Cardinal Barragan warns President Elect Obama on Ethics

The president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán  (according to ZENIT.org) has warned the president elect of the United States that it is unethical to give the green light to embryonic stem-cell research.
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán  gave this response to a question regarding an announcement Sunday from Barack Obama's team that the future president would reverse the policy of George Bush and give the go-ahead to embryonic stem cell research. A basic principle of bioethics, the cardinal recalled, is that "what builds up man is good, what destroys him is bad." Noting that human dignity is an end in itself, and not a means that can be manipulated, the Vatican official affirmed: "One person can never be used as a means for another."
It is not possible to kill one human being to save another the Cardinal said. Cardinal Barragán also pointed out that there are many other ways to get stem cells, such as by extracting them from the umbilical cord or other organs.

Victim of abortion: 'We cry without tears and we scream without a voice' at abortion clinics

 

CNA reports Nov. 11th The author of the book, "I Aborted," Esperanza Puente, said during a press conference last week that abortion clinics are inhumane, treat women as mere "customers," and consider the babies they kill as mere "blobs of tissues" or "clusters of cells." According to the newspaper "El Dia," Puente said the abortion clinic she went to exemplifies the inhumanity of such places. "In the waiting room, women cry without tears and scream without a voice," she continued, "and the standard procedure is that women don't see ultrasounds of the baby, which is considered to be a 'cluster of cells' or a blob of tissue, as one doctor in Madrid told a woman a few days ago."
Recalling the most difficult moments of her experience, including when "the nurse forgot about the remains of my child at my side," she denounced "the lucrative business of the elimination of fetuses, which are used in cosmetics."
 

Bush Administration Could Still Have an Impact on so called Abortion "Rights"

 

Medical News today reports on a New York Times pro-abortion article that speculates on President Bush's actions during his final days in office. According to the article although President Bush only has 77 days left in his presidency, his aides "have been scrambling to change rules and regulations" on issues such as abortion rights, civil liberties and the environment, and "few" of their actions are "for the good," a New York Times 11.4 editorial claims.

The editorial says that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is expected to issue a new rule that intends to  limit women's access to abortion, contraception and information about reproductive health care options. The editorial adds that although existing law permits physicians and nurses to refuse to participate in an abortion, the changes would extend the right to refuse to a wide range of health care workers and activities including abortion referrals, counselling and provision of birth control pills or so called emergency contraception.

 

Prof. Robert George appointed to UN position

 

CNA reports that, Professor Robert P. George, has been  appointed a member of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). Professor George currently serves as the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Professor George recently made the news with his articulate academic critique of Doug Kmiec's reasons for voting in favor of Obama. As a member of COMEST, Prof. George will join 17 other experts to advise the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on the ethics of its endevors in the fields of science and technology. George was appointed by Koďchiro Matsuura, the Director General of UNESCO, and will serve for a term of four years.  Prof. George is also currently serving a two year term on the U.S. president's Council for Bioethics.