What a difference a radical, in your face, abortion-promoting president makes.

Pro-lifers can savor this graphic for a few minutes before returning to the trenches to work on persuading what Gallup says is, for the first since it began surveying the question, a clear minority of Americans who are still euphemistically “pro-choice” on the question of abortion. I have posted it here because the chances of seeing it or something similar in establishment media reports is somewhere between slim and none:

The 15-point swing from “pro-choice” to pro-life (from -6 to +9) in the past year is nothing short of dramatic; only the 1996-1997 narrowing looks to be about the same.

Digging deeper, self-identified Catholics — as opposed to real Catholics, who by definition must be 100% pro-life (see Paragraph 2271 at link; Catholic vote-related responsibilities are outlined here) — are now 52% pro-life (up from 45% a year ago), but still trail Protestants (59% pro-life, up from 52%). 31% of all others (up from 27%) are pro-life.

Gallup’s “Bottom Line” is not bad, but it obscures an important point (bold is mine):

With the first pro-choice president in eight years already making changes to the nation’s policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures, Americans — and, in particular, Republicans — seem to be taking a step back from the pro-choice position. However, the retreat is evident among political moderates as well as conservatives.

It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public’s understanding of what it means to be “pro-choice” slightly to the left, politically. While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction.

I’m not buying the bolded statment (and yeah, I know that Gallup’s descriptions of becoming pro-life as “as a step back” and “a retreat” are obviously biased).

Instead, I believe that the ascendance of Dear Leader Barack Obama has unmasked what being “pro-choice” on abortion is all about. What I believe has really happened is that many of the switchers, with some help from Catholic and other clerics who have finally found their too-long-lost tongues, have learned that being “pro-choice,” though a nearly sure bet for avoiding arguments at PC cocktail parties, has real-world consequences that have nothing to do with “choice.”

To refresh, examples of Obama’s appalling abortion-supporting record, campaign statements, campaign promises, and campaign tactics up to his election included the following (Sources - Princeton Professor Robert P. George’s Public Discourse essays, “Obama’s Abortion Extremism” and “Obama and Infanticide,” excerpting with some paraphrasing from what was assembled in this brilliant post at Pro Ecclesia, who also excerpted from George):

• Obama expressed support for legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions, and which has been credited with saving over a million lives.
• Obama, unlike even many allegedly “pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice.
• On the campaign trail, Obama referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a “punishment” that she should not have to endure.
• Obama has stated that women’s equality requires access to abortion on demand.
• Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, did not and has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies.
• Obama, as an Illinois state senator, opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist’s unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. The Obama campaign lied about his vote until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done. In fact, Obama continued to lie about his inhuman voting record in regard to the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, and even stooped so low as to run a disgusting television ad attacking the disabled survivor of a botched abortion.

A complete compilation of Obama’s complete abortion-supporting record during transition and since his inauguration up to May 11 is here at LifeNews.com. Lowlights include:

• January 23, 2009 - Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.
• February 27, 2009 - Starts the process of overturning pro-life conscience protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions.
• March 9, 2009 - Obama signed an executive order forcing taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.
• March 11, 2009 - Obama signed an executive order establishing a new agency within his administration known as the White House Council on Women and Girls. Obama’s director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, an abortion advocate, became director of it.
• March 11, 2009 - Obama administration promotes an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nations meeting.
• March 17, 2009 - Obama makes his first judicial appointment and names pro-abortion federal Judge David Hamilton to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
• March 26 - President Obama announced $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that has been criticized for promoting abortion and working closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.
• April 23 - Refused to appeal a ruling requiring the FDA to allow 17-year-old girls to purchase the morning after pill without either a doctor visit or parental involvement beforehand.
• May 5 - Details emerge about a terrorism dictionary the administration of President Barack Obama put together in March. The Domestic Extremism Lexicon calls pro-life advocates violent and claims they employ racist overtones in engaging in criminal actions.
• May 8 - President Obama releases a new budget that allows the Legal Services Corporation to use tax dollars to pay for pro-abortion litigation.
• May 8 - President Obama’s new budget calls for taxpayer funded abortions in the nation’s capital, and eliminates all federal funding for abstinence-only education.

But Obama the presidential candidate also promised that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA),” which would create a federally guaranteed “fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including “a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons”, and would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry.

Perhaps the focus-group obsessives at Team Obama detected a few weeks ago what Gallup has just reported, because the President switched gears in his April 29 press conference, saying that “The Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority.”

If the administration and Congress are waiting for public sentiment to return being euphemistically “pro-choice” so they can push FOCA through without fear of electoral consequences, they may have a long wait. I would suggest that it is just as likely that the pro-life margin will increase in the coming years.

If establishment media reports concentrate on anything, it will be a potential “male chauvinist pig” angle. There is a 10-point difference between men, who are pro-life by 54-39, and women, whose pro-life margin is 49-44.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From the Catholic News Agency, originally posted on March 31 (YouTube link):

Sometimes, waiting has its benefits. This is one of those times.

Because I’ve waited, I’m able to post an outstanding video from American Right to Life (ARTL) instead of having to recite particulars about certain of Ann Coulter’s recent interviews I’ve been meaning to get to.

Coulter fans, brace yourselves. The woman has a hang-up, which has led to a few telephonic hang-ups:

Ann Coulter has accomplished a lot. Probably her most important contribution is documenting in layman’s terms the definitive defense and vindication of Joe McCarthy in “Treason” (M. Stanton Evans’s subsequent “Blacklisted by History” is the definitive scholar’s version).

