Thirty Percent Success Rate
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Monday, July 25, 2011
“The overall IVF success rate sits at around 30% today.”
I was astonished to read that statistic in a story about in vitro fertilization over the weekend.
Holly Finn’s moving firsthand account of her visceral longing for a child and the painful path she’s been on to have one lacks a Catholic or pro-life perspective.
You won’t read a word in it about the plight of frozen embryos, selective reduction... READ MORE
Nobel, But Not Noble
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Monday, October 04, 2010
With the word that Robert G. Edwards has won the Nobel prize for medicine comes one of those odd moments when Catholics know we are in the world but not of it.
It is a stunning scientific achievement, and I’m sure he and his team are proud of helping more than 4 million children to be born, and feel good about what they see as humanitarian aid to infertile couples.
But the Prize Committee doesn’t comment on the number of “selective reductions” or embryos frozen and then decayed or frozen still it took to achieve that result.
I can’t help wonder how the world will think about this prize when we have some critical distance from it.
Obama's Euthanasia Mistake
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Here’s one of the most interesting pieces I’ve read on our health care debate.
It’s written by a bona fide Liberal who has little sympathy with “right-to-lifers” and ardently desires universal health care.
But he thinks the “end-of-life” issues in the current proposals are morally repugnant.
Bad for everyone, but especially for the poor they’re supposed to benefit.
Read the whole thing for an interesting... READ MORE
Backwards
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Monday, March 09, 2009
This morning the President rescinded President Bush’s ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
What has gone un-reported is that President Obama’s new executive order undid not one, but two, Bush policies.
He not only lifted the ban on taxpayer funding of embryo-destructive research, he also rescinded the executive order funding ethically acceptable alternatives (see the final sentence... READ MORE
Does The Pope Read ‘Coffee Talk’?
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Vatican released a new document on bioethics several days ago.
It’s Dignitatis Personae, and you can read it here. The U.S. bishops have also prepared a short Q&A explaining the document’s significance and highlighting its main instructions.
So far it’s been very well received by serious people of good will. Take bioethicist Yuval Levin’s response, for example. As a non-Catholic he doesn’t agree... READ MORE
When Does Life Begin?
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Thursday, October 30, 2008
Want the absolute latest Science has to say on the question of when life begins?
It’s right here in pdf format.
The link takes you to a new white paper from the Westchester Institute for Ethics & The Human Person.
Authored by Maureen Condic, senior fellow at the institute and Associate Professor of Neurology & Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, When Does Human Life Begin? A Scientific Perspective should be a handy resource for anyone doing pro-life education and encountering the argument that the question is a matter of faith rather than one of science and reason.
The institute is a great resource for the latest in other bioethics issues, too!
The Turning Tide
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Monday, September 22, 2008
Wonderful news!
James Thomson, the scientist who first isolated embryonic stem cells, is abandoning that research in favor of research using non-embryonic sources.
If any need confirmation of the rapidly changing landscape, it should come with this announcement planned for the summit: The two Madison companies co-founded by Thomson have merged and shifted their focus to products involving non-embryonic stem cells.
There has been no ethical conversion, I don’t think. What has changed is that cloning and embryonic stem cell research aren’t working, while adult stem cell therapies and cell-reprogramming technology are. (Here’s just the latest adult stem cell therapy: using tooth cells to help stroke victims.)
With a polite nod to Wesley J. Smith for the story.
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