WATCH THE VIDEO! (28 Sep.) Jennifer Lahl, founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, recently sat down with Live Action founder and president Lila Rose to discuss assisted reproductive technology and the dangers that women and children face from egg donation, sperm donation, IVF, and surrogacy.
A pediatric critical care nurse, Lahl became "undone" by the shifts she saw in medical ethics. She went back to graduate school to study bioethics and decided not to return to nursing. Instead, she founded The Center for Bioethics and Culture as an educational resource for issues such as abortion, embryo and stem cell research, assistive reproductive technology, and human cloning.
Eggsploitation
Lahl and Rose spoke about one of Lahl’s many documentary films, "Eggsploitation," which exposed the infertility industry’s hunt for human eggs and the money it was willing to pay young women for their eggs. Lahl also spoke about the health risks for women who go through the process of selling their eggs as "egg donors."
"The marketing is very slick," said Lahl. "When two of my daughters were students at the University of California Berkeley, their school paper had an ad: $100,000 for an elite donor. So it's very eugenic, it's very selective. It's all flowery, ‘Make dreams come true,' ‘Help a family.' You'll see young girls who have sold their eggs say, ‘Well you have so many eggs, I'm not using them anyway.' So there's this lure, and people go, ‘Well I like to help people and, sure, that money sounds great and I'm not using my eggs right now. Why not sell some?' But, then there are the drugs..." [read more...]
COMMENTARY: Egg donation for IVF is a form of eugenics – selecting the "best and brightest" or the sex of the desired baby and abandoning or destroying the remaining human embryos. What will eventually happen to the millions of frozen embyros of babies?
(20 Sep.) ST, the 19-year-old woman at the centre of a dispute about mental competence and healthcare in Britain, has died of heart failure. As reported in BioEdge, ST had an often fatal genetic disease and became severely disabled after contracting Covid-19. In the opinion of her doctors in the National Health Service (NHS), further treatment was futile. ST and her family disagreed; they believed that an experimental treatment in Canada might save her. In the words of ST, she wanted to die trying to live.
The NHS doctors responded by taking her case to the Court of Protection where they argued that she had demonstrated that she was not mentally competent because she had disagreed with their prognosis. The judge agreed. ST was placed on palliative care; she kept a ventilator, but her dialysis was removed. The outcome, as expected, was death on September 12.
One thing is not in doubt: ST was very, very ill. She was suffering from a rare genetic mitochondrial disease which caused chronic muscle weakness, loss of hearing, and damage to her kidneys, making her dependent on regular dialysis and other intensive care. It did not, however, affect the functioning of her brain. She was bright and alert and made her wishes very clear. The authorities ignored them.
The first criticism, then, is that the Court has given its blessing to the extraordinary idea that disagreeing with your doctor means that you are delusional. This may seem like an exaggerated and extreme view of the judge’s ruling, but it is an unvarnished statement of fact... [read more...]
COMMENTARY: This "lethal paternalism" overrules the decision-making ability of very sick patients: if a procedure is going to cost the hospital too much and the prognosis is doubtful, "why waste the money on a girl?" So it boils down to the economic or political value of human life: several years ago, Senator Ted Kennedy was dying of cancer, but the government spent twelve million dollars to keep him alive as the swing vote for an important piece of legislation. Does anyone see a little favoritism here?
(8 Sep.) On 31 August, a St Petersburg court jailed 55-year-old Fr Ioann Kurmoyarov for 3 years and banned him from posting on the internet for 2 years for distributing "false information about the Russian Armed Forces." His is the second known prison term for opposing Russia's war against Ukraine from a religious perspective. Fr Ioann pleaded guilty, telling the court: "I undertake in the future not to touch upon the topic of the conduct of special military operations by our troops."
In more than sixty videos posted on his "Orthodox Virtual Parish" channel, Fr Ioann argued that all Christians should oppose the invasion, accused Russian troops of committing crimes, and stated that the invaders would not go to heaven. It is unknown whether or not he or the prosecutor will appeal.
"It so happens that I have experienced the SVO ['special military operation' – the official term for Russia's invasion of Ukraine] as a personal tragedy, because on both sides of the conflict people of the same blood and the same faith are opposing each other, often parishioners of the same Orthodox Church," Fr Ioann wrote in an open letter on the Free Ioann Kurmoyarov Telegram channel on 31 May. "Like any normal person, and even moreso as a Christian, I wanted to do everything in my power so that this conflict would end as soon as possible and peace would come."
Forum 18 asked the St Petersburg Prosecutor's Office why expressing a Christian position on the war in Ukraine is considered to be "false information" about the Armed Forces, why prosecutors had requested such a long prison sentence, and whether they would challenge the court verdict. Forum 18 has received no reply... [read more...]