Thus, to hear Ann seemingly lock herself into defending Mitt Romney’s indefensible record on abortion and same-sex “marriage” while he was the governor of Massachusetts, and to attack those of us who have long since proven the obvious about that record, is truly sad. The YouTube clearly demonstrates that Coulter’s position is so weak that, in “response” to legitimate questions about Mitt Romney’s Bay State legacy, she’s forced to alternate between employing attack language she normally reserves for 9-11 truthers and other obsessives, and running and hiding when she’s out of arguments. This is the childish stuff liberals all too often pull when, as is usually the case, they’re on the losing end of an argument.

It also appears that knowledge of Coulter’s hang-ups is no longer limited to a precious few beyond those who happened to be listening to the related interviews at the time they took place. Fox Business News, of all places, is carrying ARTL’s Friday press release, which also announces a related website, www.AnnCoulterApology.com.

Coulter’s current defensive posture on Romney also seems to contradict her response to an e-mail I sent her on January 22, 2008, two weeks before Super Tuesday, at 11:31 p.m.

Keep in mind that this was five days after Coulter, in her syndicated column, wrote that:

….. My thinking was that Romney would be our nominee because he is manifestly the best candidate.

….. The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide.

Here is my e-mail (after one grammar correction from the original):

Ann,

It pains me to see you, a constitutional lawyer, accept the idea that Mitt Romney is a desirable presidential candidate, as your column last Wednesday clearly did.

It’s hard to imagine that you don’t know, or understand, or care, how Romney undermined Massachusetts’s Constitution, violated his oath of office, and did more to legitimize same-sex marriage than any one person in the entire country — all to keep a campaign promise. But in case you don’t, that’s exactly what he did.

And that’s just the start of Mitt Romney’s betrayal of conservative and constitutional principles. If you don’t believe me, PLEASE read for yourself:

Family leaders call Romney ‘disaster’
Why is Mitt Romney Objectively Unfit to Be President?
The Mitt Romney Deception

These are not “fringe” views, Ann — any more than your views of Joe McCarthy. The historical record shows McCarthy was right, and did right. The historical record also shows inarguably that Mitt Romney was wrong, and did wrong.

The historical record has been exposed by people who lived through the Romney Era in Massachusetts. They have seen the truth for what it is, even though most of them voted for him in 2002. They have seen Mitt Romney betray conservatives and clear thinkers time, and time, and time again. That they are betrayals has been confirmed by many clear-eyed constitutional experts who have looked at the situation closely and reached the only conclusions any constitution-honoring person could reach.

Why would you not expect Romney, as President, if faced with a Supreme Court ruling that gun ownership is not an individual right, to do exactly as he did with Goodridge — and unilaterally start confiscating citizens’ guns?

I’m not going to belabor the points made at the links any further. You’re a smart person, Ann; you know the law; and you know separation of powers. I only hope that you will face the truth about Romney and publicly reject his candidacy as the clear and present constitutional danger that it is.

Lest I be accused of breaching presumed confidentiality (a presumption that is dubious in the first place, as no promise of confidentiality was ever made), I’ll limit my description of Coulter’s response, which came 25 minutes later. First, the response was brief, and did not address my e-mail’s specific concerns about Mitt Romney’s record. Second, despite the virtual endorsement in her column (and it WAS interpreted as endorsement), her response to me was NOT complimentary to Romney.

The contrast between that e-mail response, when compared to her five-days-earlier column and her subsequent public actions and statements, is very troubling, on more levels than I can adequately address here.

Face the facts, and the music, Ann. If acknowledging the drop-dead obvious truth about Mitt Romney’s records represents the worst case of an unconditional “I was wrong, I am sorry” confession you ever have to deliver, you’ll be a lucky woman indeed.

Properly understood, free-market capitalism works. Free-market capitalism has always worked when allowed to work. Free-market capitalism will work again, if we let it, but US and world leadership seem tragically bound and determined to thwart it.

Mark Levin read this powerful column by Don Boudreaux at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on the air last night. It deserved the full airing it received.

Boudreaux brilliantly brings in historical context:

Imagine traveling back in time to 1809. You describe to some people you befriend the reality of personal transportation in America in 2009. You describe the automobile.

In your own mind, of course, you’re describing an ordinary contrivance that makes possible experiences that are perfectly ordinary to denizens of the early 21st century, such as zooming along at 70 mph. But to your early 19th-century listeners, you’re describing a barely imaginable wonder.

“What?!” they ask. “People in the future will drive machines made out of metal and filled with highly flammable liquids? Surely that will be intolerably dangerous. And to what purpose? No one has any need to travel at such unheard-of speeds!

….. I suspect that your friends in 1809 would not believe your account. And what I suspect they would find most unbelievable is not the progress of technology that automobiles require. Rather, what would be most difficult to comprehend is the fact that such an amazingly complex development and coordination of economic activities can occur without being consciously arranged. After all, it’s not just that people in 2009 can easily afford automobiles, but also that whole industries exist to support automobile driving.

Oil exploration and refining, tire manufacturing, steel production, auto-parts making and retailing, automobile insuring, road-building — these are only some of the many industries whose existence is promoted by, and whose existence promotes, automobile manufacturing. Yet no one designed, or even foresaw, this outcome. No one designed how all the many industries’ efforts are coordinated with each other. This outcome evolved into its modern-day pattern through billions upon billions of individual decisions, some bigger than others, but none larger than a tiny part of the total number of decisions that combined with each other to make automobile driving an unremarkable reality in the early 21st century.

Stupendous coordination of millions of individual plans and talents emerged spontaneously — and not only in the automobile industry. The entire economy is a testament to such spontaneous coordination.

The single greatest fact about capitalist society is that the great bulk of it appears to be the handiwork of a master designer but, in fact, is unplanned and even unimaginable before it becomes real and familiar.

