LIFEalerts 16 February 2017

Abortion

Sweden – Nurse fired for refusing abortions sues for discrimination

Ireland – Europe Using Abortion to Create a “Down Syndrome Free” World

UK – Dangerous British Abortion Clinics Turning Away Women from Ireland

Alternative Medicine

No news today

Euthanasia

Canada – Euthanasia could save Canada millions

Netherlands – Woman euthanized while fighting for her life

IVF& Surrogacy

No news today

Medical Ethics

USA – Using patents to restrict harmful applications of CRISPR

USA – Scientists closer to growing human organs in pigs

USA – Trump SCOTUS Nominee is ‘bioethicist’

Australia – Leading Adult Stem Cell Researcher named Australian of Year

Pedophilia

UK – Conference says sex with children ‘natural’

Pornography

USA – Pornography declared health crisis by South Dakota

USA – An industry that fears the next four years

UK – What the future of pornography will look like

UK – Porn laws a year on

Same Sex Attraction

Canada – Curiosity killed your true sexuality

Australia – Father fights for children not to be exposed to naked men

Sexual Exploitation

India – Actress Ashley Judd advocates for abolition of prostitution

USA – Global Community Rejects Normalized Violence in 50 Shades

Germany – Mother jailed for selling sex with daughter online

USA – Tackle demand at the Super Bowl

Substance Abuse

USA – Hardly any proof of Dagga’s medical benefits  

Abortion

Sweden – Nurse fired for refusing abortions sues for discrimination

A Swedish midwife, Ellinor Grimmark, is suing healthcare officials for discrimination. Scandinavian Human Rights Lawyers, which represents Grimmark, argue that European Union law protects healthcare professionals’ “freedom of conscience” on issues like abortion. In 2016, a Swedish court ruled against her, saying that women’s access to abortion was more important than healthcare professionals’ conscience rights. Grimmark has been denied a job ever since she first began refusing to participate in abortions, even though there was a shortage of midwives. Sweden is the only country in the European Union that does not have legal conscience protections.

http://www.lifenews.com/2017/01/30/nurse-fired-three-times-because-she-wouldnt-help-kill-babies-in-abortions-files-lawsuit/

Ireland – Europe Using Abortion to Create a “Down Syndrome Free” World

Dr. Peter McParland, an obstetrician from the National Maternity Hospital, explained how prenatal testing is leading to a near extinction of children with Down syndrome and other disabilities. According to McParland’s research, not one baby with Down syndrome has been born in Iceland in the past five years. Statistics from England indicate as many as 90 percent of babies with the condition are aborted. Abortion has become a modern method of eugenics, a way to discriminate against the most vulnerable in society. Irish mother Anne Trainer whose son Kevin who has Down syndrome said, “The Eighth Amendment protected my son, and he was deserving of that protection.”

http://www.lifenews.com/2017/02/07/european-nations-are-using-abortion-to-create-a-down-syndrome-free-world/

UK – Dangerous British Abortion Clinics Turning Away Women from Ireland

The Life Institute, spokeswoman Niamh Uí Bhriain has said a decision by Marie Stopes to begin turning Irish women away from its abortion clinics had the potential to save both mothers and babies. “Most women go for an abortion in fear and panic because they have not been given other life-affirming options,” she said. British abortion clinics know this, and that’s why they are openly campaigning to have abortion legalised in Ireland and bring their disturbing industry here.” “We’ve seen an almost 50{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} fall in the number of women from Ireland travelling for abortions in the past decade, and that’s a good thing. This industry is aggressively seeking to expand to Ireland, and attacking the 8th amendment to do so.

http://www.lifenews.com/2017/02/08/pro-life-victory-dangerous-british-abortion-clinics-turning-away-women-from-ireland/

