LIFEalerts 22 January 2016

Abortion	USA – President Obama vetoes legislation defunding Planned Parenthood USA – Kansas Governor defunds Planned Parenthood Medicaid funding
Alternative Medicine	No news today
Euthanasia	Netherlands – Demented patients can now be euthanized
HIV/AIDS	No news today
Homosexuality	No news today
IVF & Surrogacy	USA – The more cycles the better says study Italy – Treat surrogate parents as sex offenders says Italian minister
Medical Ethics	USA – The top tech ethical issues of 2016 USA – Clinics obliged to offer fertility services to transgender people USA – Most research using fetal tissue is on infectious diseases
Pedophilia	Japan – Can Child Dolls Keep Pedophiles from Offending? USA – Actor arrested for images of child sexual exploitation
Pornography	USA – Study: Watching Porn Can Make You Sexually Aggressive USA – Possible link between pornography and dating abuse among teens USA – More than one in ten youth pastors addicted to porn USA – PornhHub statistics
Prostitution &Trafficking	Netherlands – Sex is now acceptable tender for driving lessons USA – FBI has new plan to stop Super Bowl prostitution
Stem Cells & Cloning	No news today
Substance Abuse	USA – Planned Parenthood gunman was a “marijuana newcomer” USA – Over 400 conditions co-occur with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders USA – Spike in Newborn Drug-Withdrawal Australia – Marijuana and Your Health: 20 Years of Research

Abortion USA – President Obama vetoes legislation defunding Planned Parenthood President Barack Obama vetoed legislation that would have ended $400 Million of the over $500 Million in forced taxpayer funding going to Planned Parenthood for 1 year. The measure would have shifted PP’s public subsidies to comprehensive health care clinics that offer more health services and outnumber the abortion giant 20 to 1. Bill H.R. 3762, which included efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is the first bill to pass both houses of congress and make it to the president Obama’s desk. Obama shows blatant disregard for what the American people want and shows his close affiliation with PP and his pro abortion stance is clear. http://liveactionnews.org/breaking-president-obama-vetoes-legislation-defunding-planned-parenthood/ USA – Kansas Governor defunds Planned Parenthood Medicaid funding In his state address, Kansas governor Sam Brownback announced Planned Parenthood will no longer receive public funding through the state’s Medicaid program. Addressing a joint session of the Legislature, Brownback encouraged lawmakers to make the mandate state law.“The time has come to finish the job,” the governor urged. Brownback has ordered the state’s Department of Health and Environment to ensure “not a single dollar of taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood,” making Kansas the eighth state to defund the abortion giant. http://liveactionnews.org/kansas-defunds-planned-parenthood-blocks-group-from-receiving-medicaid-funds/ Alternative Medicine No news today <Back to Top> Euthanasia Netherlands – Demented patients can now be euthanized The Netherlands health ministry has revised its guidelines to allow severely demented patients to be euthanized. The guidelines acknowledge that patients often do not seem to be suffering unbearably because of their dementia. However, they still suffer from conditions like severe anxiety and pain. “In those cases a doctor may give euthanasia, even if a patient cannot make it clear in words or gesture,” says the ministry. “But there has to be a written request for euthanasia, that the patient drew up earlier.” http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/demented-patients-can-be-euthanized-in-netherlands/11706 <Back to Top> HIV/AIDS & STI’s No news today <Back to Top> Homosexuality No news today <Back to Top> IVF &Surrogacy USA – The more cycles the better says study Research published in The Journal of The American Medical Association looked at the likelihood of achieving a live birth from up to 9 cycles. The study included 157,000 UK-based women who received almost 260,000 IVF ovarian stimulation cycles between 2003 and 2010 and were followed up until June 2012. The median age at start of treatment was 35 years and the median duration of infertility for all cycles was 4 years. Professor Lawlor from the University of Bristol said: “These findings support extending the number of IVF cycles beyond 3 or 4. Scientists at the universities of Bristol and Glasgow said patients should not view the process as a “single shot”. Chances of success increased with the number of treatments. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/ivf-two-thirds-of-couples-conceive-by-sixth-cycle-of-treatment-study-says-a6783341.html Italy -Treat surrogate parents as sex offenders says Italian minister Surrogate parents should be treated as sex-offenders and jailed, according to Italy’s interior minister, Angelino Alfano. He described surrogacy as “the most vile, illegal trade that man has invented” in an interview. “We want wombs-for-rent to become a universal crime, punished with a jail term just as it happens for sex crimes.” 56 http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/treat-surrogate-parents-as-sex-offenders-says-italian-minister/11704#sthash.7CpOg5RN.dpuf <Back to Top> Medical Ethics USA – The top tech ethical issues of 2016 The John J. Reilly Centre for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame has released its annual list to get people thinking before controversial science or technology goes mainstream. Here are some of the ethical issues; CRISPR/Cas9 technology for gene editing; Rapid whole genome diagnosis – a way to record and catalogue the genomes of newborns in order to improve disease detection; Head transplants – a procedure that one doctor has promised to develop by 2017. Artificial wombs – the potential to grow a human foetus outside of a woman’s body is creating concerns with women’s rights advocates; Exoskeletons for the elderly – technology that helps people be more mobile and keep working but postpones retirement. http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/the-top-tech-ethical-issues-of-2016/11696#sthash.QpgjDiKU.dpuf