Remember this lesson whenever you hear alleged “experts” insisting that only conscious effort by government to “stimulate” demand can save the economy from its current downturn.

Of course, read the whole thing.

Allow me to expand on the paragraph I bolded, and to disagree with Boudreaux on one point.

There is “handiwork of a master designer” involved. That designer is God.

The lack of belief that what has been proven to work before — what Boudreaux calls “spontaneous coordination” — won’t work again is rooted in a fundamental lack of belief in God, that the Master Designer will either fail us this time, or that He doesn’t exist in the first place.

Instead, the active and unprecedented (in the US) attempts to prevent the spontaneous coordination Boudreaux referred to from occurring reflect a fundamental belief that the self-appointed elites among us are gods — that somehow, the “best and the brightest” can manage the billions and billions of interactions and decisions involved in commerce and, ultimately, individual lives better than individuals can themselves. They can’t. It is utter folly to believe they can.

Sometimes, when the elites fail, as they always have, they get mad. Occasionally they get vengeful when they see that they can’t control things to their liking, or that those they attempt to control don’t buy into their supposedly self-evident wisdom; the tens of millions killed by the Soviet Union and Communist China in the 20th Century are a testament to that.

Those of us who have a belief in God know that, as long as the people in a society are guided by His moral and ethical principles (whether we as a nation remain that way is a subject for another time), His handiwork, working through us, will:

• Show us, as is now happening before our eyes, how to conquer disease and illness without resorting to murder.
• Prove that human progress is not a recipe for planetary destruction.
• Over time, raise up the poorest among without resorting to outright theft from those who have.

Properly understood and carried out, free-market capitalism is faith-based free-market capitalism.

Faith-based free-market capitalism works. Faith-based free-market capitalism has always worked when allowed to work. Faith-based free-market capitalism will work again, if we let it, but US and world leadership seem tragically bound and determined to thwart it.

Josh Brahm of Right to Life of Central California has done the definitive dissection of the comprehensive media failure in reporting on President Obama’s recent Executive Order (EO) allowing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Brahm’s “9 Things the Media Messed Up About the Obama Stem Cell Story” (HT to an e-mail from LifeNews.com) is an exceptional magnum opus that must be read in its entirety to be fully appreciated. It identifies each of the nine errors, links to well over 40 specific instances of media bias and/or ignorance, and tell us why those errors are significant. I thought I was reasonably knowledgeable in this subject area until I read Brahm’s work.

(CNS News has reported that the EO will apparently not going into effect until October 1 or later, because the supplemental appropriations bill he just signed [but apparently didn’t read] “explicilty bans federal funding of any ‘research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.’” That fact doesn’t change the correctness of Brahm’s “9 Things.”)

Here are the nine items (absolutely no substitute for reading the whole thing), accompanied by brief quotes from Brahm’s article:

#1. Omitting the importance of iPS cells (induced Pluripotent Stem Cells). “These are adult skin cells that scientists may soon be able to reprogram into embryonic-like stem cells, without killing a single human embryo!”

#2. Omitting that the diseases everyone is talking about curing (diabetes, Parkinson’s, paralysis) have already been treated with adult stem cells. “Perhaps if more Americans understood that this can be accomplished without killing human embryos, maybe this “complicated moral decision” would suddenly not be so tough.”

#3. Perpetuating the myth that stem cell research will likely cure Alzheimer’s disease. “This doesn’t mean Alzheimer’s disease won’t ever be cured. It just means that the cure will probably not come from stem cell research, of any kind. It will probably be a separate area of scientific research.”

#4. Omitting the dangers of HESCR (Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research). “(It is significant) because we just might kill some adult human beings by starting human clinical trials prematurely.” That has happened already overseas.

#5. Confusing or combining reproductive cloning with research cloning. This one was new to me, and is a very important distinction, requiring this excerpt:

There are two different types of cloning: reproductive cloning, and research cloning. The term “reproductive cloning” has been used to describe when a human clone is implanted and delivered as a full term pregnancy. “Research,”
“experimental” or “therapeutic cloning” have been the terms used for the other type of cloning. In this, a human embryo is cloned and experimented upon in his or her first few weeks of life and then killed.

Opinion polls show that the vast majority of Americans disapprove of both types of cloning. (83% against reproductive cloning, versus 81% against research cloning.) (3)

In another poll asking Americans to rate the morality of 16 social issues, 86% said human cloning was morally wrong. In fact, the only social issues ranked lower than human cloning were extramarital affairs and polygamy! (4)

Many media outlets noted that President Obama supposedly condemned cloning, saying “And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”

Read that again. Did President Obama condemn all human cloning, or did he only condemn reproductive cloning?

Amazing! We just figured out what practically every other media outlet missed.

By the way, the only reason the list of media outlets that missed this is shorter than the first three on this list is because most of them didn’t mention cloning in their article. Fox News is the only media outlet who mentioned Obama’s remarks on cloning and then explained the difference between reproductive and research cloning.

#6. Creating a false choice that “leftover” embryos will either be used for research or be killed. “Those are not the only choices. Human embryos that are no longer wanted by the family can also be placed for adoption. Organizations like Snowflakes have been helping couples through embryo adoption for years now.”

#7. Dehumanizing human embryos. “It’s much easier to pacify our feelings toward human destruction if the people in question are dehumanized. Who would care about a simple ‘ball of cells?’ But embryologists know that there is so much more going on here than a simple clumps of cells.”

#8. Responding to a Strawman argument that pro-lifers are concerned about embryos being misused in laboratories (other than killing them). “Pro-lifers are not concerned about embryos being misused in a laboratory. We are concerned about embryos being killed in a laboratory. The protocols being followed end with the embryo being killed.”