COMMENTARY: We ran the story about Fr. Ioann's first trial on 8 July last year. At that time, he refused to cease posting online about the war in Ukraine. But this time, he agreed in the future not to touch upon the topic. It appears that the harsh prision conditions have broken his spirit and resolve.
(15 Sep.) The nation’s largest retailer illegally subjected workers with disabilities across the country to testing as a condition of keeping their jobs, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The federal agency sued Walmart this week alleging that the company fired employees with disabilities who could not pass the test after three tries even though they were performing their jobs in a satisfactory manner.
Walmart worked with a third-party entity in 2015 to establish the "Pathways Training Program," including a test called the "Pathways Graduation Assessment," the lawsuit indicates. By January 2017, new hourly employees at Supercenters and Neighborhood Market stores were required to complete the program.
In particular, the litigation highlights the experiences of two Walmart employees in Arkansas who failed the assessment because of their disabilities and were let go without consideration for how they were doing their jobs. The EEOC contends that the test had no relevance to their job duties or performance. "Employees with disabilities face far too many obstacles in life, and the workplace should not be one of those obstacles," said Edmond Sims, acting district director of the EEOC’s Memphis District Office, which oversees the agency's actions in Arkansas, Tennessee and portions of Mississippi... [read more...]
COMMENTARY: I'm encouraged when I see people with disabilities working in grocery stores. But I wonder if Walmart and other store chains sometimes hire just a few of them in order to make such an impression on some customers. But if other customers complain about slow or incomplete service from them, do the stores find ways to cut their employment? It seems this might be the case.
(26 Sep.) The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), in collaboration with the National Police, has apprehended the rector of one of the UOC-MP (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate) churches in the Kherson region. He was clandestinely involved in the sale of Russian weaponry and ammunition, which remained after Russian-backed forces retreated during the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
It has been documented that the cleric stored hostile arsenals in two hideouts, with one of them located directly on the premises of a new UOC-MP church construction site in Kherson. SBU agents arrested him "in flagrante delicto," gradually documenting his attempt to sell two portable anti-aircraft missile complexes, "Igla" along with their components.
As an addition to these anti-aircraft missile systems, the priest offered to sell ammunition for handheld rocket-propelled grenade launchers RPG-7. The seller, dressed in religious garb, estimated the value of these munitions at 115,000 Ukrainian hryvnias. It was established that the suspect sought out his clients through his own connections, including within criminal circles.
The diversion of weapons to individuals in the criminal world could have led to an escalation of the internal situation in Kherson, particularly through provocations initiated by Russian special services. During the inspection of the hideout on the construction site of the new UOC-MP church in Kherson, five rounds and two explosive charges for grenade launchers were confiscated. [read more...]
COMMENTARY: Orthodox Christianity and some other forms of Christianity forbid their clergy to take part in war or harm another person physically. So this priest is not only engaging in the illegal diversion and sale of weapons but is also violating his ordination vows. Pray for his soul and for an end to Russia's aggression in Ukraine.
While ageism may be one of the last socially acceptable biases, research shows that aging often comes with positive changes. And by believing in and propagating negative myths about aging, we can do ourselves real harm. Manfred Diehl, PhD, a lifespan developmental psychologist at Colorado State University, dispels the myth that growing older involves primarily loss and decline, and explains how much control we have over how well we age.
Ageism: It’s one prejudice that many of us share and many of us may face it, if we’re lucky enough to live a long life. From cosmetic ads that promise a fountain of youth, to those ubiquitous "Okay, Boomer" memes, it’s pretty clear that in American culture, "old" is synonymous with past your prime, and aging is seen as something to dread. But psychologists’ research suggests that, contrary to the myths and stereotypes that we may have absorbed, aging often comes with positive changes, and by believing in and propagating negative myths about aging we can do ourselves real harm.
So what do the physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that come with age actually look like? What do we lose and what do we gain as we age? How much of our aging is under our control and how much is determined by genetics, or luck? How does the age bias and discrimination that people experience in their daily lives affect them, and what kinds of interventions are researchers developing that could help us all stay happy and healthy in older adulthood? [read more...]
COMMENTARY: Read the whole article! Older people must fight against absorbing the unconscious bias, prejudice, negative myths, and stereotypes about aging that circulate in society. Otherwise, we might succumb and accept the notions that we're past our prime, physically feeble, and sliding into dementia. We need a healthy diet, enough rest, and physical and mental exercise so we can keep going strong.
Private charity by individuals, churches, synagogues and other non-profit organizations should replace government welfare programs. Why? Because private charity is by nature more efficient! Such organizations (like ours) often operate on a totally or mostly volunteer basis, emphasize personal relationships with unemployed people, and have limited funds to dole out.
