special to The Interim In a speech in the U.S. Senate at the end of July, Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, broke radically both with President Bush and his own past statements by supporting a bill to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. In his speech, Frist said that while embryos are living and fully human, they still [...]
Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican majority leader in the United States Senate, is a medical professor, heart-transplant surgeon and sincere Christian, who spends much of his vacation time serving as a medical volunteer in clinics for AIDS patients in Africa. Speaking in the United States Senate on July 29, he made the best conceivable case for a bad cause – [...]
By Paul Tuns The Interim Researchers at Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto have produced Canada’s first embryonic stem cell lines and are boasting about this country being a leader in curing various diseases and ailments. Some scientists, however, say those involved in the ground-breaking science are overstating claims as to the kind of cures that may come from the unproven research. Dr. [...]
LifeSiteNews.com Special to The Interim Pro-life Canadians who want to donate money to medical research often find themselves in an ethical dilemma. Most organizations supporting disease research in Canada have policies supporting the use of human beings at the embryonic stage for living research test subjects. On March 4, 2002, the Cancer Society wrote in a media release: “The Canadian Cancer Society [...]
LifeSitesNews.com Special to The Interim Once again South Korean scientist, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk has made international headlines by creating a number of cloned human beings intended to be killed and harvested for their stem cells. The doctor, whom the National Post called a Korean “folk hero” for his work in human cloning, has obtained stem cells from clones created from patients with [...]
EDINBURGH — Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, the famed “creator” of Dolly the sheep, has been given the green light to use and destroy human embryos in cloning experiments. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority gave Wilmut permission to study motor neurone disease. Research cloning has been permitted in the U.K. Since 2001, but this is just [...]
LifeSiteNews.com Special to The Interim Umbilical cords continue to surprise researchers as an abundant source of stem cells. The Feb. 9 Toronto Star reported that a group of scientists at the University of Toronto has discovered what they are calling the “jackpot” of stem cells in a mass of jelly found inside the umbilical cord. “We’re very excited by this, that’s for [...]
Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World by Wesley Smith (Encounter Books, $38.95 in bookstores or $35.00 through the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, toll free at: 1-877-439-3348, 219 pgs ) Reviewed by Alex Schadenberg The Interim Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World (Brave New World) is Wesley J. Smith's latest book. Smith, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute and the legal [...]