#9. Bush’s policy restricted tax dollars being used on “all” stem cell research. “President Bush’s stem cell policy did not restrict tax dollars for stem cell research. It restricted tax dollars to be used to kill more human embryos. It allowed tax dollars to be spent on research using the embryonic stem cell lines that had already been created, as well as funding research with adult stem cells. On the contrary, President Obama is the one restricting tax dollars for stem cell research. In fact the only type of stem cell research President Obama seems interested in funding is the very type that has consistently failed to produce any positive results.”

Brahm’s “9 Things” ought to be required reading for those who are in the trenches defending life, but more importantly, for those who haven’t been paying enough attention to this crucial issue.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From LifeNews.com:

The Vatican — A leading pro-life official at the Catholic Church says pro-abortion Health Secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius should refrain from taking communion. The call comes after Sebelius’ own bishop asked her to voluntarily not present herself for the sacrament because of her own pro-abortion views.

President Barack Obama nominated Sebelius for the top health post and pro-life organizations strongly oppose her nomination because of her lengthy pro-abortion voting record.

The reaction from the Catholic Church to Sebelius’ pro-abortion record has been anything but pococurante.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City last year called on Sebelius to take the “necessary steps for amendment of her life.”

“I hope that my request of the governor, not to present herself for Holy Communion, will provoke her to reconsider the serious spiritual and moral consequences of her past and present actions,” the Archbishop wrote.

Now, Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signature, is calling on her to refrain from taking the sacrament until she reforms her views.

“She is well known for her support of the right to procured abortion and for her public association with some of the more notorious agents of the culture of death. She has also favored other anti-life legislation, especially legislation which denies the right to life to the innocent and defenseless unborn,” Burke said in an interview with Catholic Action.

Burke said Naumann was right in his actions in terms of both Catholic teachings and Canon Law.

….. “Whether Governor Sebelius is in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, or in any other diocese, she should not present herself for Holy Communion because, after pastoral admonition, she obstinately persists in serious sin,” he said.

“It is sad for our nation to have a person who favors the right to kill the unborn in the womb placed in charge of the federal office with responsibility for health and human services,” he said.

“No matter how good Governor Sebelius’ record regarding other human life concerns may be, if she is not committed to the safeguarding of human life from its very inception, she should not be entrusted with the questions of health and human services for our nation,” he told Catholic Action.

You can’t be any clearer than that.

From Chennai, India:

9 Mar 2009, 0542 hrs IST

It was ‘Eureka, we did it too’ for a core team of scientists at the well-equipped stem cell research centre, located in Bagayam in suburban Vellore in north Tamil Nadu. For the first time in India, the scientific team, which began work on generating iPS (induced Pluripotent Stem) cells from mice in October 2008, scored a success in February 2009.

Working in labs in the hexagonal building in the quiet mofussil town, scientists experimented with infection-free mice recently acquired from certified labs in the US. Cells extracted from mouse tail tips were grown in a tissue culture plate to obtain adult fibroblasts (cells of tissues that play a vital role in wound healing). The iPS cells appeared 12 to 14 days later and were tested for their embryonic stem cell-like characteristics. The results were more than satisfactory.

“The discovery that embryonic stem cells can be generated from adult cells, in other words, adult cells can be reprogrammed as embryonic stem cells, is considered to be the holy grail in stem cell biology,” pointed out Dr R V Shaji, heading the team researching iPS cells.

The iPS cells have two major applications. First, they can used to study mechanisms of disease or test drugs and secondly, they can be used to treat diseases without immunological rejection, which is a major problem with embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells taken from other human beings. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

In a scathing editorial Monday, the folks at IBDeditorials.com ripped President Barack Obama’s misguided, life-destroying, science-denying Executive Order that allows federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR).

Later, Nicholas Wade at the New York Times, in two paragraphs of his March 10 report (”Rethink Stem Cells? Science Already Has”), in essence confirmed the validity of IBD’s claim about ESCR’s relative uselessness in treating diseases and other human maladies — something adult stem cells, a blanket term describing any stem cells obtained from other human sources without destroying human life, are already doing.

IBD’s editorial shows that one doesn’t even have to be religious to recognize the fundamental disregard for science and ethics in Obama’s EO (bolds are mine):

Bailing Out Bad Science

….. With Obama lifting the restrictions on Monday, we will now be federally funding research that has yet to produce a single therapy or a single treatment of an actual human being, at least one that works. It has generated a lot of hope but very little change. It is he who is putting ideology over science.

What has handcuffed our scientists is the difficulty of controlling embryonic stem cells and what they develop into. They’re called pluripotent because they can develop into any type of human tissue, sometimes all at once.

Embryonic stem cells have a tendency to develop into one of the most primitive and terrifying forms of cancer, a tumor called a teratoma. Adult stem cells don’t have that problem.

….. It’s in the area of adult stem cell research that new discoveries are being made every day. Fact is, there are now hundreds of conditions and diseases actually being treated using adult stem cells drawn from umbilical cord blood and other nonembryonic sources.

….. Bush’s executive order banned federal funding only of new stem cell lines. Neither federal funding of existing lines nor private funding was banned. In fact, Bush was the first president to spend any money on ESCR at all. Clinton spent zero.

The (Los Angeles) Times notes, as we have, that in 2006 researchers led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan’s Kyoto University were first able to “reprogram” human skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells. But it claims the potential of these induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) “is still unclear.”

No, it’s not. They can do everything stem cells from destroyed embryos can do, except without the moral baggage or the destroyed embryos.

I would replace “can do” in the last sentence with “someday dream of doing,” but that’s a relative quibble.

