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Today’s Contents:

A. Featured Scholar: Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.: Slipping Down the Dark Road of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research

B. Featured News Articles

1. Stem Cell Research: A New Era Begins

Related Article: Stem-Cell Bill Near Top of New Legislative Agenda

2. Archbishop of Canterbury fears schism on gay clergy

3. Muzzling free speech in Canada: Why can't people speak against same-sex marriage?

4. Canada expands definition of who is a parent

5. New Study: Morning After Pill Doesn't Reduce Abortion, Pregnancy Rates

C. Coming Events:

• World Congress of Families IV - Warsaw, Poland

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FEATURED SCHOLAR

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[Editorial note: This scholar and the following interview are of particular interest since the United States House of Representatives will be debating the issue of embryonic stem cell research during the current session.]

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., was trained as a neuroscientist at Yale University. After finishing his doctoral work, he worked for Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He studied for the priesthood in Rome, where he focused on bioethics and dogmatic theology. Father Pacholczyk is now director of education and a staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Walter Camier of Crusade Magazine interviewed Father Pacholczyk.

Slipping Down the Dark Road of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
An Interview with Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D.

Crusade: Father, could you explain what embryonic stem-cell research is, and why it is against Catholic doctrine?

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk: The central difficulty at the heart of embryonic stem-cell research is that a five-day-old human being must be destroyed to obtain embryonic stem cells. The proposal to destroy a young member of the human species is always immoral. The Catholic Church has been one of the most articulate voices around this controversy over the past years.

What has since developed is the recognition that you can treat human patients with grave diseases and repair many damaged organs by using adult stem cells and umbilical-cord stem cells without crossing any moral lines. Yet the media stresses embryonic stem-cell research, which requires destroying embryos, even though embryonic stem cells have never been used to treat anybody or cure any disease in human patients. Embryonic stem-cell research remains a speculative proposal.

Crusade: What do you say to those who claim the embryos used by scientist are really not human?

Father Pacholczyk: One example I use a lot when giving testimony before lawmakers involves a 1940 American law protecting the bald eagle. The law states that if you come across a bald eagle’s nest containing eggs and you decide to destroy one of those eggs, you suffer the very same sanctions and penalties as if you had shot an adult bald eagle out of the air. What is so special about that bald eagle’s egg? What is inside that egg? The answer is very simple. It is an embryonic eagle. It is the very same creature that flies gloriously in the sky. Even an atheist can appreciate the cogency of such a law. We are eager to protect all sorts of animal life.

Yet when it comes to our own humble embryonic origins as humans, we go through sophisticated mental gymnastics to tell ourselves that we were never embryos. We are all too willing to sacrifice young humans on the altar of stem-cell research. There is a profound double standard here that people really need to assess and confront.

http://www.tfp.org/TFPForum/TFPCommentary/slipping_down_dark_road_embryonic_stem_cell.htm

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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

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1. Stem Cell Research: A New Era Begins

By Mary Carmichael

Newsweek

January 7, 2007

Stem-cell research is divided into two major camps: one focused on cells from adults, the other on the controversial technique that destroys embryos. But important research published Sunday supports the idea of a third way, a new category of stem cells that are readily available, perhaps ethically trouble-free and possibly as powerful and flexible in function as their embryonic counterparts: "amniotic-fluid stem cells," found in both the placenta and the liquid that surrounds growing fetuses.

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The cells are "neither embryonic nor adult. They're somewhere in between," says Dr. Anthony Atala, a tissue-engineering specialist at Wake Forest University who led the research team. (The study appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology.) The "AFS cells" rival embryonic stem cells in their ability to multiply and transform into many different cell types, and they eventually could be hugely helpful to doctors in treating diseases throughout the body and building new organs in the lab. At the same time, the amniotic cells can be taken easily and harmlessly from the placenta or from pregnant women by amniocentesis—which gives them the potential to nullify, or at least bridge, the divide in the stem-cell-research debate. One out of every 50 pregnant women undergoes amniocentesis, a procedure that tests the fetus for genetic defects, and about 1 percent of the cells collected by amniocentesis are stem cells. What's more, the stem cells are also found in the placenta, which is thrown away after birth—so doctors may obtain them from all infants, not just those subject to amniocentesis.

All of that means the cells come with little "ethical baggage," says David Prentice, a senior fellow in life sciences at the Family Research Council, which has a longstanding position against embryonic-stem-cell research. "I'm just pumped up by this," adds Prentice. "It's fantastic."

The AFS cells thrive and divide in the amniotic fluid and placenta throughout the gestation process. Scientists have studied them for several years, but the new research is the first to fully characterize them and demonstrate their potential. "What Dr. Atala has done is to present eloquently, for the first time, the real power that these cells have," says Dr. Roger De Filippo, a urologist and tissue engineer at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles who called the research a "sentinel paper."

