Category: Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics

Down Syndrome Discovery Has Implications for Human Genetic Engineering
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Down Syndrome Discovery Has Implications for Human Genetic Engineering

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The 21st human chromosome is the smallest of all our chromosomes. It contains a few hundred genes and is only 1% of our total DNA. As most people know, an extra chromosome 21 causes Down Syndrome. What most people did not know, until research published this week, is that tiny chromosome has an effect across […]

Building the Culture John XXII and John Paul II Envisioned
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Building the Culture John XXII and John Paul II Envisioned

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This Sunday, Pope Francis will proclaim Blessed John XXIII and Blessed John Paul II Saints. He personally chose the date to coincide with Divine Mercy Sunday, a feast inaugurated by John Paul II in 2000. It was on the eve of this feast on April 2, 2005 that John Paul II gave up his spirit […]

 The Oxford Push to Screen Embryos for Intelligence
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The Oxford Push to Screen Embryos for Intelligence

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Wesley J. Smith has a disturbing article dealing with Oxford bioethicist Julian Savulescu’s proposal to screen human embryos for intelligence. Smith quotes Savulescu: A common objection is that being smarter does not make your life better. In this study, researchers were concerned with those with an IQ between 70-85. Below 70 is classified as intellectual […]

TV Show <em>Intelligence</em>: Patriotic Transhumanist Propaganda
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TV Show Intelligence: Patriotic Transhumanist Propaganda

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My husband watches the new TV show Intelligence starring Josh Holloway (previously Sawyer from Lost) as Gabriel, a man with a rare genetic mutation (or some such) that allowed the U.S. government to put a chip in his brain. This chip gives Gabriel unlimited access to the Internet directly into his consciousness. As an agent […]

FDA Considers Allowing Genetically Modified Children
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FDA Considers Allowing Genetically Modified Children

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This week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) met to discuss allowing the creation of human beings with three genetic parents to proceed to clinical trials. That is, whether to allow human “three-parent embryos” to be implanted and possibly grow to term. There are currently two different techniques for manufacturing three-parent embryos, the purpose of […]

Pro-lifers Host Rome Conference Celebrating John Paul II
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Pro-lifers Host Rome Conference Celebrating John Paul II

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C-FAM and the Alliance Defending Freedom are hosting a conference in Rome to explore and celebrate the contribution of Pope John Paul II to the pro-life debate at the UN and his work in establishing a global pro-life movement. The conference comes during the weekend of the canonization of John Paul II as a saint […]

Get Ready for a Busy 2014 in Bioethics
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Get Ready for a Busy 2014 in Bioethics

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My taskmasters at the CBC never allow me to rest on my laurels. Fresh off several years of stellar prognosticating, I am now forced to answer the question: “But what have you predicted, lately?” Okay, let’s take a look. Oh! Oh my. Please remember, the following predictions are what I see happening. They do not […]

Eugenics Still Coercive and Devoid of Real Compassion
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Eugenics Still Coercive and Devoid of Real Compassion

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Today more and more people are whole-heartedly embracing eugenics. They probably don’t know it as eugenics, but every time a human life in the womb or in the lab is cut short because his or her genetics is not up to snuff, that is undoubtedly eugenics. Many associate the eugenics of old with a lack […]

My Predictions in Bioethics Right Again!
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My Predictions in Bioethics Right Again!

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Can you believe a year has come and gone since I last told you what would happen, before it happened, in bioethics? Maybe it’s my increasing age, but time is passing too fast! So, how did I do? Not as well as in years past, but still an A-. Let’s take a look: The Affordable […]

Socially Polite Child Abuse
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Socially Polite Child Abuse

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Most Americans do not think of abortion as child abuse. But as Mother Teresa once said, “Any country that accepts abortion is…teaching its people…to use any violence to get what they want.” I would add that not only does abortion teach people the palatability of violence, it persuades people to lie to themselves. Self-deception has been gripping […]

More Media Stem Cell Confusion
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More Media Stem Cell Confusion

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After my many years of writing about stem cell research, I am still shocked when the media get the facts horribly wrong. I guess that comes from the assumption that to report the news, one must actually understand the subject matter. After last month’s confusion over whether research that produced mini-kidneys in the lab used […]

Mini-Kidney Likely Grown from Embryonic Stem Cells, Not Skin Cells
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Mini-Kidney Likely Grown from Embryonic Stem Cells, Not Skin Cells