Wade’s report at the New York Times buttressed IBD’s claims, especially in these two paragraphs:

Members of Congress and advocates for fighting diseases have long spoken of human embryonic stem cell research as if it were a sure avenue to quick cures for intractable afflictions. Scientists have not publicly objected to such high-flown hopes, which have helped fuel new sources of grant money like the $3 billion initiative in California for stem cell research.

In private, however, many researchers have projected much more modest goals for embryonic stem cells. Their chief interest is to derive embryonic stem cell lines from patients with specific diseases, and by tracking the cells in the test tube to develop basic knowledge about how the disease develops.

Two points:

• The second excerpted paragraph says nothing about using the results of ESCR for actual treatments or cures. This means, unlike with adult stem cells, that treatments or cures with ESCR aren’t even on the realistic scientific “chief interest” radar. Thus, Wade confirms that IBD is asserting the unvarnished truth.
• Apparently “many researchers,” as noted in the first excerpted paragraph, are speaking “in private” because of fear of intimidation and retribution by ESCR supporters if they speak in public. It appears that we are seeing a situation analogous to how those who don’t buy into the Armageddon-like assertions of the global warming/climate change crowd are afraid of speaking out.

A further point from another source — an Ohio Right to Life e-mail reproduced at this Topix forum notes that the final paragraph of Obama’s Executive Order (specifically saying that “Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007, which supplements the August 9, 2001, statement on human embryonic stem cell research, is revoked”) removes the Bush-driven EO mandate that the Secretary of Health and Human Services pursue funding for adult stem cell research (ASCR).

Thus, not only has Obama dictated that ESCR be funded, he has removed any corresponding mandate for ASCR. He did not have to do this to satisfy ESCR supporters. This is of a piece with Obama’s radically anti-life legislative history, where as an Illinois Senator would not support a Born Alive Infant Protection Act because he feared it might open the tiniest door to recognition that an unborn child is deserving of the same protections as humans living outside the womb.

Even beyond the life-destruction issues, Obama’s EO not only opens the federal funding door wide open to what hasn’t worked, it takes away any incentive to assist what has. This is as profoundly an anti-real science decision as I believe I has ever seen out of any White House.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

You don’t even need to be prolife, or to bring religion into the argument, to understand just how scientifically weak Barack Obama’s Executive Order lifting former President Bush’s ban on federally funding embryonic stem-cell research is, as IBD explains (bolds are mine):

Bailing Out Bad Science

Bioethics: The president keeps a promise by lifting restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research — what he calls “the gold standard” of such research. Judging by results, fool’s gold is more like it.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama said: “I believe that the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations.”

With all due respect, that is nonsense. With Obama lifting the restrictions on Monday, we will now be federally funding research that has yet to produce a single therapy or a single treatment of an actual human being, at least one that works. It has generated a lot of hope but very little change. It is he who is putting ideology over science.

What has handcuffed our scientists is the difficulty of controlling embryonic stem cells and what they develop into. They’re called pluripotent because they can develop into any type of human tissue, sometimes all at once.

Embryonic stem cells have a tendency to develop into one of the most primitive and terrifying forms of cancer, a tumor called a teratoma. Adult stem cells don’t have that problem.

Recently the family of an Israeli boy suffering from a lethal genetic brain disease sought a solution in the form of injections of fetal stem cells. These injections apparently triggered tumors in the boy’s brain and spinal cord.

It’s in the area of adult stem cell research that new discoveries are being made every day. Fact is, there are now hundreds of conditions and diseases actually being treated using adult stem cells drawn from umbilical cord blood and other nonembryonic sources.

The typical reaction to Obama’s move was represented in a Los Angeles Times sub-headline in its Saturday piece describing Obama’s decision. It read, “Lifting Bush’s limits on research will reopen a door for science.” But no door had been closed.

….. But (the Los Angeles Times) claims the potential of these induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) “is still unclear.”

No, it’s not. They can do everything stem cells from destroyed embryos can do, except without the moral baggage or the destroyed embryos.

Read the whole thing.

I’ll restate IBD’s bottom line, with just a little emphasis:

Adult stem cells can do everything
stem cells from destroyed embryos can do,
without the moral baggage
or the destroyed embryos.

The culture of death’s determined, dogmatic devotion to anything anti-life is the only explanation for Obama’s ghoulish decision.

Obama campaigned as an uncompromising death cult advocate. That advocacy was downplayed greatly by the establishment media, so, sadly, many relatively disengaged prolife voters supported Obama on other grounds without knowing his anti-life positions. Obama’s EO is surely a rude awakening to many.

But Obama’s radical antilife views and history were not unknown to his fellow Democratic candidates for national office. Thus, the silence thus far from alleged prolife Democrats like Ohio’s Steve Driehaus and John Boccieri is deafening, and disgraceful.

____________________________________________________

UPDATE: When I called Driehaus’s congressional office in Washington today, I was told in essence that the congressman hasn’t responded to President Obama’s Executive Order issuance, that he was working up a response, and that there is no timetable for when he will respond due to many other pressing matters.

Driehaus, absent sincere public repentance, is in an unsolvable Catch-22: If he opposes the Order, he admits that his vote for candidate Obama came despite Obama’s promise, surely known to him, to violate a core doctrine of the Catholic faith Driehaus alleges to profess. As such, he can no longer claim to a legitimate practicing Catholic. He also has on his conscience the misinformed votes of hundreds and maybe thousands of others who relied in part on his alleged prolife stance in voting for Obama.

If Driehaus supports the Order, he admits that he has irrevocably crossed over to the anti-life side, no longer believes in fundamental tenet of that faith, and, again, is no longer a legitimate practicing Catholic.

Absent sincere public repentance, Driehaus has no quarter, and no wiggle room.

How could winning a congressional seat possibly be worth all of that?

