Life Links 5/13/08

The Telegraph is reporting on a baby girl Ellie-Suzanne Fish who is leaving the hospital healthy after being born Britian abortion limit cut-off.

She weighed 1lb 4.7oz and was given just a 10 to 15 per cent chance of survival then had to endure three operations, including two on the brain.

But she is now nine months old and a healthy 14lbs, and has been allowed out of hospital for the first time.

A woman in Oregon is accusing a Republican congressional candidate Mike Erickson of paying for her abortion in 2000. Erickson denies being involved in the abortion. Erickson's primary opponent Kevin Mannix has used this charge in a campaign mailer.

The woman and her friend, Kristi Oetken, first attempted to draw attention to the issue in 2006 after receiving a campaign mailer from Erickson touting his endorsement by Oregon Right to Life during Erickson’s first run for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. The woman and her friend said they considered Erickson’s anti-abortion stand hypocritical in light of his experience with the woman.

Researchers at Cornell created what is believed to be the first genetically altered human embryo by inserting a gene to make the embryo fluorescent.

The Cornell scientists put a gene for a fluorescent protein into the single-celled human embryo. The embryo had three sets of chromosomes instead of two.

After the embryo divided for three days, all the cells in the embryo glowed, Dr. Rosenwaks said. He said the goal of the work was to see if the fluorescent marker would carry into the daughter cells, allowing genetic changes to be traced as cells divided.

They justified their work by saying the abnormal embryo would have never become a baby.


Ryan Anderson chronicles a recent symposium at Princeton titled “Is It Wrong to End Early Human Life?” Participants included Robert George, Patrick Lee, and Peter Singer among others.

Taken as a whole, the discussions revealed several salient points. It was instructive to witness the ease with which various speakers could embrace infanticide or dehumanize unborn life—recall Harman’s argument that unborn children “really are a lot like plants.” But even more instructive was how unalarmed many in the Princeton audience seemed to be by any of this. I had forgotten that, for more than a few in the academic elite, this is just par for the course.

John Ronson has a long piece in the Guardian about his experiences following around assisted suicide facilitator George Exoo.

Once or twice a week," Humphry explained, "I get very strange people on the telephone who are anxious to commit suicide because of their depression or sad lives. When they get your number they want to talk and talk. And they call again and again. And they also call all the other right-to-die groups."

Humphry said that the mainstream right-to-die groups will tell them, "'We can't help you. It's not within our parameters because you aren't terminally ill.' But they pursue you. They call and call. And eventually someone will say, 'George Exoo will probably help you.' And that gets them off the phone and on to George."

HT: Wesley Smith for both the Ronson and Anderson pieces.