Sanctity of Life

ChristianNewsWire: "Advocates International (AI), part of the public interest legal team along with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (GD&C) who brought the case before the court more than a year ago, seeks to maintain the preliminary injunction issued by the United States District Court of the District of Columbia enjoining HHS and NIH from unlawfully expending taxpayer funds on research involving the destruction of living human embryos."

LifeNews: "The Louisiana health department has closed the Hope Medical Group for Women abortion business in Shreveport."

LifeNews: "Abortion practitioners who have recently come under fire from state health departments for violating health and safety codes have an odd similarity. They both were found, after investigations of their abortion centers, to have kept the bodies of dead babies from abortions stored in jars."

LifeNews: "With the national fortunes of Democrats fading in the November elections thanks to President Barack Obama's poor performance and an American public opposed to the pro-abortion, government-run health care bill Congress approved, some of the 34 who voted against the measure are running from it."

Wibren Van der Burg, Legislation on Human Embryos: From Status Theories to Value Theories (August 30, 2010). Erasmus Working Paper Series on Jurisprudence and Socio-legal Studies No. 10-03. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1668407 "In this paper I argue that we should separate the legal-political debate on embryos from the ethical debate, and focus on the functions of legislation rather than on the moral status of the embryo. The two major theoretical positions in the moral and legal debates are a rights theory and an interests theory. Each of these two theories may be connected to one of the two classical functions of the law: the protective function and the instrumental function. Each of these theories may shed light on some dimensions of embryo legislation; each, however, is also seriously inadequate in some respects. These inadequacies may, at first sight, be avoided in an intermediate position: the idea of a 'growing protectability' or growing status of the embryo. However, from a legal point of view, this is not an adequate solution at all, because the lack of theoretical foundation for this position makes it almost impossible to implement it and to elaborate it in an unambiguous legal theory."

LifeSiteNews: "As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) prepares to receive a report on the controversial funding practices of their anti-poverty arm, one diocese has proposed a plan to cut off the group's shadier associations. The diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph also suggested in a Monday post on its Catholic Key blog that its plan to reform the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), which it has implemented on a local level, could be used as a template for revamping national CCHD operations . . ."

LifeNews: "The regional affiliate of Planned Parenthood where teenager Holly Patterson died from using the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug first lost its affiliation with Planned Parenthood in early August. Now, Planned Parenthood Golden Gate faces an audit form the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service."

LifeNews: "The troubled abortion business Steven Chase Brigham runs in four states got more bad news as two of the abortion practitioners he employees have lost their medical licenses. The Maryland medical licenses of George Shepard, Jr., of Delaware and Nicola I. Riley of Utah, were suspended on Tuesday."

LifeSiteNews: "Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion medical practitioners this week kicked off a campaign to snuff out the Colorado Personhood initiative, which aims to extend personhood to all human beings from the beginning of their biological development, as it heads to voters in November."

Peter J. Boyer writing at The New Yorker: "The objection to [geneticist Francis Collins] was his faith—or, at least, the ardency of it. Collins is a believing Christian, which places him in the minority among his peers in the National Academy of Science . . . The President had found not only a man who reflected his own view of the harmony between science and faith but an evangelical Christian who hoped that the government’s expansion of embryonic-stem-cell research might bring the culture war over science to a quiet end. On August 23rd, however, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, halted federal spending for embryonic-stem-cell research, putting hundreds of research projects in limbo and plunging the N.I.H. back into a newly contentious national debate."

The Denver Daily News: "Opponents and proponents of a ballot initiative that aims to ban abortion in Colorado clashed at the Capitol yesterday, exchanging words of passion over the controversial initiative. Opponents had scheduled a campaign kick off at the Capitol to fight the Amendment 62 initiative. But proponents crashed the rally, arguing that their opposition is 'relying on scare tactics to frighten voters.'" Ballotpedia: Colorado Fetal Personhood, Amendment 62 (2010)

LifeSiteNews: "A top pro-life professor at the University of Notre Dame is calling into question the motives of the university after Bill Kirk, a long-time member of the Notre Dame community and the only administration member to join a protest against President Obama's appearance on campus, was abruptly terminated . . . Notre Dame philosophy professor David Solomon, the founder and director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, said in a column published in The Rover that he sees a connection between Kirk’s 'removal from office' and what he called 'the background of other events at Notre Dame that inevitably raised questions about its real motivation.'"

The Christian Institute: President Obama’s administration has formally challenged a court order which temporarily blocks federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research in the United States . . . [ADF Attorney Steven H. Aden] said: 'The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments prohibited by federal law that destroy human life. The court is simply enforcing an existing law passed by Congress that prevents Americans from paying another penny for needless research on human embryos.'"

Yale Daily News: "Rizzolo’s laboratory is one of about a dozen facilities on campus that use stem cells. Haifan Lin, director of the Yale Stem Cell Center, said he did not yet know how the moratorium will affect Yale researchers . . . 'The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments — prohibited by federal law — that destroy human life,' said [Steven Aden], the legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advised the party that brought the lawsuit to court."

LifeSiteNews: "The Obama Administration is appealing the decision, and said that a stay 'should not be denied for the benefit of two scientists whose only alleged harm is increased competition from other meritorious research projects that may ultimately save lives.' As a result of the injunction, NIH has cut off funding to its eight 'intra-mural' hESC research projects . . . 'We think it’s a start,' [Steven Aden], Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview."

LifeSiteNews: "Following a meeting with the local archdiocese, a Catholic hospital chain in Boston appears to have reversed its earlier position that a newly-acquired secular hospital would be allowed to continue its practice of providing contraception, sterilizations, and abortion referrals."

Steven Aden, a lead attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the adult stem cell researchers who filed the case against the Obama administration, applauded the decision. 'The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments -- prohibited by federal law -- that destroy human life,' he said. 'The court is simply enforcing an existing law passed by Congress that prevents Americans from paying another penny for needless research on human embryos.'

CitizenLink audio available here.

LifeSiteNews: "Catholics in New England are raising questions after it was announced that Caritas Christi, a network of Catholic hospitals, would allow a newly-acquired secular hospital in Rhode Island to ignore core Catholic medical practices. The move appears to contradict previous statements by Boston’s cardinal that Caritas Christi would remain Catholic despite being sold by the diocese."

Washington Post: "Teaching about polyamory but not about monogamy or abstinence? . . . Brooks notes that denizens of the sex industry have been involved in some of the events . . . "