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Alternative Medicine

No news today

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Euthanasia

Canada – Euthanasia could save Canada millions

It only became legal in June and already about 800 people have received a lethal injection at the hands of a doctor. In December two Quebec bioethicists argued in the Journal of Medical Ethics that combining euthanasia with organ donation would be an excellent idea. And last week researchers from the University of Calgary calculated that when euthanasia reaches the level of Belgium and the Netherlands, the health system could save up to up to C$139 million every year. “Exceeding the $1.5–$14.8 million in direct costs associated with its implementation of Euthanasia,” they wrote in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

https://www.mercatornet.com/careful/view/euthanasia-could-save-canada-millions-in-healthcare-costs/19285 http://www.cmaj.ca/content/189/3/E101.abstract

Netherlands – Woman euthanized while fighting for her life

A Dutch euthanasia doctor has been rebuked by a Regional Review Committee after she gave a lethal injection to a demented patient who appeared to be struggling to stop the procedure. An 80-year-old woman with dementia entered a nursing home because her husband could no longer care for her. Based on her previous statements, the doctor decided that euthanasia was appropriate. With members of her family in attendance, the doctor approached to give her a lethal injection. The woman was agitated, so the doctor slipped a sedative into her coffee. This did not work, so she gave her an injection. With all these drugs, the woman dosed off. But when the needle for the lethal injection appeared, she started to struggle. The doctor had to ask the family members to hold her down so that she could continue with the injection. The woman died soon afterwards.

The review committee said the doctor acted in good faith, but had erred in several respects.

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/struggling-woman-with-dementia-euthanised-in-netherlands/12173

https://www.euthanasiecommissie.nl/uitspraken-en-uitleg/d/dementie/documenten/publicaties/oordelen/2016/niet-gehandeld-overeenkomstig-de-zorgvuldigheidseisen/oordeel-2016-85

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IVF&Surrogacy

No news today

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Medical Ethics

USA – Using patents to restrict harmful applications of CRISPR

Writing in Nature Biotechnology, academics from Baylor College of Medicine and New York Law School, suggest that ethical licensing by CRISPR gene-editing technology patent holders is necessary. “We do not mean to suggest that licensing bans are preferable, or should be used to the exclusion of policymaking or professional standards setting. Rather, we believe that the promotion of private efforts as a complement to public efforts is worthy of serious consideration,” says Baylor ethicist Christi Guerrini. When the Broad Institute licensed CRISPR technology to Editas Medicine it was provided they did not use it to modify human germ cells or embryos or modify animal cells for the creation or commercialization of organs suitable for transplantation into humans.

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/using-patents-to-restrict-harmful-applications-of-crispr/12152

USA – Scientists closer to growing human organs in pigs

The journal Cell reports that Salk Institute geneticists injected pig embryos with human induced pluripotent stem cells then returned them to a sow for gestation. After 28 days some of the cells developed into precursors of tissue types, including heart, liver and neurons. Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert said: “I find these experiments disturbing… mixing species touches something deep in the human psyche and our culture that is hard to put into words.” But Insoo Hyun, ethicist at Case Western Reserve University said “There isn’t a need to get into a debate about moral humanization if scientists target the organs where the human cells will go”. “Scientists are not making chimeras just for fun; it’s to relieve the dire shortage of transplantable organs”.

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/scientists-closer-to-growing-human-organs-in-pigs/12156

USA – Trump SCOTUS Nominee is ‘bioethicist’

Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, made his name at the elite law firm Kellogg, Huber and Hansen but also has a doctorate in legal philosophy from Oxford University writing extensively on end of life issues. Gorsuch says that judges should use “text, structure and history” to understand what the law is, “not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or policy consequences they believe might serve society best”. While Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards tweeted, “Neil Gorsuch has an alarming history of interfering with reproductive health and rights”, Princeton philosopher and conservative commentator Robert George described Gorsuch as an ‘intellectual giant’:  “[his] combination of outstanding intellectual and personal qualities places him in the top rank of American jurists.”

