March 8, 2007
Christa Lilly, the Colorado woman diagnosed with persistent vegetative state who woke up and began talking, has relapsed into an unresponsive state. Her mother promises to care for her no matter what. Good. Lilly’s moral worth and intrinsic value as … Read More
March 8, 2007
There is so much going on in the fields of adult/umbilical cord blood stem cell research, that I can’t possibly post it all, much less read it all. Happily, these advances are collected by the inestimable Richard Doerflinger, and published … Read More
March 7, 2007
It is incredible that anyone would seriously contemplate legalizing assisted suicide in California, given the elder abuse statistics. In 2003, the California Attorney General’s Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse (BMFEA) and Crime and Violence Prevention Center (CVPC) issued … Read More
March 7, 2007
This wonderful story demonstrates that being diagnosed PVS does not mean necessarily that one will never wake up, and indeed, that one will not again become interactive. Christa Lilly woke up after 6 years in a diagnosed unconscious condition, and … Read More
March 6, 2007
I was honored to be interviewed about my friend Dean Koontz for an article about him in the National Catholic Register. As the article notes, he and I became close after he boosted Culture of Death in his novel One … Read More
March 6, 2007
The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Physicians has gone “neutral” on assisted suicide. And, it has bought into the propaganda that assisted suicide should be called “physician assisted death” (PAD). (Mustn’t let doctors face the fact they would be … Read More
March 5, 2007
Please pardon this long post, but there is no way to abridge the discussion and to justice do the important and deeply emotional matters that are considered. Last month, I came across a story in the San Francisco Chronicle that … Read More
March 5, 2007
Rita Marker, the head of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, and I have a piece in today’s NRO about how euthanasia proponents engage in post modernistic abuse of language to further their ideological agenda. (Human cloning … Read More
March 5, 2007
A man in India is reportedly walking again after becoming paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury, in which doctors used his own bone marrow stem cells as the therapeutic agent. It is tempting raise the roof yelling about this … Read More
March 4, 2007
The UK may have the most radical public policy when it comes to cloning and biotechnology in the world. Want to buy eggs for cloning? Go right ahead. Make cloned human/animal hybrid clones? Be our guest. In fact, I have … Read More
March 3, 2007
As readers of bioethics.com know, I have been warning for some time that infanticide is in the process of being normalized in the USA and around the world. It is in this context that I found a judge’s decision to … Read More
March 1, 2007
It goes from bad to worse, for the UK’s National Health Service. Now, it has spent billions of pounds training doctors and has no place to put them due to budget cuts. According to the Telegraph, 8,000 doctors are on … Read More
March 1, 2007
Michael Fumento’s work on explaining adult stem cells is stellar. Perhaps, that is because, of the many hats he wears, one is that of a science writer. In this article in the American Spectator, Fumento explains how the mistakes in … Read More
March 1, 2007
Marilyn Golden is a disability rights activists who I have worked with over the years in opposing assisted suicide. She is smart, effective, and understands the stakes in this debate for her community and indeed, for each of us. In … Read More
February 28, 2007
This is a wonderful story: An infant apparently died and didn’t breathe for 30 minutes, but then spontaneously came back to life. After surgery, he is none the worse for wear. The moral of the story? It’s Not Over Until … Read More
February 28, 2007
The media and many scientists treat the ESCR/human cloning debates as if they were scientific in nature, rather than about ethics and philosophy–which cannot be determined by the scientific method. Now, a scientist writing in Nature, of all places, makes … Read More
February 28, 2007
The Dutch apparently have a real problem with suicidal desires. According to this story, there are nearly 100,000 suicide attempts each year, with about 1,600 resulting deaths. From the story: The official figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) indicate that 1,600 … Read More
February 28, 2007
This is a disturbing story in the Los Angeles Times: A doctor is under investigation for overdosing an organ donor with pain medication to hasten his death in order to procure organs. If so, it is a terrible breach of … Read More
February 28, 2007
I reported earlier on the mainstream media’s jumping to over blow a story of process mistakes made by Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, with regard to the potential that she derived pluripotent adult stem cells from bone marrow. My point was further … Read More
February 27, 2007
Some doubts (and aspersions) have been cast about my interpretation of A.B. 374, which I detailed in a Secondhand Smoke post and over at First Things. One commenter called my interpretation “convoluted.” Well, true–but only because of the way the … Read More
February 26, 2007
The transhumanist guru, James Hughes, grouses about an essay apparently written by Rich Hayes of the Center for Genetics and Society. Hayes and the Center are definitely and firmly on the political and pro choice left. But since he and … Read More
February 26, 2007
In a poll taken last year, but there is no reason to think it still isn’t valid. By 65-23%, California’s Latino’s oppose assisted suicide. So does LULAC, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organization. Let’s hope that the California Assembly … Read More
February 26, 2007
The Dutch continue to demonstrate how euthanasia pushes a country’s ethics into a moral free fall. The current government apparently plans to stress palliative care. No, says Mark Rutte, the leader of one of the primary opposition parties! From the … Read More
February 26, 2007
I have written some more about the requirement in California’s A.B. 374, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide, that Catholic nursing homes, in-patient hospice facilities, and other health care providers permit assisted suicide to take place on premises. It is over … Read More
February 26, 2007
A story in the San Francisco Chronicle today inadvertently disclosed what may be a case of assisted suicide tourism in Oregon. The story is about a pagan memorial service for a woman named Heather MacAllister, who was notable locally for … Read More