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Ever since the dawn of embryonic stem cell research, the media has rarely gotten the facts straight. Either the reporter is unaware of the scientific and moral differences between adult and embryonic stem cells or he has an agenda to push. Some news outlets were so bold as to call embryonic stem cells “early” stem […]

Stem Cell Funding Shifts Toward Ethical Research
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Stem Cell Funding Shifts Toward Ethical Research

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I have always said that if you want accurate information about stem cell research and its possibilities, you should be reading the business section. Anything else is probably misleading, hyped or even flat out lies. In other words, follow the money. The money will tell you what is truly promising research. The money is painting […]

Good News About Down Syndrome
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Good News About Down Syndrome

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It was one of the most heartwarming moments of the 2013 baseball season. On April 18, after a pep-talk from his “best friend and greatest batboy,” Cincinnati Reds third baseman Todd Frazier ripped a two-run homer to center field off John Maine, extending the Reds lead to 11-1 over the Miami Marlins in the sixth […]

FDA Mulling Three-Parent Embryo Creation
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FDA Mulling Three-Parent Embryo Creation

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While some European ethicists and politicians have called for an end to the creation of “three-parent” IVF embryos, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced it is considering allowing the practice – without having held a public consultation. Researchers say that the technique “modifies standard IVF technology” to create an embryo from the eggs of […]

African Girl Brought to UK for Organ Harvesting
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African Girl Brought to UK for Organ Harvesting

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This is so horrific and evil that it almost defies reason. Officials have rescued a girl from Somalia that was brought to the UK to harvest her organs. They are sure that this is not an isolated incidence. The Telegraph has the story: The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the […]

Technology as Savior
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Technology as Savior

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I worry for young people these days. I know every generation says that about the one that follows, but today’s youth may face a world where simply being human won’t be good enough. Augmentation may be required to participate in society. A cyber-brain here, a bionic limb there with some genetic engineering and a few […]

Now is the Time to Stop Three-Parent IVF
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Now is the Time to Stop Three-Parent IVF

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The UK rubber stamp Embryo Authority has approved the manufacture of three-parent human embryos. The process is done by removing the nucleus from the egg of one woman, putting it into the enucleated egg of another, and then fertilizing with sperm. Voila, three biological parents. The approach is supposed to enable women with mitochondrial disease—who […]

The New Love Affair with Eugenics
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The New Love Affair with Eugenics

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One of the modern zeitgeists that scares me the most is the growing love affair with eugenics among the elite. Whether the masses are aware of it or not, elite ideas trickle down and infect our subconscious. More and more dropping from Ivory Towers are notes that say, “Eugenics is good,” and “The problem last […]

The Human Machine?
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The Human Machine?

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In modern times, skewing the image of the human being as a child of God, created in His image and likeness, is a process that started the day the first condom was sold in a vending machine early in the 1940s. While it is equally true that, since the beginning of time, man has tried by every means […]

A Crime in Time—and Again
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A Crime in Time—and Again

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Anne Roback Morse also contributed to this article. California has a long-history of eugenics, and it is easy to condemn the eugenics laws that the Golden State passed in 1909 and implemented until 1952. These sterilizations were visited upon “the unfit” in mental hospitals, upon the uneducated, and upon non-white minorities in disproportionately high numbers. […]

The Importance of Language in Changing the Culture
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The Importance of Language in Changing the Culture

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For forty-one years Human Life International has been engaged in building a Culture of Life through education and activism. Though we have been blessed with success in many of our efforts, we have also faced numerous difficulties. One of these difficulties is one we share with all who defend life, faith and family: As cultural […]

Procreative Altruism: Lebensborn Re-Imagined
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Procreative Altruism: Lebensborn Re-Imagined

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You remember Julian Savulescu, the Oxford “ethicist” who is telling parents that we are morally obligated to choose the child among many “possible children” that is determined by genetic testing to have the “best life.” He wants us all to use IVF, whether we are infertile or not apparently, to create a batch of embryos […]

Extra Chromosome Silenced in Down Syndrome Cells
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Extra Chromosome Silenced in Down Syndrome Cells

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Amazing news was announced in the field of gene therapy last week. Scientists in Massachusetts have taken the cells of a person with Down Syndrome and have silenced the extra 21st chromosome in those cells. The Guardian has the story: Scientists have corrected the genetic fault that causes Down’s syndrome – albeit in isolated cells […]