The start of a new year offers a time of reflection and often renewal for many. We can reflect on the advances of the Culture of Life, such as the great success obtained through adult stem cell research. We can also recognize the work that must still be done when we note that women are dying from the dangerous RU 486 drug here in the United States, and countries such as the Netherlands are now euthanizing innocent newborn babies. Another year, and we continue to work just as hard as ever.
Please read this issue of the Pro-Life Update carefully to understand some of the challenges we now face and how you--an educated Pro-Lifer--can help advance the Culture of Life. Please share this information with your family, friends and church congregations. Make copies. Spread the news.
Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia. Three years ago, the Dutch parliament also legalized using or administering sedatives and a lethal dose of muscle relaxants into patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief (but who do not have a terminal disease).
The Groningen Academic Hospital in the Netherlands has now admitted to euthanizing patients involuntarily. They have even euthanized four newborns and have proposed guidelines for “mercy” killing of terminally ill newborns.
In August 2004, a Dutch doctors’ association, KNMG, urged the Health Ministry to create an independent board to investigate whether euthanasia should be permitted for people “with no free will,” including children, the severely mentally retarded, and people considered to be in an irreversible coma. The Health Ministry is still preparing a response.
Pro-Life advocates around the world are certainly concerned, as they were when euthanasia was first legalized. They warned that the killing of terminal patients who requested to die would lead to killing of non-terminal patients (which happened three years ago), and eventually to the killing of patients who did not even request to die (such as these newborn babies). “The slippery slope in the Netherlands has descended already into a vertical cliff,” said Wesley J. Smith, a prominent California-based ethicist.
In the United States, physician-assisted suicide is permitted in Oregon--although the practice is continually challenged in the courts. Pro-Life advocates in the United States want to see more comfort care and compassion for these patients and worry that physician-assisted suicide could lead to involuntary euthanasia (as it has in the Netherlands). Paralyzed Woman Walks after Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy
Hwang Mi-Soon, a 37 year-old woman from South Korea, was paralyzed 20 years ago in an accident. She is now walking again after doctors treated her using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood. During a November 2004 press conference, her eyes teared up as she walked again with the help of a walking frame. “This is already a miracle for me,” Soon said. “I never dreamed of getting to my feet again.
Soon’s was the world’s first published case in which a patient with a spinal cord injury was successfully treated with stem cells from umbilical cord blood. The stem cells were isolated from umbilical cord blood that was frozen immediately after the birth of a baby. They were cultured for a time and then directly injected into the damaged part of Soon’s spinal cord. Scientists still caution that more research is needed. Still, the results are astounding and, for obvious reasons, very promising.
Such successful results from umbilical cord stem cells are particularly exciting, because they cause no ethical dilemmas, as embryonic stem cells do (intentionally causing the death of the embryos). Additionally, they trigger little immune response in the recipient, as opposed to embryonic stem cells, which often form tumors when injected into animals or humans. Miss Soon’s recovery is evidence that adult stem cells are proving to be not only morally superior, but also scientifically more viable than embryonic stem cells.
FDA Issues Safety Warning for Dangerous RU 486
Following the September 2003 death of California teenager, Holly Patterson, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally issued new warnings on the packages of the RU 486 abortion drug. The drug had already carried the FDA’s highest level of black box warning (which warns consumers that the drug is especially dangerous).
“FDA and (drug maker) Danco Laboratories have received reports of serious bacterial infection, bleeding, ectopic pregnancies that have ruptured, and death, plus another death from sepsis (blood infection),” the agency explained in a statement. “The new warnings to health care providers and consumers include changes to the existing black box on the product to add new information on the risk of serious bacterial infections, sepsis, and bleeding and death that may occur following any termination of pregnancy, including use of Mifeprex.”
The FDA had rushed RU 486 through the approval process in 2000, and Pro-Life advocates had worried that RU 486 would harm women. While they are grateful that the FDA has changed the warning, they are still concerned that this is not enough to protect women. Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women for America, does not think that a warning is sufficient: “It is reported that another woman has died after taking the abortion drug RU 486, and the FDA’s response is to change the drug’s label. This is a dangerous drug that deserved to be pulled off the market immediately.”
Monty Patterson, Holly’s father, agrees that more drastic measures should be taken. He hoped to increase the level of safety standards required of abortion facilities. He also asked the FDA to require abortion practitioners and businesses to report any adverse side effects. He and his wife have endorsed Congressional legislation, tentatively called “Holly’s bill,” that would suspend the FDA’s approval of the drug. The bill has more than 80 sponsors in the House of Representatives, but has not yet received a vote.