To read entire article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16513279/site/newsweek/

Related Article: Stem-Cell Bill Near Top of New Legislative Agenda

by Pete Winn

CitizenLink

January 5, 2007

Amid calls for withdrawal from Iraq, House Democrats will push for a vote next week to expand federal support for destructive embryonic stem-cell research.

With Democrats now holding the reins of Congress, the new leadership has already begun work on a legislative agenda it hopes to pass in the first 100 hours.

Unfortunately, anti-life legislation will be one of the first bills out of the chute.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Thursday that four major bills will be introduced today for consideration next week. One of those will deal with expanding federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.

Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family Action, said House Democrats will push for a quick vote Thursday.

"(Incoming House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi said after the election she was going to make unrestricted funding of embryo-destructive research a number-one priority," she said. "They are being true to their word on this issue."

Dr. David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, said the new embryonic stem-cell bill is virtually identical to one that Congress passed last summer, which President Bush subsequently vetoed.

"What this bill would do," Prentice told CitizenLink, "is open up the current policy of the government and allow federal funds to be used (to extract stem cells from) any embryo. It would be fair game on any embryo out there, under this bill."

Earll said Democrats have a political motive behind their attempt to push the bill so far, so fast in the opening days of the 110th Congress.

"They know this is going to be vetoed by the president," she said, "and that it is going to set up a battle, if you will, between the president's policy and what some in the House want.

"The Democrats somehow have the idea that the election and their control of both houses of Congress gives them a mandate on destroying human embryos. That simply is not the case. It was not a major issue in most campaigns -- compared to other issues. They are really trying to make this more than it is."

Prentice, meanwhile, takes some comfort in the fact that the last Congress passed a bill to ban one of the worst possible outgrowths of expanded embryonic research -- "fetal farming," or the wholesale production of human embryos.

Still, there is plenty wrong with expanding federally backed research.

"What this really does is give an incentive to destroy embryos," he said. "If you've got the lure of federal funds out there, and the potential to make your own embryonic stem-cell lines and start reaping your own profits, you're going to see a rush to the fertility clinics, which will start taking thousands of embryos for destruction in research.

To read entire article:

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000003565.cfm

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2. Archbishop of Canterbury fears schism on gay clergy

By Paul Majendie

Reuters News Agency

Washington Times

January 8, 2007

LONDON -- Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has acknowledged that he fears losing control of the Anglican Church in an escalating row over homosexual clergy.

Archbishop Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, is battling to placate factions in a church on the brink of schism.

"Because I am an ordinary sinful human being, I fear the situation slipping out of my control," Archbishop Williams said in an ITV documentary about Canterbury Cathedral, mother church of the Anglican Communion.

"I fear schism, not because I think it's the worst thing in the world but because, at this particular juncture, it is going to be bad for us. It's going to drive people into recrimination and bitterness," he said in the program that aired yesterday.

The Anglicans, a loose federation of 38 provinces around the globe, has struggled since 2003 to hold together its liberal minority and conservative majority, mostly in Africa, which opposed the naming of openly homosexual V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

U.S. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to head the 2.4-million-member U.S. Episcopal Church, has been under fire from conservatives because of her stand in favor of same-sex unions and support of Bishop Robinson's consecration.

Archbishop Williams, who is to lead a crucial meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania next month where Bishop Jefferts Schori could have a chance to confront her fiercest critics, painted a bleak picture of the church's future.

To read entire article:

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20070108-125514-2474r.htm

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3. Muzzling free speech in Canada: Why can't people speak against same-sex marriage?

By Gwendolyn Landolt

The Hamilton Spectator

December 11, 2006

Two views of homosexuality are creating tensions in Canada.

Some believe, on the basis of equality, that there should be no distinction drawn in any way by society between homosexual and heterosexual relationships. Others are opposed to homosexuality for practical, medical, moral and/or religious reasons.

The "no distinction" approach has dominated primarily because of the decisions of appointed judges and human rights panellists. It was on this basis that the legalization of same-sex marriages was made.

Even within the parliamentary process, the decision on same-sex marriage has been made by a very few individuals. When same-sex marriage was first debated in Parliament in June 2005, 19 NDP MPs and the 39 Liberal Cabinet members were ordered by their leaders to vote in support of it. The Liberals then rammed through the legislation by disallowing any amendments and imposing closure to cut off debate.

In debate last week, the NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties again excluded the public from the same-sex marriage debate by requiring its MPs vote along party lines.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion was not much better. He begrudgingly allowed a free vote, although making the claim that same-sex marriage is a "fundamental" right under the Charter of Rights.

He was wrong. The Supreme Court of Canada has never ruled on whether the traditional definition of marriage is unconstitutional. The Ontario Court of Appeal decision on same-sex marriage, which assumed the leadership role among the provincial courts on this issue, is now under a cloud, due to a complaint laid against Chief Justice Roy McMurtry before the Canadian Judicial Council for serious judicial impropriety and the apprehension of bias for his part in that case.