USA – Clinics obliged to offer fertility services to transgender people The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has issued a formal opinion that there are no reasons to view transgender parenting unfavourably. The committee argues that it would actually be wrong to deny patients this right. “Professional autonomy, while a significant value in deciding whom to treat, is limited in this case by a greater ethical obligation, and in some jurisdictions, a legal duty, to regard all persons equally, regardless of their gender identity.” “The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry affirms that ‘there is no evidence to support that parents who are … transgender are per se deficient in parenting skills, child-centered concerns, and parent-child attachments compared with heterosexual parents’.” http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/us-clinics-obliged-to-offer-fertility-services-to-transgenders/11697 USA – Most research using fetal tissue is on infectious diseases Fetal tissue research has featured prominently in the headlines this year, after Planned Parenthood was filmed talking about sales of fetal parts to researchers. But less is known about what the scientists do with the tissue. Meredith Wadman, a journalist for Nature, found that the National institutes of health had funded 164 of these projects, at a cost of US$76 million – only 0.27{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} of its grants. Here is what Nature found: 39{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} was used for HIV research, 18{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} for developmental biology, 14{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} for eye development and disease, 13 percent for infectious diseases like hepatitis, 8{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} for miscellaneous such as type 1 diabetes, 7{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} for in utero diseases, toxic exposure and congenital conditions, and 1{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} as a fetal tissue repository. http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/most-research-using-foetal-tissue-focuses-on-infectious-diseases/11691 <Back to Top> Pedophilia Japan – Can Child Dolls Keep Pedophiles from Offending? Takagi a non-offending pedophile has founded a company that produces life-like child sex doll imitations of girls as young as five to clients around the world. “We should accept that there is no way to change someone’s fetishes,” Takagi said. “I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically. So far, there is no research to indicate whether or not Takagi’s dolls would be successful, and Peter Fagan from the John Hopkins School of Medicine is skeptical that there ever will be. Citing cognitive-behavioral theory, the paraphilia researcher believes that contact with Trottla’s products would likely have a “reinforcing effect” on pedophilic ideation and “in many instances, cause it to be acted upon with greater urgency.” http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/can-child-dolls-keep-pedophiles-from-offending/423324/#article-comments USA – Actor arrested for images of child sexual exploitation Mark Salling has been found with more than 1000 images of “child sexual exploitation” on his computer. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5, the “extensive use of pornography depicting prepubescent children is a useful diagnostic indicator of a Pedophilic Disorder.” Researchers are still not sure what causes pedophilia. “The best information we have now suggests that it is really on the nature side,” said clinical psychologist James Cantor, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine. Cantor says evidence suggests that a pedophile can’t be turned into a non-pedophile, but there are treatments, such as sex-drive-reducing medication and psychotherapy. https://www.yahoo.com/health/mark-salling-child-porn-215241330.html <Back to Top> Pornography USA – Study: Watching Porn Can Make You Sexually Aggressive Spending too much time watching pornography can make you sexually aggressive, new research has found. The analysis of 22 studies from seven different countries found that pornography consumption is associated with sexual aggression across the countries among both males and females. Although the researchers acknowledge that “many pornography consumers are not sexually aggressive”, they ultimately concluded that “the accumulated data leave little doubt that, on the average, individuals who consume pornography more frequently are more likely to hold attitudes conducive to sexual aggression and engage in actual acts of sexual aggression than individuals who do not consume pornography or who consume pornography less frequently”. http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/Watching-Porn-Can-Make-You-Sexually-Aggressive-Study/2016/01/04/article3211300.ece USA – Possible link between pornography and dating abuse among teens Teenagers who were victims of dating abuse reported viewing pornography twice as often as non-victimized peers, suggesting a possible link between dating abuse and pornography exposure, according to a new study led by a School of Public Health researcher, Emily Rothman, associate professor of community health sciences. The study was published in the journal Behavioral Sciences. The study found that more than half of all participants (51 percent) had been asked to watch pornography together by a dating or sexual partner. Overall, 44 percent of the youths reported that they had been asked to do something sexual that a partner saw in pornography. http://www.bu.edu/sph/2016/01/11/link-between-pornography-use-and-dating-abuse-among-urban-teens/ USA – More than one in ten youth pastors addicted to porn Josh McDowell Ministries commissioned the Barna Group to conduct a national survey of 3,000 people, including teens, pastors, and others. The survey claims to be the “most comprehensive, in-depth and wide-ranging study to date on pornography among the American population.” The massive survey found that teens, both boys and girls view porn weekly, and 41 percent have “sexted” a sexually explicit image. But perhaps the most disconcerting discovery of the McDowell survey is the high number of pastors at 21 percent of youth ministers and 14 percent of pastors who admit they struggle with pornography. Moreover, twelve percent of youth pastors and five percent of pastors admit they are addicted to internet porn. