Assisted suicide advocates pushing Washington’s I 1000 are resorting to coercion to pressure the media into using their advocacy phrases when describing the pro-assisted suicide initiative. From the Eye on Olympia blog :

I-1000 proponents have been pressing news organizations not to use the words “assisted suicide” to describe the initiative. (I-1000 would allow mentally-competent, terminally ill people who wanted it to be prescribed lethal medication.) I was told yesterday by a campaign official, for example, that supporters in Oregon–the only state to have such a law so far– would refuse to speak with me if I included the word “suicide” in my story…The measures proponents say that the word “suicide” is hurtful to relatives and friends. Also, they say, a terminally ill person, by definition, cannot choose to live.

What crapolla. If that is true, none of us can commit suicide because ultimately a time comes in which none of us can choose to live. Moreover, terminally ill people, like everyone else, can choose to continue living until they die–and sometimes the timing of that event defies expectations and is years from when the end was expected to come. But in this postmodern day and age, accurate facts and precise definitions mean little: Narrative is king.

I hope the media resist the pressure–I am not holding my breath that most reporters will risk the “big get” interview–but good for Eye on Olympia for busting the tactic.

Whilst a woman in the UK with MS seeks the right to have her husband take her to Switzerland for assisted suicide to the cheers of euthanasia advocates and the media, other MS patients have been effectively treated with their own bone marrow stem cells. From the press release:

All patients appeared to respond to treatment”, reported Dr. Ionova. Improvement was seen in 62.3%, and stabilisation occurred in 37.7% of patients. Progression after improvement occurred in 7.1% and progression after stabilisation in 11.8% of patients.

There were no deaths during the course of the study.

Out of 26 patients included in the quality-of-life analysis, 24 exhibited a response and preserved a good quality of life during the follow-up. No unexpected treatment-related adverse events were observed.

According to Dr. Ionova, immunosuppressive therapy plus autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation appears to be a safe and effective therapy for multiple sclerosis, Dr. Ionova concluded.

This confirms other studies. But it isn’t an easy therapy. First the immune system is destroyed, requiring hospitalization and isolation. Then the stem cells are used to rebuild the immune system, improving the MS, or as in other studies, preventing it from worsening.

Onward!

The review appears to validate the complaints of advocates and some members of Congress who have said the health care system needs to focus more on women’s health. (AP)

“Embryo: A Defense of Human Life” by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen is different. It delves beneath the surface of the current debate to analyze the ethical issue at stake. Embryonic stem-cell research confronts us with the question whether we may ever directly destroy an innocent human life solely for expected benefits to others. (The-Tidings)

All it took to bilk the federal government out of $105 million was a laptop computer. (Washington Post)

Preemies are a quickly expanding class of patients in the U.S., Britain, and other advanced nations. And the costs and technical challenges of caring for them are a growing source of controversy. Nearly 13% of all babies in the U.S. are preemies, a 20% increase since 1990. A 2006 report by the National Academy of Sciences found that the 550,000 preemies born each year in the U.S. run up about $26 billion in annual costs, mostly related to care in NICUs. (BusinessWeek)