Same-sex marriage is now public policy and has already triggered some significant changes.

This new definition of marriage has a profound impact on the welfare of children. A large body of social scientific research indicates that children thrive best with a mother and father who teach them gender identity and sex role expectations. This was the conclusion of a committee of the French National Assembly, which recommended, in January 2006, that France not accept same-sex marriage due to its detrimental effect on children.

To read entire article:

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1165792210180

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4. Canada expands definition of who is a parent

By Ian Austen

International Herald Tribune

January 7, 2007

OTTAWA: He remains an only child, but last week a 5-year-old Ontario boy became a member of a larger family when an appeals court ruled that he has three parents: a father and two mothers.

The boy, who cannot be identified under a court order, has been raised by his biological mother and her partner, who was given parental status by the Ontario Court of Appeal last week. But from birth, the boy's father has also been involved in his upbringing.

The court decision affirming the partner's parental rights, which overturned a 2003 trial court ruling, is the latest in a series of legal actions expanding the rights of same-sex couples in Canada. Like those earlier rulings, this one was swiftly criticized by some religious and family groups for undermining traditional definitions of marriage.

But the biological mother's partner said that the ruling eliminated the possibility that she could lose any legal relationship to the boy if her partner unexpectedly died.

"There's no fragility in my status with him now," said the newly declared second mother, who is a lawyer and agreed to an interview on the condition that she not be named, to preserve her family's privacy. "Legal status will make it easier for him to walk with dignity."

The women in this case have been together since 1990. Like many lesbian couples, they first looked into conceiving a child with sperm from an anonymous donor.

But the second mother said that the idea lost its appeal after a medical clinic gave them a book of donor profiles.

"My partner simply did not feel comfortable with the medicalization of the whole procedure and the complete lack of knowledge about who this person was," she said.

They then approached a friend, a recently separated father of two, to see whether he would agree to both father a child and play a role in the upbringing.

Since the boy's birth, the man has entered a relationship with another woman and had a child with her. The two families have a joint dinner at least once a week, the second mother said.

She said that the father's role could not have been filled by her or her partner.

To read entire article:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/07/news/canada.php

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5. New Study: Morning After Pill Doesn't Reduce Abortion, Pregnancy Rates

by Steven Ertelt

LifeNews.com

January 5, 2007

Washington, DC -- A new study reported in a prestigious medical journal confirms that the morning after pill does not reduce either abortion or pregnancy rates. The survey, published this month in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, covers the use of the Plan B drug in 10 countries.

Authors Elizabeth Raymond and James Trussell, advocates of the morning after pill, conducted a meta-analysis of studies conducted in 10 countries.

They conclude that “increased access to emergency contraception pills enhance use but has not been shown to reduce unintended pregnancy rates."

The authors note that “no study has shown that increased access to this method reduces unintended pregnancy or abortion rates on a population level” and that “the consistency of their primary findings is hard to ignore."

They say the morning-after pill “is unlikely to produce a major reduction in unintended pregnancy rates no matter how often women use it” and that “previous expectations that improved access could produce a direct, substantial impact on a population level may have been overly optimistic.”

They also state the drug's effectiveness may be "substantially ... overstated."

Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, reacted to the study in comments LifeNews.com obtained.

"The same researchers who demanded the morning-after pill become non-prescription now admit that making the drug easy to get does not live up to their promises of reducing pregnancies and abortions," Wright said.

Wright said that "intense pressure" from them and abortion advocates forced the FDA to make the Plan B drug available over the counter to anyone over the age of 18.

She said that decision "[denied] women the medical counseling and testing that they need before taking this drug."

To read entire article:

http://www.lifenews.com/nat2848.html

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COMING EVENTS

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WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES IV

Warsaw, Poland - May 11-13, 2007

Meeting in Rockford, Illinois (October 23-25, 2005), a planning committee of the World Congress of Families chose Warsaw, Poland as the site of the 4th World Congress. The Warsaw Congress will be held May 11-13, 2007 in the Palace of Culture and Science.

The Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements, an organization with over 130 affiliates throughout the nation, will serve as the local host for WCF IV.

The Congress theme will be “The Natural Family: Springtime for Europe and the World.” Sub-themes will include:

1. We Will Renew Cultures of Marriage

2. We Will Celebrate More Babies and Larger Families

3. We Will Nurture Free, Vital, and Productive Homes.

For more information: Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.

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Note: The Featured Articles excerpts are highlights of current events and

do not necessarily represent the views of the World Family Policy Center

or Brigham Young University.

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Newsletter created and distributed by:

World Family Policy Center (www.worldfamilypolicy.org)

J. Reuben Clark Law School

Brigham Young University

Acting Managing Director: A. Scott Loveless

Newsletter Editors: Joy S. Lundberg and Gary B. Lundberg

If you have any articles, editorials, or papers you would like

circulated through the WFPC News network, you may submit them to

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