Politics
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Monday October 20, 1997
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PrintHEADLESS HUMANS TO BE MANUFACTURED
TODAY'S HEADLINES
LONDON, UK, Oct 20 (LSN) - Scientists at Bath University in Britain announced yesterday that they had created a headless frog embryo. The Sunday Times of London reported that the researchers hope the technique will result in the production of human spare parts such as organs, made from cloned cells in laboratories. A lead researcher and embryologist at the University, Jonathan Slack says human embryos could be grown in a similar fashion since the same genes perform similar functions in both frogs and humans.
Back to TopHOMOSEXUAL AGENDA AT WORK IN ONTARIO
TORONTO, Oct 20 (LSN) - The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and three of its Ottawa staff have challenged the Income Tax Act's definition of spouse in the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Act defines a spouse as a heterosexual couple and thus the federal government need not dish out pensions to 'partners' of homosexuals.
A band of 13 homosexuality promoting groups including the National Action Committee on the Status of Women is backing the venture. The appeal will be heard at Osgoode Hall. The courts decision, without the accountability of elected representatives, may usurp the electorate by forcing a change to the Income Tax Act requiring pensions to be paid out to homosexual partners.
SHEEP CLONER WARNS OF HUMAN MANIPULATION
JASPER, Alta., Oct 20 (LSN) - Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist who was responsible for the cloning of an adult sheep, warned against the creation of ``designer babies''. Speaking at a conference of science teachers in Alberta on the weekend, the researcher urged his listners to ``remember there are people who are already thinking of this.''
The Human Genome Project, an international project to map all human genes, could urge the use of this new knowledge to manipulate the human race. "To let us rip with this present technology... is akin to letting a high school kid loose not just with a sports car, but a jet airplane," he said.
SUPREME COURT REFUSES LOUISIANA ABORTION CONSENT LAW
WASHINGTON, DC (CWN) - The US Supreme Court decided in an 8-1 vote on Monday not to consider an appeal of a lower court order that declared a Louisiana abortion parental-consent law unconstitutional.
The lower court ruling, upheld by the Supreme Court's decision not to take action, said the 1995 law would make it too difficult for some underage girls to obtain abortions without having a parent's permission. Under the law, girls could ask a trial judge to give permission in the absence of parental consent, but the courts said the law made it too easy for judges to reject the girls' efforts to make the decision to kill their unborn children on their own.
Before the 1995 law, Louisiana said the judge "shall" authorize abortions without telling the parents when the girl's maturity or best interests are argued and proved in her favor. The new law said judges "may" authorize such abortions in those cases. The lone dissenting vote was cast by Justice Antonin Scalia.
UNFPA PROPAGANDA ON REDUCING ABORTIONS
COLOMBO, Oct 20 (LSN) - One of the world's foremost promoters of abortion, the UN's Population Fund, asserted that its new $7.6-million reproductive health care programme is aimed at trying to cut Sri Lanka's abortion rate.
At a news conference in Columbo, the organization's director, Nafis Sadik, proffered that legalizing abortions in some cases and providing access to family planning information and services would reduce the number of abortions in the country which she 'estimated' to be 500 per day. Capitalizing on the popular rhetoric about unsafe abortions Sadik urged officials to allow safe legal abortions in the country.
US UNDERMINES INTERNATIONAL BAN ON HUMAN CLONING
American Life League
Although President Clinton has said the United States would work with other nations to ban human cloning, American officials are actually working to prevent any such ban. When the UNESCO general conference meets in Paris next week, its members will consider a genetics document that is deliberately ambiguous about human cloning.
The American position came to light during a meeting of President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, when Noelle Lenoir, a French jurist, thanked the Americans for opposing a German proposal to ban human cloning. Lenoir is a member of the French Constitutional Court. She also chairs UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee (IBC), which has been working for four years on a "Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights." She said that the German representatives came to the last meeting of the IBC with a "very strong position to biotechnology"-- that is, to human cloning-- but that the members of the American delegation were "very positive and very helpful" in countering that German effort.
Lenoir described the final draft as a "compromise" between countries that "were very much opposed to biotechnology and those [that] were much more in favor." In the latter group she named the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan." She expected that the entire declaration, including the ambiguous language on human cloning, would be adopted by consensus at the next meeting of the UNESCO general conference in Paris, which will take place from October 21 to November 12. However, she did note that if there is debate over the language and there is any change, "the change will be in favor of prohibitions." (The transcript of Dr. Lenoir's remarks is now available from the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, at 301- 402- 4242.)
The leader of the German delegation, Dr. Gerhardt Fulda, confirmed that the Germans proposed a ban on human cloning, with a statement that read: "the cloning of a human being-- that is, artificial production of an embryo, possessing the same genetic information as another human being-- should be prohibited." The German delegates realized that they could not obtain any consensus in favor of their language, and so agreed to a watered-down version. Fulda said that the consensus language is deliberately ambiguous.
"That is the charm of the text," he added. "It is, so to speak, a hidden disagreement. In our understanding, the text should be read to mean that if there is any intention to reproduce a human being [this would be banned]. But other delegations will interpret it in their own way."
The United States is not a member of UNESCO, but maintains an observer delegation to the group. Eric Meslin of the National Institutes of Health said that he and Bill McIlhenny from the State Department had attended the IBC meeting. He confirmed that they, as US representatives, had opposed the German effort, and listed several overlapping arguments that they had used. One argument the American delegates made was that the opposition to human cloning may die down over the next few years, and an international declaration should deal only with enduring principles.
In a September 24 letter, John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe of the American Bioethics Advisory Commission asked John Gibbons, the scientific advisor to President Clinton: "Did the [American] delegation act in accord with the policy stated by the President June 9? Other than UNESCO, is there any other international forum in which the American government is addressing the issue of international cooperation on banning human cloning? Is the administration saying one thing and doing another?"
As of October 6, Gibbons had not responded to the letter.
AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM REPORTS BLASPHEMOUS STATUE STOLEN
SYDNEY (CWN) - A Sydney art museum reported on Friday that a controversial sculpture of the Virgin Mary encased in a condom was stolen less than a week after a photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine was damaged in a Melbourne gallery.
The Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art said investigators are looking for a link between the disappearance of the statue from the museum and the attack on Andres Seranno's ``Piss Christ'' at the National Gallery of Victoria. The Serrano exhibit was closed after two days of attacks on the image following an unsuccessful court battle to prevent the display.
Bernice Murphy, director of the Sydney museum, said the building had increased security around the four-inch-tall "Virgin in a Condom" following the attack on "Piss Christ". "It is a disturbing echo of what has happened in Victoria,'' Murphy told reporters. "In an atmosphere this week where public reaction to provocative works of art has been unusually intense, the museum had already increased security," she said. "The museum is seeking to establish whether this incident, with its obvious social ramifications, was deliberate, or whether it was a single mischievous act."
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