Oklahoma House Bill Bans Embryonic Stem Cell Research

From the Daily Oklahoman article:

With just a handful of Democrats opposing, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a measure Thursday that would prohibit embryonic stem cell research in Oklahoma.

We value life here in Oklahoma," said the bill's author, Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee. "While we in no way dispute the fact that the ability to treat or heal suffering persons is a great good, we also recognize that not all methods of achieving a desired good are morally or legally justifiable."

House Bill 1442 would make it a misdemeanor to conduct embryonic stem cell research. It also would prohibit buying, selling or transferring an embryo for research. It would exclude certain procedures such as in vitro fertilization.

The measure passed 86-8. It now goes to the Senate.

Thank you, Oklahoma Representatives!

Rep. Jeannie McDaniel, D-Tulsa, who worries about the measure's effect of medical research facilities in Oklahoma City, asks, "Why would we say Oklahoma is closed to this type of research? Why put roadblocks up?"

Because, Representative, there are far too many Oklahomans who believe either life begins at conception or think that there's a possibility that it at least MIGHT do so. Whatever one's belief, no doubt embryonic research is very controversial. As Faught mentions in the article, the research field of embryonic stem cell has generated zero results (though to be honest, this may be due to lack of funding). And, Representative, there is so much promise in ADULT or CORD BLOOD stem cell research. No human life- or potential human life, as they may say in your 'camp'- is destroyed in that process.

Listen to your constituents, Representative, and put our tax dollars into ADULT stem cell research.

Also from the article:

Dr. Stephen Prescott, a medical researcher and president of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, said earlier that passage of the measure would send a negative message to patients about Oklahoma.

"It sends a message that we're not forward-looking about how we view issues," he said.

Heaven forbid, Dr. Prescott, that people wouldn't think we're 'forward-looking'. Besides, Dr. Prescott, have you looked forward, to the consequences that will ensue from a culture treating human life- or even potential human life- like something to be used and destroyed in the name of science? Of something that would destroy one life in the name of bettering another's? Perhaps we should look back at the 'forward-thinking' of eugenics...

As Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, D-Oklahoma City stated in the article , "It's always a very dangerous and slippery thing when you take any group of people and say that you can do to them what ever you want."

Genetic Testing and Family Planning

A video on genetic testing.

Listen carefully to what Devin's mother says.  Had she known she were a carrier for Fragile X Syndrome, she would have had her eggs fertilized outside of her womb, tested, and implanted only healthy eggs.  This son whom she obviously loves and adores would not have been born.  She would rather have his just forming life destroyed than let him be born with a disability.

This is what we are doing with the gift of genetic testing?  Reverting to eugenics- from which the science of genetics evolved?  What kind of people can reason like this?

Oh, that's right.  All of us.

The human heart is deceitful and desperately sick.  (Jeremiah 17:9)  We live in sin and obey the devil, the one at work in the sons of disobedience.  We've all lived that way, following the inclinations of our sinful nature.  By our very nature, we are subject to God's wrath.  (Ephesians 2:1-3)

God says to take tender care of the weak.  (1 Thessalonias 5:14)  He commands we learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, and plead the widow's cause. (Isaiah 1:17)

But we don't do it, and so God's justice demands consequences.  The wages of sin is death.  (Romans 6:23)  But, God in His great mercy, sent His Son as a propitiation, to absorb the wrath of God and to suffer our consequences.  The good news is that, God showed His love for us in that while we were still sinning Christ died for us.  And now all who repent and believe in Christ and his work on the cross will be saved.  (Romans 3:21-26, Mark 1:15)

We're then given a new nature.  No longer children of wrath, we are children of God.  (Romans 8:15, Titus 3:7), heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), given His righteousness (1 Corinthinas 1:30).  And, now, we're told to renew our minds (Ephesians 2:23).

So, we don't reason like Devin's mom anymore.  With our renewed minds, we know that as God knit Devin in his mother's womb, Devin's form was not hidden from God.  God knew Devin had Fragile X Syndrome.  And, yet, Devin was fearfully and wonderfully made, a wonderful work.  How precious are God's thoughts toward Devin!  And Devin's mother.  (Psalm 139:13-16)

And also with our renewed minds, as we now seek God and His ways, we do as He commands.  We stand up for the weak, needy, poor, oppressed, and the very, very tiny.  We love justice.  We show the hope of God to Devin's mom and to Devin.

We don't let murder in the name of genetic testing just happen.  We do something about it.  

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.  (Proverbs 14:12)

Germany to compile roll of Nazi euthanasia victims

Germany to compile roll of Nazi euthanasia victims

BERLIN (Reuters) - German historians have started compiling a central register of 9,000 mentally ill people murdered as part of the Nazis' euthanasia policy, most of whom were previously unidentified.

More than 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during a drive inspired by Hitler that was carried out in six extermination centres in Germany between 1940 and 1945.

The idea of a Nazi euthanasia campaign, backed by propaganda films portraying the mentally handicapped and incurably ill as "useless mouths to feed", was first outlined in Hitler's 1924 book "Mein Kampf" and became known as Operation T4.

Read rest of article here

One correction needed as Wesley J Smith points out on his blog. "Hitler didn't inspire it, he was inspired by the pre-existing eugenics movement to boost it. Indeed, in Mein Kamph Hitler discussed these ideas, which he did not generate, but that were already in the public discourse raging in Germany, the USA, and the UK."

What If Relationship?

There is so much talk out there in the world about suffering. There is so much talk out there about 'those people' who are *suffering. There is so much talk out there about how to help 'those people' who are suffering by ending their suffering. There is so much talk out there about ending 'those people' who are suffering.

The logic these days (these last days?), in this distorted world, is ending a person's suffering is worth ending the person.

I am wondering if we jump on the euthanasia, doctor assisted suicide bandwagon because we don't really know 'those people'? They aren't in our lives. I didn't know Mrs. Schaivo.

What if I did? What if she weren't just the woman I read about online or whose story I watched on the evening news? What if she weren't the woman whose disability was described differently in each article or story, as if reporters or bloggers couldn't exactly explain what was 'wrong' with her?

What if she had been someone in my life, say a friend or a family member or a woman I cared for as a caregiver? Would I be so easily tempted to talk about her in the abstract and form opinions about her based on different articles all written from different points of view?

If I had a relationship with Mrs. Schiavo, would it make it easier to recognize her life's worth, her dignity, and her personhood and do my very best to see that she has the best care and support and found a way to see that her bridge to Mrs. Schiavo and community stayed strong? Or in my pain of believing someone I love was suffering, would I accept the distorted philosophy of euthanasia?

What if I had a relationship with Mrs. Schiavo's family? Would I, in my fear of Mrs. Schiavo's disabilities, encourage her hurting family in the route of euthanasia? Or would I offer real, practical support, by way of sharing in the care of Mrs. Schiavo and of the family?

What if relationship with people with serious and profound disabilities and their families took those with disabilities out of the abstract in debate about human life and made them real people to us? Would we see ending their 'suffering' worth ending their lives? Or would we find a way to relate to them in their suffering, and instead of trying to end it their suffering at any means, would we recognize suffering as a shared human experience?

*Side, but important note, many with disabilities do not see themselves as actually 'suffering' in the way that suffering is used in the media and politics. They see their lives as normal, albeit with some hard things in their lives, but they resent that the rest of us see them as 'suffering'.

Who's Who?

From the video:

In a collective decision, every voice counts, either by its rhetoric or by its silence.