Life Links 4/16/10

Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson has vetoed a bill to strengthen Kansas' late-term abortion law. The bill would have forced abortionists to list the exact medical diagnosis which led them to commit an abortion after 21 weeks, changed the definition of viability and allowed women to sue abortionists if they have evidence the abortion law was broken. Parkinson's stated reasons for the veto are incredibly lame:

"Kansas' current law concerning abortion was passed more than a decade ago and strikes a reasonable balance on a very difficult issue," Parkinson said in his veto message. "I support the current law and believe that an annual legislative battle over the issue is not in the public's best interest."

He also said: "My view is that all abortions are tragedies, which is why I would encourage women who have unwanted pregnancies to consult with their partners, families, doctors and spiritual advisers. I would not encourage women to consult with state legislators, as this is a private decision and should not be dictated by public officials."

How nonsensical is that? He supports the current abortion law (which was passed by state legislators and effects abortion decisions) but he doesn't think state legislators should have a say in abortion decisions. He also guarantees another legislative battle on abortion (which supposedly isn't in the public's best interest) with this veto.

Scientists in Britain have created human embryos with DNA from one man and two women using cloning techniques. David Prentice provides some more details.

In this human cloning experiment, the scientists used one-cell embryos as both the DNA donor and recipient, an “Embryo Cell Nuclear Transfer”. NOTE that most news stories call these embryos “fertilized eggs”; the term is a scientifically inaccurate misnomer and misleading, as once fertilization occurs, these are no longer eggs but rather embryos. The scientific paper published in Nature uses the scientifically-accurate term: “Pronuclear transfer in human embryos to prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease”

After fertilization, but before the maternal and paternal nuclei have joined as a single zygote nucleus, the embryo is at the “pronuclear” stage. The scientists transferred this nuclear material out of one embryo (thus destroying the first embryo), placing the nuclear material into a second embryo (the second embryo having had its nuclear material removed, i.e., destroying the second embryo to make room for the nuclear material of the first.)

Two embryos are destroyed to create (with new genetic mitochondria) a third, recombined embryo. The newly-created recombined embryo has the nuclear material from one embryo, and the cytoplasmic material from another embryo.

Susan Martinek on the sex-selection abortion debate in Canada:

After all, it's illogical for a pro-abortionist to argue against sex selection when abortion is touted as a woman's choice in which society (and the state) have no say. Yet that leaves many feminists twisting in the wind of their own rhetoric -- how can feminists support the practice of killing girl babies on the basis of their sex? And, how can they deny women a right to a sex selective abortion, yet still claim that abortion is about a woman's right to choose, not what's best for society?

A female police officer in Botswana is on trial after allegedly giving birth (possibly after taking abortion pills) and then burning the body of her child.