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Friday, October 8, 2010

Major pro-life victory at Council of Europe. Ireland's Senator Rónán Mullen plays key role

Yesterday evening, in a dramatic surprise victory spearheaded by Luca Volonté, Chairperson of the European People's Party group in the Council of Europe, and Ireland's independent Senator Rónán Mullen, an attack on doctors' and nurses' right of conscientious objection to performing abortions was roundly defeated.


The attack was contained in a Resolution proposed by Christine McCafferty of the UK Socialist Group based on the Report for which she had been the Rapporteur.  It proposed draconian limitations on the freedom of conscience which has always been recognised by law as a sacrosanct right of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals, and a cornerstone of the trust we have in them to act according to their honest conviction as to what is really in their patient's interests.


The McCafferty Resolution, which was widely expected to be carried, would have put pressure on Council of Europe Member States to bring in measures requiring healthcare professionals to perform or facilitate abortions or be officially blacklisted by the State.


In a shock reversal, however, the interventions co-ordinated and led by Luca Volonté, Senator Mullen and other Council of Europe colleagues turned the tide of opinion and in the dry words of the official record,


'At the end of a debate on the subject during which the text presented by the Committee on Social Affairs was substantially amended, the adopted resolution states that "no person and no hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion"'


The result has been widely and warmly welcomed by the pro-life community as a victory for common sense and good professional ethics and medical practice, and as an encouraging example of people of conviction, courage and persistence, making a real and significant difference, not only lobbying outside in the corridors of power and on the airwaves all over Europe, but also in the Chamber of the Council of Europe itself.


Read the Resolution reaffirming doctors' and nurses' right of conscientious objection to taking part in abortion here

Read the original draft report here

Virginia Ironside says a 'good mother' would put a pillow over the head of a disabled child!




Columnist with The Independent Newspaper (London)  Virginia Ironside has said that a 'good mother' would put a pillow over the head of her baby if he/she had a disability. Naturally this has caused outrage in Britain even though abortion is legal there up to birth where the baby has a disability.  The comments were made on a BBC morning television show last week.  What’s worse is that the other studio guest is Vicar Joanna Jepson, who was born with a birth defect which was corrected by surgery in her teens.    
Click here to watch the 1 ½ minute video.



"this is a game-changer" Scientists hail giant leap forward in adult stem cell research


An article by researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, published at the end of last month in Cell Stem Cell, presents a series of ground-breaking advances used to take skin cells, de-specialise them into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), and re-programme them into muscle cells, overcoming drawbacks in earlier methods such as inefficiency and genetic interference that led to fears they might cause cancer. 

The pro-life community has welcomed the breakthroughs as showing yet again how the advances in science are made without deliberate destruction of human embryos.  It is to be hoped that Minister Harney and her officials will take this on boards as they prepare the legislation due out, we are told, before Christmas.

Robert Lanza, a stem cell researcher at Advanced Cell Technology, Worcester, Massachusetts, who was not involved in this study, commented, “All I can say is ‘wow’ – this is a game-changer. It would solve some of the most important problems in the field.’


Marius Wernig, from Stanford University, another stem cell researcher not involved in this study, if other researchers confirm their methods of generating iPS cells without any genetic modification, ‘then it would be a big advance’ and ‘would be the first practical method for generating iPS cells that could be used for transplant therapies.’


Kathrin Plath of UCLA, said the research was ‘very impressive’, and seemed to be the best way yet developed for generating iPS cells for transplant tissue. She said they would be trying out these techniques at UCLA.


Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, Japan, one of the original researchers who first produced iPS cells said the same, adding that the processes described in the article if validated could become the standard method for generating iPS cells.


You can watch Dr Derrick J. Rossi, lead researcher, explaining the breakthrough here


You can read the breakthrough article here