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/porn-phenomenon-survey-finds-more-than-one-in-ten-youth-pastors-addicted-to USA – PornhHub statistics People watched 4,392,486,580 hours of porn on PornHub in 2015. That means that in one year people around the world spent 501,425 years watching pornography, on one porn site. On PornHub, people watched 87,849,731,608 porn videos. As the porn site hastened to point out, that’s 12 porn videos viewed for every single person on the planet. https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/pornhub-just-released-their-2015-statistics.-and-its-sickening <Back to Top> Prostitution & Trafficking Netherlands – Sex is now acceptable tender for driving lessons The Dutch have introduced a new law which says any driving student can use sex as payment as long as they are over the age of 18. Prostitution is legal in the country with sex workers requiring an escort license and to pay taxes on a self-employment basis. The law has a thin line: driving students cannot offer sex for driving lessons. As long as the instructor makes the deal, two consenting adults have the green light to enter into such a contract. http://www.thesouthafrican.com/in-holland-sex-is-now-acceptable-tender-for-driving-lessons/ USA – FBI has new plan to stop Super Bowl prostitution For the first time in its efforts to crack down on sex trafficking during the Super Bowl, the FBI will try to reach out to women and girls selling sex. The FBI and local law enforcement agencies announced the arrests in February of 360 sex buyers and 68 traffickers and the recovery of 30 juvenile victims in a six-month operation in anticipation of the 2015 Super Bowl.” We want to do everything we can to put that victim at ease and put them in a situation where they feel more safe”. http://nypost.com/2016/01/12/fbi-has-new-plan-to-stop-super-bowl-hookers/ <Back to Top> Stem Cells & Cloning No news today <Back to Top> Substance Abuse USA – Planned Parenthood gunman was a “marijuana newcomer” Robert Dear’s arrival in Colorado was part of a frenetic migration some locals derisively call the “green rush.” Just as people rushed haphazardly into the Rockies for gold in 1858, many of Hartsel’s newcomers moved there from across the country after recreational marijuana was legalized in 2012, rancher Keith Wells said. Locals identify Dear, the man accused of killing three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, with the marijuana migration because they often live in squalid, makeshift homes on the high plains. According to a New York Times profile, Dear sought companions with whom he could smoke marijuana in North Carolina, where he lived before moving to Colorado in 2014. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29214166/planned-parenthood-gunman-was-marijuana-newcomer-say-rural?source=infinite-up USA – Over 400 conditions co-occur with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have identified 428 distinct disease conditions that co-occur in people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), in the most comprehensive review of its kind. The results were published in The Lancet. “We’ve systematically identified numerous disease conditions co-occurring with FASD, which underscores the fact that it isn’t safe to drink any amount or type of alcohol at any stage of pregnancy, despite the conflicting messages the public may hear,” says Dr. Lana Popova, Senior Scientist in Social and Epidemiological Research at CAMH, and lead author on the paper. “Alcohol can affect any organ or system in the developing fetus.” http://www.statnews.com/2016/01/04/fda-2016-agency-agenda/ USA – Spike in Newborn Drug-Withdrawal More babies are being born with drug withdrawal syndrome, due to increased use of powerful prescription painkillers by pregnant women, according to the director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. It’s estimated that 14{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4}-22{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} of pregnant women in the US are prescribed narcotic “opioid” painkillers. These drugs include brands such as OxyContin and Percocet. In addition, there has reportedly been an increase in the rate of painkiller abuse among pregnant women. Between 2000 and 2009, the incidence of drug withdrawal syndrome among newborns, also called neonatal abstinence syndrome, rose from 1.2 to 3.4 per 1,000 live births, NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow reported in an article published in the Jan 2016 edition of the BMJ. http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2016-01-12/spike-in-newborn-drug-withdrawal-tied-to-prenatal-painkiller-use Australia – Marijuana and Your Health: 20 Years of Research In a review, author Wayne Hall, a professor and director of the Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research, University of Queensland in Australia, examined scientific evidence on marijuana’s health effects between 1993 and 2013. He found that adolescents who use cannabis regularly are about twice as likely as their nonuser peers to drop out of school, as well as experience cognitive impairment and psychoses as adults. Studies have also linked regular cannabis use in adolescence with the use of other illicit drugs, according to the review, published in the journal Addiction. It’s likely that middle-age people who smoke marijuana regularly are at an increased risk of experiencing a heart attack. These are a few of the statistics from the review. http://www.livescience.com/48171-marijuana-research-health-effects-review.html?cmpid=514627_20160114_56869406&adbid=10153190695391761&adbpl=fb&adbpr=30478646760 <Back to Top> Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect those of Doctors for Life International]]>