The debate over the short- and long-term efficacy of ethical baggage-free adult stem cells vs. life-destroying embryonic cells is a real example of a scientific debate that might as well be over. Adult stem cells (also referred to as repair stem cells) win.

Given that factual situation, it’s difficult to refute Chris Smith’s serious charge last week, as reported by the Catholic News Agency (bolds are mine):

Mar 7, 2009 / 08:04 am

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has criticized human embryo-destroying stem cell research, saying it is unethical, “unworkable and unreliable” and now “demonstrably unnecessary” in light of recent advances. He charged that President Obama and some Congressmen “still don’t get it” about the breakthroughs involving adult stem cell research.

Rep. Smith also accused the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership of being “obsessed with killing human embryos for experimentation at taxpayer expense.”

Leading a Special Order of Members of Congress who are opposed to human embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), Rep. Smith made his comments on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.

“Recent spectacular breakthroughs in noncontroversial adult stem cell research and clinical applications to effectuate cures with the mitigation of disease or disability have been well documented,” he said, remarking on the “significant progress” achieved with adult stem cells.

According to the Congressional Record, he said that his legislation helped establish a nationwide network to collect umbilical cord blood and the placenta from childbirths, which has borne fruit in treating leukemia and sickle cell anemia.

“Adult stem cells, Madam Speaker, are truly remarkable. They work, they have no ethical baggage, and advances are made every day at a dizzying pace,” he said.

He noted scientists Shinya Yamanaka and James Thomson’s development of a process that uses viruses to transform skin cells into pluripotent, embryo-like stem cells called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Rep. Smith also referred to research teams from the United Kingdom and Canada who have announced they have successfully reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into iPS skin cells without the use of viruses. He then quoted the U.K. team’s leading scientist, who told the BBC the procedure might even eliminate the need for human embryos as a source of stem cells.

“Pluripotent stem cells are those miraculous building block cells that can be coaxed into becoming any type of tissue found in the human body,” Rep. Smith explained.

“Unlike embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong anti-rejection medicines are administered, induced pluripotent cells, stem cells, have none of those deficiencies and are emerging as the future, the greatest hope of regenerative medicine.

….. He quoted several of James Thomson’s comments, in which the University of Wisconsin researcher said the embryonic stem cell debate will be a “funny historical footnote” and characterized new adult stem cell research advances as “probably the beginning of the end of the controversy over embryonic stem cells.”

It should be the “end of the end” of any controversy over funding embryonic research. Because adult stem cells can do anything embryonic cells might (in theory, supposedly, some day) do in curing and/or mitigating human disease, life-destroying embryonic research shouldn’t be done. That it apparently will be, despite “the settled science,” to use the debate-stifling language of the globalarmists, makes Smith’s charge against President Obama and the congressional majority’s leadership presumptively valid.

Addendum: Less than two years ago, I predicted in this comment that adult stem cells would eclipse embryonics in 5-10 years (bold applied now is mine):

Write it down: 5 years, even 10 years from now, ESCR will still be almost nothing but promise, while other SCR will at a minimum have done another 5-10 years of blocking and tackling, and may itself achieve all the breakthroughs Hail Mary black-hole ESCR promises — *someday*. That would include pluripotency, as there are beyond-early indications that ASCRs can be trained to be pluripotent. If realized, that achievement would, and should, consign life-taking ESCR to the ash heap of history.

I was wrong in estimating that it would take as long as 5-10 years. I’m (obviously) not sorry that this turned out to be the case. I’m only sorry that I underestimated scientists’ and other researchers’ ability to so quickly prove that God provides us ethical and moral ways to overcome our problems if we only demonstrate a little patience. It is clear to me that He did so just in time to make it obvious to all who will see just how misguided — and, yes, just how objectively evil — a move to apply federal taxpayer dollars to the immoral alternative really is.

We also owe a large debt of thanks to George W. Bush for keeping federal dollars away from life-killing and clearly unproductive embryonic research during his term in office.

Speaking of debts, let’s not forget that somebody promised me a few beers when (he thought if) I was shown to be right. But if he wants to weasel out (my guess: he will) do just that), that’s okay, because if I do collect on the bet, I’ll have to run to confession to ask for forgiveness for stealing.

From the Diocese of Scranton, PA:

His Excellency, the Most Reverend Joseph F. Martino, Bishop of Scranton, reminds all ministers of Holy Communion, ordinary and extraordinary, that:

1. To administer the Sacred Body and Blood of the Lord is a serious duty which they have received from the Church, and no one having accepted this responsibility has the right to ignore the Church’s law in this regard;
2. Those whose unworthiness to receive Holy Communion is known publicly to the Church must be refused Holy Communion in order to prevent sacrilege and to prevent the Catholic in question from committing further grave sin through unworthy reception.

From LifeSite News:

Bishop Martino has attracted national attention for his fearless pastoral work on several occasions in the past few weeks. Known to be a staunch defender of the Church’s teaching on life, Martino made that teaching abundantly clear earlier this month to Sen. Bob Casey, a Scranton parishioner who had voted against restoring the Mexico City Policy. In a letter to the Senator, the bishop urged him to rescind his vote against reinstating the policy, observing, “Your vote against the Mexico City Policy will mean the deaths of thousands of unborn children.”

After Casey ignored the bishop’s warning, Martino issued another rebuke to Casey, and reminded Scranton ministers of their duty to deny Communion to any public figure who helps the cause of abortion.

Bob Casey’s “unworthiness to receive Holy Communion” is very publicly known to the Church, and now the nation.

Further, anyone who voted for Barack Obama for president “help(ed) the cause of abortion,” many unknowingly, quite a few very knowingly. Two of the knowing included Ohio’s First District Congressman Steve Driehaus and 16th District Congressman John Boccieri, both of whom claimed to be prolife during the 2008 campaign.

