News Alert … The Republican-controlled U.S. House has passed legislation on President Bush's “faith-based initiative.” The bill expands the role of religious charities in social programs. The 233-198 vote represents the first step of the President's pledge to “rally the armies of compassion” against the nation's social ills. There is no comparable legislation pending in the U.S. Senate at this time.
Just before the final vote in the House, supporters of the bill defeated an attempt to recommit the Employment Non-Discrimination Act into the initiative. Pro-family groups had argued ENDA's inclusion would cause religious groups to lose their right to hire only employees who uphold the organization's religious beliefs.
by Jody Brown, Bill Fancher, and Fred Jackson
(AgapePress) – Proponents of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research picked up an important ally yesterday: staunch pro-life advocate Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee.
Frist, just starting his second six-year term as senator from the Volunteer State, is a close ally of the President, the only medical doctor in the Senate — and a strong pro-life voice in Washington. But he announced yesterday that after “grappling with the issue scientifically, ethically, and morally,” he favors both embryonic and adult stem cell research be federally funded and held accountable within a “carefully regulated, fully transparent framework.”
Frist told a Senate hearing that while he opposes abortion, he supports stem cell research because it could save lives. “I'm fully aware and supportive of the advances being made each day using adult stem cells,” Frist said. “It is clear, however, that research using the more versatile embryonic stem cells has greater potential than research limited to adult stem cells.” According to Frist, supporting both lines of research is the “prudent course.”
“Federal funding for stem cell research should be contingent on the implementation of a comprehensive, strict new set of safeguards and public accountability governing this new, evolving research,” he said. Among the new guidelines Frist recommends are a ban on embryo creation solely for research, strengthening of the current ban on federal funding for derivation of embryonic stem cells, a ban on human cloning, and increased federal funding of adult stem cell research.
In the other house of Congress, pro-abortion Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California promotes the destruction of human embryos in order to obtain their stem cells because, she says, it is the best hope for breakthroughs in curing diseases. But she rejects the latest data on the issue.
A few weeks ago, The New England Journal of Medicine reported adult stem cells hold the promise of better results. Pelosi says she takes issue with that report. “I do take issue with that,” she says. “I haven't seen that, so it's hard to disagree with what I haven't seen. But I know what I have seen, and that is the scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, [and] the consortium of universities in New England [who] have come here and spoken to us on this subject.”
Opponents of Pelosi claim those schools and scientists are just trying to protect their reputations and federal grant money.
Meanwhile, the world's largest pro-life organization is calling on President Bush not to make a final decision on embryonic stem cell research until after his meeting with the Pope next week in Rome. A statement from Human Life International says if the President were to move forward and approve such research before that meeting, millions of Catholics across America who voted for him would feel betrayed.
The group describes embryonic stem cell research as “intrinsically evil … and the destruction of a human life.”
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
Columbia's Bishops to Excommunicate AbortionPractitioners
BOGOTA, July 19, 2001 (LSN.ca) – The Roman Catholic Church in Colombia has warned doctors, medical practitioners and judges who participate in procuring abortion that they may face excommunication. In a letter, released Wednesday, signed by all Colombian Catholic bishops, Columbians were called to practice conscientious objection and refuse to participate in the “abominable crime of abortion.”
“Believers can legally and conscientiously object with validity. That means that women, doctors and even judges can excuse themselves from participating in this type of crime, because their beliefs do not permit it,” says the letter.
LifeSite reported that last month the Columbian Supreme Court ruled that abortion “in those cases where the woman has been a victim of violence, rape or non-consensual artificial insemination” is not punishable by prison. The bishops said they would take steps to have the new law declared unconstitutional.
In 1999 the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)demanded that Colombia legalize abortion, as it reviewed that country's UN compliance report.
(This update courtesy of LifeSite Daily News.)
