Anglican Mainstream

From The Christian Institute

US scientists have, for the first time, recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, in a move raising serious ethical concerns.

Critics warn that the technique, which is similar to the one used to clone Dolly the sheep, could pave the way for ‘designer’ babies being cloned in laboratories.

But the team from Oregon Health and Science University, led by Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov, dismissed the concerns.
 
Dr David King, founder of Human Genetics Alert, called for an international ban on human cloning.

He said it was “irresponsible in the extreme” to have published details of the study.

Josephine Quintavalle, from the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, questioned the need for the research when more simple ways of making customised stem cells already exist.

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By Andrew Hough and John Bingham, Telegraph

Sperm donors were given the legal right yesterday to apply for regular contact with their biological children following a landmark High Court ruling.

Following the judgment that could affect thousands of couples, men who help families conceive may now win the right to play a part in the child’s life even though they are not currently raising them.

The ruling, the first of its kind, declared that a sperm donor does not need to have a sexual relationship with a mother in order to influence the child’s upbringing.

Last night experts warned that the case could have far-reaching consequences on couples — both heterosexual and gay – considering using a sperm donor.

They urged couples facing the “scary prospect” of a sperm donor seeking contact with his biological child to establish the child rearing equivalent of a prenuptial agreement or co-parenting deal.

Yesterday’s judgment, from the court’s Family Division, centred on a complex dispute between two lesbian couples who were friends with two homosexual men.

One of the men is the biological father of both the children of one of the lesbian couples while the other man is the biological father of a child being brought up by the other female couple.

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By Madeleine Teahan, Catholic Herald

From The Christian Institute

A Tory MP has attacked the BBC for treating assisted suicide as a “matter of fun” in a new sitcom due to air this month.

The controversial BBC Three comedy “Way to Go” is about three young men who start a business by building a machine that can kill people who have a terminal disease.

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard criticised the broadcaster, saying: “This is a sensitive and complex issue that should be handled with compassion and understanding.”
 
He added: “It is a sad fact that assisted dying is now regarded a ‘revenue stream’ to some foreign clinics and clearly as a matter of fun by some parts of the BBC.”

In one scene in the show, someone dies in a matter of seconds after the lever of the machine is pulled to inject a fatal dose.

And when another “client” is found for the service, one character says: “He’s got stomach cancer. How fantastic is that!”

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By Robin Lane, MLJ Trust

Publication of the Leveson report on the culture, practices and ethics of the press [1] has prompted much debate within the British Government [2] and the population in general [3]. The suffering of those who have been subjected to intrusion has prompted widespread sympathy and many calls for tighter regulation of the press – regulation that is underpinned by legislation [4].
 
Legislation and Morals

However, this raises a basic question common to many areas of modern life. Is new legislation the solution to unethical behaviour? One commentator observed that the debate has not reached the root of this core problem: ‘you won't improve ethics if you ignore morality.’ He goes on to suggest that a significant factor is a reluctance to engage with the Judaeo-Christian moral framework that has traditionally informed our ethics [5].
 
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From Evangelical Alliance

Why is it that, the more freedoms we are given, the more laws we seem to need? The Leveson Inquiry and the accompanying public debate has not got to the root of this core problem: you won't improve ethics if you ignore morality. Recommendations on the future of press regulation are evidently needed and the focus of much attention, after all, the press is interested in what concerns their future.

But it is vitally important to step back from the frenzy surrounding the media scandals, corruption, inquiry and now the report and ask more foundational questions about the place of ethics in our media. This crisis echoes a broader crisis of public leadership across all of society, whether it's politics, banking, finance, even our education system. Albert Camus once observed that: "A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world." There is a lot of talk about ethics in public life, but little acknowledgement that ethics flow from a moral framework. If we don't accept the indispensability of morality, no number of new laws and regulators will make men and women good.

The Leveson Inquiry has exposed how truth and transparency are vital for a healthy society – and how our media has shown a frequent disregard for its value. Too often we seem to be trying to cultivate public ethics in a vacuum: how can we expect honesty without a high regard for truth? It's (literally) impossible to have honesty in the media without having truth as an objective for reporting. With media outlets competing for power and profits, each one seeks to present its own worldview at the expense of the other. Fuelled by a pervasive myth of secular neutrality, the outcome is a subtle but apparent manipulation of facts and reality to suit a particular agenda – all of which has the effect of reducing public trust.