As I said in October, Driehaus’s support of Obama made his campaign claim to be prolife obviously false.

John Boccieri’s support of Obama also made his campaign claim to be prolife obviously false. This video shows an interview where Boccieri couldn’t even bring himself to express prolife sentiments despite being given several opportunities to do so.

Both congressmen objectively still are not. Hopefully, their pastoral instructions and admonishments are forthcoming.

From Washington:

January 26, 2009

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of embryonic stem cells in human trials for the first time. While the trials involve controversial embryonic cells that have problems with tumors and immune system rejection, the use of adult stem cells has already proven safe for spinal cord patients.

Despite grave concerns that problems such as the causing of tumors and immune system rejection issues haven’t been solved, the FDA approved the trials last week.

It gave Geron Corp., based in California, permission to conduct the first-ever human trial for a treatment derived from the controversial cells. The trials will involve 10 spinal cord patients.

However, the safety of adult stem cell transplants in spinal cord injury patients has already been proved in two clinical trials involving studies in Australia and Portugal.

The Australian research group reported its findings in the August 2008 edition of the medical journal Brain, saying that “transplantation of autologous olfactory ensheathing cells into the injured spinal cord is feasible and is safe up to one year post-implantation.”

In Portugal, a group headed by Carlos Lima also used autologous olfactory stem cell transplants and put them into the spinal lesions of paraplegic and tetraplegic patients.

In a July 2006 Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine article, they wrote that adult stem cells are beginning to offer the most hope for those paralyzed from spinal cord injuries.

Lima’s team’s adult stem cell research showed restored motor function and sensation in a few paralyzed patients using adult stem cells obtained from a patient’s own nose.

Lima and his research team demonstrated that a patient’s own adult stem cells and olfactory mucosa can treat paralysis caused by spinal cord injury.

“Every patient had improvement in ASIA motor scores,” Lima wrote in his team’s paper. “This study shows that olfactory mucosa autograft transplantation into the human injured spinal cord is feasible, relatively safe, and potentially beneficial.”

Mark Pickup, a disability rights activist in Canada, commented on the Lima study in a statement sent to LifeNews.com. He said he wants to see funding of stem cell research go to adult stem cells instead of embryonic because they provide the most hope for paralyzed people like him. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Chicago, as noted in Life News:

January 29, 2009

Adult stem cells continue to outpace their embryonic counterparts by successfully treating patients with a variety of diseases and conditions. Now, the use of adult stem cells from bone marrow has helped patients suffering from the early stages of multiple sclerosis.

A new study shows a research team appears to have reversed the neurological dysfunction of early-stage multiple sclerosis patients by transplanting their own immune stem cells into their bodies and thereby “resetting” their immune systems.

Dr. Robert Burt, the lead researcher on a team from Northwestern University conducted a study using hematopoietic, or blood-forming, stem cells
extracted form a patient’s bone marrow.

Three years after treatment, 17 of the 21 patients involved in the study saw improvement and none of the patients involved saw their MS conditions worsen during the follow-up time period.

“This is the first study to actually show reversal of disability,” Burt an associate professor in the division of immunotherapy at Northwestern, said in the study published in the British medical journal Lancet. “Some people had complete disappearance of all symptoms.”

“This is the first time we have turned the tide on this disease,” Burt continued.

Edwin McClure, a 24-year-old graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University is one of the patients treated in the study and he told Bloomburg News that he hasn’t needed any drugs since the treatment.

“It’s a blessing,” he said. “My disease has been halted.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Oceanside, California:

February 20, 2009

A California man awoke from a coma right before his doctors were about to disconnect his life support. The story gives more credence to the notion that families should avoid making premature decisions to take the life of a loved one, because of the possibility of recovery.

Mike Connolly is a 56-year-old man whose heart stopped in late January and he lay in bed comatose for about four days when his family decided to give doctors permission to remove his life support.

That’s when Connolly recovered and interacted with his world around him once again.

According to the North County Times, Connolly’s stepson Mike Cooper was reading Scripture by his bedside when he noticed a tear going down Connolly’s cheek. Cooper soon left the room, only to return moments later when heard another family member cheering and hollering.

“He said Mike was responding,” Cooper told the newspaper. “I didn’t believe him, but I went back in there, and it was true. You would say his name, and he would turn his head toward you. It was a miracle.”

The news was surprising because doctors has said Connolly had brain damage from his heart stopping and would never recover from the coma.

Now he is making steady progress and the same physicians say he will make a full recovery.

Martin Nielsen, Connolly’s pulmonary doctor, told the newspaper he is surprised by his full recovery and called it miraculous.

“When we get a guy like Mike Connolly, it’s almost like a miracle,” Nielsen said. “I’ve never seen anybody come back like he has.”

Connolly’s heart stopped beating for 35 minutes and doctors speculate his brain went without oxygen for at least 10 minutes — making his recovery even more spectacular.

“Generally, the rule of thumb is if you go for more than four minutes without oxygen, you will see severe damage to the brain,” Nielsen said.

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Life News, in Bellevue, Nebraska:

February 17, 2009

A local electrician has quite working on repairs to a late-term abortion business outside of Omaha following pressure from pro-life advocates. The worker was repairing the abortion business run by late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart that was recently burned in an accidental fire.

The Nebraska-based center is one of the few in the nation to do late-term abortions and Carhart’s name became famous when the Supreme Court ruled for him against a partial-birth abortion ban.

The unnamed electrician made the decision to quit assisting with repairs and cancel his contract after he was informed that abortions took place at the run-down medical office.

