Life Links 3/14/06

Japanese researchers have found stem cells in menstrual blood. I'm not kidding. The researchers were able to obtain 30 times more stem cells from the blood than from bone marrow and "(w)hen the stem cells were cultured in a way to induce them to become heart cells, after five days about half of the cells contracted "spontaneously, rhythmical and synchronously, suggesting the presence of electrical communication" between the cells, Miyoshi announced. That is to say, they behaved like heart cells."

It is also noted that cells from younger patients have longer life spans than cells from older patients.


Father Thomas Williams on the recent statement by 55 Catholic Democrats regarding abortion. Some excerpts:

Just as you don't have the polytheistic wing of Islam or the seal-clubbing wing of Greenpeace, you don't have the pro-abortion wing of the Catholic Church....

To justify their position, the authors of the statement appeal to the so-called "primacy of conscience." Yet conscience is not a pass to excuse wrongdoing. Would it make any difference if a serial killer claimed he was following his conscience when he murdered his victims? Even if the politicians are following their conscience, Catholic morality makes an important distinction between good conscience and bad conscience, and a conscience that sees nothing wrong with killing the innocent falls decidedly in the second category....

And as regards its "undesirability," this poorly chosen term will likely provoke only indignation. Hangnails are undesirable; under-seasoned salads are undesirable; lines at the cash register are undesirable. Abortion is repugnant and evil.