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From The Christian Institute

The UK government regulator is consulting on new proposals to allow scientists to create children with three – or even four – parents. This is a profoundly important issue with huge ethical implications. The consultation closes on Friday 7 December. Please submit a response.

The proposals would allow genetic modifications to children before they are born. The consultation is being carried out by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The HFEA says the aim of the plans is to prevent parents passing on mitochondrial diseases to their children (mitochondria are found within, and provide energy to, human cells).

But there are grave ethical concerns. What would be the psychological effects on a child when they learn they have three or four parents? Who can predict the consequences of altering the human germ-line with genetic changes passed on to future generations?

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by Albert Mohler

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By Hilary White, LifeSite News

The European Court of Human Rights has decreed that the Italian law prohibiting genetic “screening” of in vitro embryos “violates the right to respect for private and family life” guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court specifically noted the “incoherence” of Italian law that bans preimplantation genetic diagnosis on embryos, but allows the abortion of unborn children suspected of genetic or physical anomalies. The law, the court said, pushes couples to abort children regarded as defective.

It “only gives the plaintiffs one option, full of anxiety and suffering,” said the court. “Get pregnant naturally and then abort when a prenatal examination shows the foetus is affected”

According to the judges, Italian law on preimplantation genetic diagnosis “is inconsistent: on one side [it] deprives the applicants access to PGD and on the other authorizes them to perform therapeutic termination of pregnancy when the fetus is affected from this same disease”.

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By Richard Alleyne, Telegraph

Genetically screening our offspring to make them better people is just 'responsible parenting', claims an eminent Oxford academic.

Professor Julian Savulescu said that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a "moral obligation" as it makes them grow up into "ethically better children".
 
The expert in practical ethics said that we should actively give parents the choice to screen out personality flaws in their children as it meant they were then less likely to "harm themselves and others".
 
The academic, who is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, made his comments in an article in the latest edition of Reader's Digest.
 
He explained that we are now in the middle of a genetic revolution and that although screening, for all but a few conditions, remained illegal it should be welcomed.
 
He said that science is increasingly discovering that genes have a significant influence on personality – with certain genetic markers in embryo suggesting future characteristics.

By screening in and screening out certain genes in the embryos, it should be possible to influence how a child turns out.

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By Brendan Foht, Witherspoon Institute

By Kathleen Gilbert, LifeSite News

For children of anonymous sperm donors yearning for a connection to their biological father, the world can be an unwelcome place.

By Amin Abboud, MercatorNet

This week the Australian government conferred its highest civil honour upon a notorious philosopher.

[...]  Ironically for some, we belong to the kind of society that awarded Australia's highest civil honour to the philosopher Peter Singer on Monday. Singer has been made a Companion of Australia for "eminent service to philosophy and bioethics as a leader of public debate and communicator of ideas in the areas of global poverty, animal welfare and the human condition".

There is something naive about this catalogue of Singer's achievements. Around the world, his name is synonymous with arguments that legitimise infanticide. He has been advocating this case since at least 1979, when he published his most influential book, Practical Ethics.

The revisions in last year's edition do not include a retraction of his notorious views. He says: "A week-old baby is not a rational and self-aware being, and there are many non-human animals whose rationality, self-awareness, capacity to feel and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week or a month old. If, for the reasons I have given, the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears the newborn baby does not either."

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By Stephen Adams, Telegraph

Scientists could soon be able to routinely screen unborn babies for thousands of genetic conditions, raising concerns the breakthrough could lead to more abortions.

A team has been able to predict the whole genetic code of a foetus by taking a blood sample from a woman who was 18 weeks pregnant, and a swab of saliva from the father.

They believe that, in time, the test will become widely available, enabling doctors to screen unborn babies for some 3,500 genetic disorders.

At the moment the only genetic disorder routinely tested for on the NHS is Down’s syndrome. This is a large-scale genetic defect caused by having an extra copy of a bundle of DNA, called a chromosome.

Other such faults are sometimes tested for, but usually only when there is a risk of inheriting them from a parent.

By contrast, the scientists say their new test would identify far more conditions, caused by genetic errors.

However, they warned it raised “many ethical questions” because the results could be used as a basis for abortion.

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by Jonathan Petre, Mailonline

David Cameron has thrown his weight behind a controversial technique to prevent incurable hereditary diseases that will result in the birth of children with three parents.