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/trump-scotus-nominee-is-a-bioethicist/12172

Australia – Leading Adult Stem Cell Researcher named Australian of Year

Alan Makay-Sim is the first scientist in the world to use olfactory ensheathing cells to bring about spinal regeneration in humans, a procedure used by researchers in 2012 to help a man paralyzed from the chest down walk again. In the early 2000s, IVF pioneer Alan Trounson led a campaign for a massive government funded embryonic stem cell research initiative but Mackay-Sim’s work was often used as evidence against funding the Trounson project. Columnist Angela Shanahan remarked: “By concentrating on the use of adult stem cells rather than ­embryonic stem cells, Mackay-Sim’s research bypassed the most contentious ethical debates, and, what is more, he did this with very limited funds. He and his team deserve full credit for that.”

https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/leading-adult-stem-cell-researcher-named-australian-of-the-year/12169

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Pedophilia

UK – Conference says sex with children ‘natural’ An academic conference held at the University of Cambridge said that having sex with children is normal and natural. These views were expressed to discuss the classification of sexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This is a standard international psychiatric manual used by the legal system. A number of speakers at the conference spoke in favour of child-sex. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) responsible for the DSM has been in a battle over whether Hebephilia, the attraction to children in early puberty, typically 11-14, should be included as a disorder. http://thestarsandstripes.info/liberals-trying-to-legalize-pedophilia-this-time-university-academics-say-pedophilia-is-natural#

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Pornography

USA – Pornography declared health crisis by South Dakota

Senators in South Dakota have passed a resolution declaring pornography a public health crisis, joining Virginia and Utah among that states stepping up efforts to highlight the dangers of x-rated adult material. According to resolution SCR4, passed in South Dakota, porn leads to risky sexual activity, low self-esteem and sometimes eating disorders. Advances in technology are exposing young children to pornography “at an alarming rate,” and pornography is “linked to a lessening desire in young person’s to marry,” the resolution states.

https://www.rt.com/usa/375054-porn-south-dakota-crisis/

USA – An industry that fears the next four years

Anxiety abounded in the days and weeks following the US election. One group, the porn industry, is fighting for its survival. It’s an industry that does not discriminate as to who consumes and has no target audience. Adult actor Jesse Jackman says there is concern in the porn industry that future laws may become aggressive, and possibly even draconic. Adult actors’ fears did not start the day after the election, but rather in July 11 in Cleveland when the Republican Party amended its platform to say that pornography is a public health crisis. The pervasiveness of porn has saturated our society. In fact, most teens and young adults believe that porn is not all that bad.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/an-industry-that-fears-the-next-four-years

UK – What the future of pornography will look like

According to Dr Chauntelle Tibballs a sociologist and the author of ‘Exposure: A Sociologist Explores Sex, Society, and adult Entertainment’, robots might replace sexual partners. The internet made pornography easier to access and some people may definitely be using virtual reality headsets to add further depth and dimension to sexual fantasy. Sex is always changing and evolving, and it always has.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/porn-future-how-to-prepare-sex-videos-pronography-expert-dr-chauntelle-tibbals-virtual-reality-a7546331.html

UK – New porn laws a year later

A year after laws restricting online pornography in the UK were introduced, two women reveal how the regulations have affected their lives and the industry. Pandora Blake, 31, who describes herself as a “one-woman business” and a London-based feminist pornographer said that because her fantasy was banned she had to take her online business down. But Megara Furie, a 32-year-old dominatrix based in Glasgow, holds the view that laws should only be aimed at protecting children. Not causing people to lose money.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/uk-porn-laws-a-year-on-a-porn-actress-and-dominatrix-on-destroyed-businesses-and-censorship-a6755171.html

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Same Sex Attraction

Canada – Curiosity killed your true sexuality

An excerpt from LM Diamond, PhD, a professor of developmental psychology and health psychology at the University of Utah points out in her study that following the modern ideas and style culture provides a different set of gender-specific contexts that potentially trigger same-sex sexuality. Specifically, the past decade revealed evidence of an undeniable increase in television and movie portrayals of heterosexual women that experiment with homosexual behaviour, with few negative social consequences.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.352.3974&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Australia – Father fights for children not to be exposed to naked men

