Bioethics

Embryonic Stem Cell Flop in California

Laura Ingraham | by Raymond Arroyo | Feb. 1, 2010

Without so much as a press release, Embryonic Stem Cell research is being slowly defunded by the State of California. Remember Proposition 71, the California initiative that pledged $3 billion dollars of public funds to this dubious research? Back in 2004 voters in that state bet that embryonic stem cells held the key to untold cures and therapies.

Six years later, after destroying innumerable embryos and devaluing human life, they have nothing to show for their investment. Only adult stem cell research has shown any promise. By reprogramming adult stem cells, researchers have produced astounding results; curing everything from type 1 diabetes to spinal cord injuries. more »

Pulling the Plug on the Conscience Clause

First Things | by Wesley J. Smith | December 2009

Over the past fifty years, the purposes and practices of medicine have changed radically. Where medical ethics was once life-affirming, today’s treatments and medical procedures increasingly involve the legal taking of human life. The litany is familiar: More than one million pregnancies are extinguished each year in the United States, thousands late-term. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, Washington, and, as this is written, Montana via a court ruling (currently on appeal to the state supreme court). One day, doctors may be authorized to kill patients with active euthanasia, as they do already in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. more »

Knocking Human Beings Off the Pedestal of Exceptionalism

Church Report | by Wesley J. Smith | Oct. 30, 2009

Society’s belief in the unique moral value and importance of human life is under unprecedented assault. Most people still believe in human exceptionalism and are unaware that powerful social and cultural forces are working diligently to dismantle the sanctity of life ethic as the fundamental value of our social order. But the time has come to pay attention. If human life is knocked off the pedestal, universal human rights will be impossible to sustain. more »