The Prime Minister urged Health Department officials to accelerate the testing of a new IVF procedure that could eradicate devastating genetic diseases such as muscular dystrophy.

It involves taking the nucleus out of the egg of a mother carrying faulty mitochondria – the ‘batteries’ that power cells – and transferring it into a healthy egg donated by another woman, resulting in a disease-free baby.

But it means the child would contain genetic material not only from his or her mother and father but also from the donor, though scientists say only tiny amounts would come from the third party.

A fierce ethical row will erupt when the Government launches a public consultation within weeks on whether to permit the technique, which critics claim could create ‘hybrid’ children.

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By Dale O'Leary

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is fighting for the mandate in Obamacare designed force all health care plans to provide free (that is without a co-pay) contraception, morning after pills, and sterilization. She insists that this is a battle for women’s health.

Those who see this as a question of religious freedom have let this claim pass unchallenged. There is however, substantial evidence that handing out free contraception to unmarried women actually endangers their health.

We are in the midst of a pandemic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Giving contraception to unmarried women is like handing out umbrellas in the midst of a tornado. The only safe place when a tornado looms on the horizon is in a shelter; the only safe way to avoid STIs, given the many infectious agents circulating in the population, is to practice chastity before marriage and fidelity in marriage.

Here is just a partial list of what the sexually active, unmarried woman faces when she engages in sexual activity and uses the contraception that Pelosi claims is protecting her health.

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AM Comment:  We make no apology for posting this tongue-in-cheek article by Rabbi Moshe Averick in view of the BACP's recent decision in this case.

The British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has struck a blow for progressive people everywhere, by taking away the senior accredited status of psychotherapist Lesley Pilkington. Ms. Pilkington committed the horribly unprofessional offense of fulfilling the request of Patrick Strudwick to help him overcome his unwanted homosexual tendencies. Strudwick claimed that his homosexuality was causing him to be depressed. The BACP ruling acknowledged that Strudwick “was comfortable and accepting of her approach, such as saying “Amen” at the end of prayers,” and telling Pilkington that he had recently become more religious.

The BACP declared such therapy as “reckless,” “disrespectful,” and “dogmatic.” They demand that psychotherapists “affirm” homosexuality, even if the client does not. (The BACP is also considering issuing guidelines that psychotherapists affirm “natural” suicidal tendencies even if the client does not. After all, what the hell do clients know about psychotherapy anyway!)

It turns out that the Strudwick was not being totally honest with Pilkington. (In clinical terms this is known as “Lying.”) It seems he was not really interested in overcoming his homosexuality; he was involved in a “sting” operation. He deliberately misled Pilkington in order “to root out therapists and psychiatrists who are practicing these techniques…The ultimate aim was to prevent religious groups from offering counseling which aims to change sexual orientation.” If it is unclear to the reader what this has to do with married men “coming out of the closet” please read on.

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By Jill Kirby, Conservative Home

By Sophie Borland, Mailonline

Guidelines state it would be ‘discriminatory’ for doctors not to prescribe either the Pill or morning-after pill just because they don’t believe in sex outside marriage

Doctors could be struck off for refusing to give contraceptive pills to women who aren’t married.

New guidelines from the General Medical Council state that it would be ‘discriminatory’ for doctors not to prescribe either the Pill or morning-after pill just because they don’t believe in sex outside marriage.

The rules, which also warn doctors that they face being struck off for refusing to carry out sex-change operations, have angered senior Catholic bishops and campaigners.

Critics fear the guidelines will marginalise Christian doctors and others with strong moral beliefs.

They warn the rules will affect a ‘significant number’ of doctors who will be pressurised to carry out treatment against their consciences.

The draft GMC guidelines, entitled ‘Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice’, tell professionals they ‘cannot be willing to provide married women with contraception but unwilling to prescribe it for unmarried women’. 

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By Chris Moncreiff, Mailonline

The Roman Catholic Church is in trouble because it is urging all its secondary school pupils in England and Wales to back the campaign against homosexual marriages. Inevitably this has led to protests from secularist campaigners, who say this could be a breach of equality laws and and may, therefore, be illegal.

So, what price freedom of speech? And who are these people who would try to suppress opinions if they do not conform to the modish views of today? Presumably the Catholic Church – and indeed secularists, too – believe that stealing is wrong and would teach those in their charge that it is wrong.

Equally the Church takes the view that homosexual marriages are wrong, so why should those who take a contrary view attempt to bully and threaten them in this way?

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