Bernard Gaynor, a father, former military man and outspoken free-speech campaigner won a court battle over charges brought against him for publicly objecting to naked homosexual men exposing themselves to children at a homosexual parade in Toronto, Canada. Bernard also pointed out remarks made by a judge that legitimized incest because of the cultural embrace of homosexuality. A homosexual, anti free-speech activist lodged 32 complaints against Bernard but despite this, Bernard continues to stand for family values; while challenging in court, the anti-discrimination body that is acting outside the law.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/father-of-sevens-three-year-court-battle-results-in-smashing-victory-for-fr

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Sexual Exploitation

India – Actress Ashley Judd advocates for abolition of prostitution

Prostitutes in India have slammed a global conference on the abolition of prostitution. Hollywood actress Ashley Judd, attending the conference as a strong advocate for prostitution to be abolished, said women and girls were being bought and sold like commodities and that action had to be taken to end the global sex trade. “We need to put on the onus and shame where it belongs – which is on the perpetrator, the aggressor and the person who thinks that women and girl’s bodies are purchasable.” “We are not commodities, we are human beings and we are entitled to bodily integrity, sexual dignity and the right to be free from all forms of body invasion.”

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/BigStory10/idUSKBN15F1WF

USA – Global Community Rejects Normalized Violence in 50 Shades

The London Abused Women’s Centre, Canada; Collective Shout, Australia; Culture Reframed, USA; and The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), USA are collaborating for the second time to reject the normalization of violence and abuse against women portrayed in the movie Fifty Shades Darker. Dozens of groups from around the world are speaking out against the Fifty Shades trilogy ahead of the release of Fifty Shades Darker in February. The campaign Facebook page highlights how the movie normalizes and even romanticizes sexual and domestic violence. The partnering organizations urge the public to support survivors of men’s violence and help educate the public on the realities of Fifty Shades relationships.

http://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/global-community-rejects-normalized-violence-movie-fifty-shades-darker/

Germany – Mother jailed for selling sex with daughter online

A German court sentenced a woman to four years in jail after she admitted to charges including selling sex with her teenage daughter online. The 37-year-old was jailed on charges of serious sexual abuse of children and procuration. The state court in Hildesheim, Saxony found that the woman had offered her teenage daughter, then 16, for sex online over a period of six months. Court proceedings only began in January this year, although the older daughter had gone to the police in July 2013. “The sentences are an important signal and compensation for the girls,” the lawyer for the two daughters said after the hearing.

http://news.iafrica.com/afp/1044584.html

USA – Tackling demand at the Super Bowl

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), in collaboration with more than twenty-five supporting organizations, conducted a nation-wide social media awareness campaign to #Tackle Demand for sex trafficking at the Super Bowl and beyond. Executive Director Dawn Hawkins stated that many people believe that sex trafficking is perpetuated by traffickers but in reality it’s the demand, the sex buyer, that keeps the market going and that typically sex buyers are unable or unwilling to recognize if a person is trafficked for sex. Payment for sex in itself constitutes an act of sexual coercion, whether it takes place in connection with the Super Bowl or for no special occasion at all.

http://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/tackle-demand_sex-trafficking_super-bowl/

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Substance Abuse

USA – Hardly any proof of Dagga’s medical benefits More than 10,700 scientific studies have been conducted by the National Academics of Science, Engineering, and Medicine that found benefits for only two disorders that can be verified, such as chronic pain, nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy. Although many people support the legalization of Dagga the studies found many serious health and social consequences for the use of Dagga. Researchers found Dagga use to be associated with the development of schizophrenia and other psychoses, existing disorders of mania and bi-polar increase and the risk of committing suicide increases. Social anxiety disorder can develop and negatively affect learning, memory and attention span. https://world.wng.org/2017/01/national_study_finds_little_proof_of_pot_s_medical_benefits#.WIoU9iNbtZo.facebook

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Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect those of Doctors for Life International

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