Life Links 6/9/08

For the ridiculously dishonest cloning scientist file - here’s an article on how researchers in Australia are hoping to get permission to attempt to create cloned human embryos. To a certain extent, I feel sorry for the reporter whom Professor Richard Boyd seemed intent on misleading. The article claims they want to clone “human embryo cells” and not the reality that they’re trying to clone human embryos. Boyd calls human embryos created via cloning “so-called embryos” and “embryonic form(s)” and also claims allowing cloning will bring Australia in line with “the rest of the world.”


From the University of Wisconsin-Madison News:

"Highly religious audiences are different from less religious audiences. They are looking for different things, bringing different things to the table," explains Scheufele. "It is not about providing religious audiences with more scientific information. In fact, many of them are already highly informed about stem cell research, so more information makes little difference in terms of influencing public support. And that's not good or bad. That's just what the data show."

So everyone opposed to killing human embryos for research isn’t ignorant about the research. Who knew? Here’s the study’s abstract.


The intestine (and likely some other organs) have different types of adult stem cells. University of Utah researchers think this finding will make treating patients with certain conditions more complicated but allow researchers to fine-tune treatments.


Nat Hentoff thinks Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would make an ideal running mate for Senator McCain.

However, as a longtime reporter on disability rights, I have discovered that many fetuses so diagnosed have been aborted by parents who have been advised by their doctors to end the pregnancies because of the future “imperfect quality of life” of such children.

Palin’s first reaction to the diagnosis (her youngest child was diagnosed with Down Syndrome while in the womb) was to research the facts about the condition, since “I’ve never had problems with my other pregnancies.” As a result, she and her husband, Todd, never had any doubt they would have the child.....

And her presence could highlight Barack Obama’s extremist abortion views on whether certain lives are worth living, even a child born after a botched abortion.

Wesley Smith comments on a report that human nasal stem cells have been used to create dopamin producing cells in the brains of rats.


Here’s a video of Calla Papademas sharing her egg-donation story, noting the side effects she had after injecting herself with Lupron (a drug used to hyperstimulate the ovaries into releasing more eggs).