Right to Life of Michigan's Blog: April 2007

Friday, April 27, 2007

LifeBeat for April 28, 2007

April 28, 2007 - Richard Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, discusses how inefficient human cloning for research is. He also talks about how states should focus their attention on adult stem cell research.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Detroit News gets it wrong on embryonic stem cell research

Below is a letter to the editor which was recently sent to the Detroit News by a Right to Life of Michigan staff person in response to a recent editorial of theirs on embryonic stem cell research:

A recent Detroit News editorial inconceivably states, “Embryonic stem cell research should be allowed in this state” as if it was somehow not allowed. Last November, the Detroit News ran a lengthy article about how the University of Michigan was raising money to do experiments on human embryonic stem cell lines which aren’t funded by the federal government. The U of M was also awarded a multi-million dollar federal grant to work on federally-approved human embryonic stem cells back in 2003.

Michigan law prohibits the killing of human embryos for research purposes and the creation of cloned human embryos, not embryonic stem cell research. Legislation introduced by Representative Andrew Meisner wouldn’t legalize embryonic stem cell research in Michigan since it’s already legal. Meisner’s legislation would allow human embryos created by in vitro fertilization to be killed for research purposes and also explicitly allow the creation of human embryos through cloning and mandate their destruction.

Michigan doesn’t need to clone and kill human embryos to move science forward. That’s one reason why numerous countries like Germany, France, Canada, Japan and many more have banned human cloning for research. They also likely understand there are grave dangers in treating human embryos as if they were nothing more than mere commodities.

Friday, April 20, 2007

LifeBeat for April 21, 2007

Richard Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, talks about why proponents of embryonic stem cell research promise cures when no one is anywhere being treated with embryonic stem cells. He also discusses human cloning for research.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

U.S. Supreme Court upholds ban on partial-birth abortion

On April 18, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. This federal law banned a procedure in which unborn children are partially-delivered before being killed but was challenged in court by various abortion providers. The ban will now take effect and prevent abortionists from using this brutal procedure to kill children who are more born than unborn.

To read, Right to Life of Michigan's press release, click here.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Life Facts - Type 1 Diabetes patients successfully treated with their own stem cells

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a group of patients with Type 1 diabetes, were experimentally treated in Brazil with their own stem cells. Thirteen out of the fifteen young people who received transplants using their own stem cells were able to go without insulin for extended periods, ranging from six months to three years. The patients involved were between the ages of 14 to 31 and newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. One of the patients tested, a 30 year old male, has not taken insulin since the transplant which was 3 years ago. Much more extensive testing and development of this treatment method is needed. Yet with as many as 3 million struck with this disease in the United States alone, this medical first, using ethical sources of stem cells, is a huge step towards a cure.

For more information read these articles in the Houston Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.

LifeBeat for April 7, 2007

Paul Etterling, author of Genuine Faith and the Test of Love, provides advice for parents who receive an adverse prenatal diagnosis and how the prolife movement can reach out to people who are facing an adverse prenatal diagnosis.

Life Beat for March 31, 2007

Paul Etterling, author of Genuine Faith and the Test of Love, discusses the short life of his son David who had anencephaly, a neural tube defect with a 100% fatality rate. Paul and his wife were able to celebrate the life of their son even though he lived for only a short time.

LifeBeat for March 24, 2007

Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, talks about when life human life begins. A new, unique human life begins at conception. He also discusses how every human being has a right to life.

LifeBeat for March 17, 2007

Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, talks about embryonic stem cell research. He also discusses how prolifers can reach out to women who have had abortions.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Governor Granholm continues to confuse on stem cell research

On April 11, Governor Jennifer Granholm, along with the governors from 9 other states, signed a letter which was sent to the minority and majority leaders in the U.S. Senate urging them and all the members of the U.S. Senate to pass a bill which would increase the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

The letter contained a number of faulty statements which again show that Governor Granholm continues to garble information on this important issue.

The letter claims, "Embryonic stem cell research holds the potential to cure some of the oldest and deadliest diseases - from Parkinson's to Alzheimer's to multiple sclerosis. However, these restrictions have delayed that research for far too long." The letter also states, "For over five years, these families have been forced to wait as the Bush policy has obstructed this vital research."

Besides falsely claiming embryonic stem cell research could cure Alzheimer's (leading embryonic stem cell researcher Ronald McKay called statements like this "a fairy tale"), the letter also acts like the federal government restricts or obstructs embryonic stem cell research. The federal government does nothing to restrict or obstruct embryonic stem cell research. Private companies are allowed to do whatever they would like with embryonic stem cells. The federal government even spent $122 million on human embryonic stem cell research from 2003-2006 and plans on spending an additional $74 million on embryonic stem cell research in the next two years.

Instead of leading with honesty and integrity, Governor Granholm continues to garble the truth when it comes to stem cell research. She has unfortunately chosen to spend her time hyping research which is nowhere near being tested in human beings much less curing a wide variety of diseases as if it were the Holy Grail of medicine. In the meantime, she ignores the medical breakthroughs continually occurring using life-affirming forms of stem cell research which don't necessitate the destruction of human embryos.

For more about Governor Granholm's garbling of information on life issues, please visit Granholm Garble.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Successfully treating diabetes with adult stem cells

As the U.S. Senate debates whether to expand the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, research with adult stem cells continues to treat a variety of diseases without killing human embryos. The Journal of the American Medical Association has released information about a study conducted in Brazil on patients with juvenile diabetes. The study found that thirteen of the fifteen treated patients are currently living normal lives and aren't taking insulin injections after being treated with their own stem cells. In the study, patients were given transplants of their own adult stem cells after chemotherapy was used to stop the patient's immune system from attacking cells which produce insulin. The adult stem cells then rebuilt their immune systems so the immune systems won't try to kill the body's insulin producing cells. One patient hasn't needed to use insulin for nearly 3 years.

The abstract to the study is available online at the web site of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Life Facts - Heart patient dramatically improves after injections using his own stem cells

Joe Galsser, 74, after suffering from a massive heart attack was left in a weakened state. He had a pacemaker implanted and was told that he would have five years to live. Seventy-five percent of his heart had died and there was nothing more they could do. That is until he participated in a stem cell study at the University of California San Diego, where doctors extracted stem cells from his leg, cultivated them in a lab and injected them into his damaged heart. He had no problems or side affects and said,"I feel excellent and I can do whatever I want to." This procedure is so minimally invasive that patients did not require anesthesia. This could revolutionize health care because the patient can go home within 24 hours of the procedure. Therefore the costs would dramatically decrease from $200,000 for a heart transplant to $20,000 - $25,000 (even as low as $8,000) for a stem cell transplant.

For more information visit these websites:
ABC News
WebMD