The electrician initially resisted efforts and said he had nothing to do with an abortion business, but after being told that the basement containing medical records he was working on was part of Carhart’s abortion business, he quit immediately.

“He said he considered himself a good Catholic and didn’t want to be an accessory to an abortion clinic,” local pro-life advocate Larry Donlan explained.

Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, which monitors abortion practitioners, applauded the good news and told LifeNews.com that the results of campaigns designed to protest the collaboration between construction workers and abortion centers work. ….

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Canada (copied in full for positivity purposes):

2/20/2009 6:15:00 AM

The mother of a 12-year-old girl whose pro-life speech has become a hit YouTube video says her daughter’s passion for the unborn is genuine.

Lia is a preteen from Canada who decided to speak out against abortion in her school’s speech contest, despite teachers and school officials who encouraged her to pick a different topic.

“What if I told you that right now someone was choosing if you were going to live or die? What if I told you that this choice wasn’t based on what you could or couldn’t do, what you had done in the past, or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you [that] you could nothing about it? Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation,” she says in her speech.

Kimberly, Lia’s mother, says Lia was told by school officials that if she chose the topic of abortion, she would not be allowed to participate in the speech contest. But both were surprised when Lia’s pro-choice teacher had a change of heart.

“Her teacher was really impressed by this speech and perhaps moved by it, and therefore her teacher kind of was a real supporter of [Lia] winning for the class,” Kimberly notes. “And she had to go through a couple of hoops and get clearance from a couple of other teachers before she could be declared winner of the class.”

Another controversy erupted when the panel of judges had a supposed big disagreement and one stepped down. Initially Lia was disqualified, but later the panel declared her the winner. She was asked to take out this portion of her speech: “[F]etuses are definitely humans knit together in their mother’s womb by their wonderful Creator who knows them all by name.”

Kimberly says after Lia was told to remove that portion of her speech, she took time to think about her decision and ultimately decided to leave it in. Lia also competed in a regional speech competition but did not win. However, her speech has been viewed by over 200,000 people on YouTube.

Go here for the rest of the story, and the video. Have a hankie handy; Lia’s poise will blow you away. Perhaps she will move a few hearts in the process.

Nancy Pelosi had an audience with the Pope earlier today at the Vatican.

Life Site News (HT Gateway Pundit via Michelle Malkin) covered what the Vatican had to say about that meeting:

Pope Rebukes Pelosi, Tells Her Catholic Legislators Obligated to Protect Life

The Vatican Press Office released a note this morning detailing part of the conversation which Pope Benedict XVI had with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Vatican insiders inform LifeSiteNews.com that such releases are always phrased in diplomatic language and thus the correction of the Speaker who fancies herself a faithful Catholic despite her abortion advocacy can be taken as a rebuke.

The text of the note reads: “His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

Those interested in learning how the press will minimize the Pope’s rebuke have an early example to peruse at Agence France-Presse (AFP). It contains the expected watering-down of the rebuke, and more (AFP link is dynamic; its report as it appeared when this post was drafted is here):

Pope meets Pelosi, speaks of Church teachings on life

Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday told visiting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, that all Catholics should uphold the Church’s teachings on life.

Benedict “took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Vatican said in a statement.

These “enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists as well as those responsible for the common good of society to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development,” the statement said.

Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to see the pope since President Barack Obama took office last month, describes herself as an “ardent” Catholic while advocating reproductive rights.

Of course, “advocating reproductive rights” is media code for “ardently” pro-abortion.

If AFP were honest, it would have noted that Pelosi’s claim, according to Catholic doctrine, is heresy.

Here’s what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.

Politicians cannot credibly claim to be practicing Catholics and also support direct abortion. Thus, Pelosi is not a practicing Catholic, let alone an “ardent” one.

Last year, Pelosi tried to claim that Church teaching is ambivalent on when life begins:

I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And Senator–St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.

Apparently not even at nine months, according to theologian Pelosi, the partial birth abortion-supporting politician. She voted against banning the procedure several times over roughly a decade. At her Speaker’s web site, she criticized the April 2007 Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth abortion ban passed during the Bush adminstration as “wrong,” and “a significant step backwards.”

Her statement excerpted above is self-evident heresy.

AFP’s coverage went on to incompletely characterize the state of the two major areas of stem-cell research, and in the process cast the Church’s position in a bad light:

The Vatican has also criticised the approval of US authorities for the first human trials using embryonic stemcells of a therapy to help paralysed patients regain movement.

….. Such research may yield cures for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, Type 1 diabetes, cancer, cardiac degeneration and many other disorders.

AFP makes it seem as if embryonic stem-cell research is the only stem cell-related hope for paralysis, “Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, Type 1 diabetes, cancer, cardiac degeneration and many other disorders,” and that only the Church’s teaching stand in the way of cures.

That is, of course, a load of rubbish.

The left frame at the web site of Don Margolis (who, to fully disclose, is an outspoken critic of both sides of the stem-cell debate, because he claims that neither side cares about treating patients who need to be treated now), has posts that describe how adult stem-cell research has made progress in fighting over 40 diseases and conditions, including many real success stories involving real people. That list includes most of those AFP identified and seemed to imply as being the sole province of embryonic stem-cell research. Now that many types of adult stem cells have been demonstrated to have pluripotency, the justification for the existence of embryonic stem-cell research seems awfully thin — especially because even its fans typically acknowledge that progress is “years away” (eighth paragraph at link is just one example).

Yet pretend-Catholic Pelosi and Barack “It’s above my pay grade (to say when human rights begin)” Obama appear to be bound and determined to waste federal dollars pursuing the life-taking long-shot.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Here’s the ad, and here’s the story from Life News (HT Hot Air):

Enjoy the game. Enjoy life. Support life.