Terri’s Day

ChelseaAssisted Suicide, Culture of Death, Euthanasia, Right to Life, Suffering, videoLeave a Comment

Today is “Terri’s Day,” the fourth anniversary of the starvation death of Terri Schiavo:

Statement from the Schindler family today:

Four years ago today Terri Schiavo died. By the order of Judge George W. Greer, Terri died a slow barbaric death by starvation and dehydration over a period of almost two weeks. We have been posting stories of the events that occurred on each of those days not only in respect for Terri’s memory, but a reminder that in this moment countless people are suffering slow, agonizing deaths in hospice, nursing homes, and hospitals in America and around the world.

See my post Live Life, Love Life and Honor Terri Schiavo on how we can best honor the memory of Terri Schiavo and the tragic situation surrounding her death.

Dickey-Wicker Amendment Upheld…So Far

ChelseaCloning, Embryonic Stem Cell ResearchLeave a Comment

In my post about President Obama’s executive order on stem cell research funding I mentioned a few things to look out for as a result of his pronouncement. One of those things was the overturning of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment which prohibits federal tax dollars from being used to create or destroy human embryos for scientific research.

I do have good news to report about the amendment (h/t Rebecca Taylor). It turns out it has been once again passed by Congress and subsequently signed by President Obama. However, this may only be a temporary affirmation. Taylor predicts:

I believe this was a political move and not an ethical one. This year, President Obama lifted the funding restriction for embryonic stem cell research put into place by President Bush. In Obama’s speech, he stated he was against human reproductive cloning, leaving the door open for his support of therapeutic cloning which would create and destroy human embryos for research purposes. The federal funding of therapeutic cloning is direct conflict with the Dickey Amendment. So I believe that the Dickey Amendment is already in political gun sites, possibly for 2010.

See Taylor’s posts: What is the Dickey Amendment and Why Should You Care? Part One (which includes a sample letter in support of Dickey that you can send to your congressman) and Part Two for more details.

Pray that this policy stays in place and your tax dollars stay away from Frankenstein-like scientific experimentation.

New Notre Dame Fight Song

ChelseaPolitics, video1 Comment

Real Catholic TV has re-written the lyrics to the Notre Dame fight song in light of the University’s invitation to President Obama to give this year’s commencement address:

Alternative lyrics from Creative Minority Report:

Jeer Jeer for old Notre Shame
Bury your past, you’re just Catholic by name
No more prayers to God on high
Praise to Obama and his pro-choice lies.

To hell with babies great or small
Old Notre Shame turns their backs on them all
While her loyal sons are marching
Onward to perfidy!

Here, Michael Voris (a Notre Dame alum) gives an excellent assessment on what a scandal it is for Notre Dame to give honors to such a rabidly pro-abortion/ESCR speaker – President or not:

This is also an awesome video.

Pray for Our Lady’s university. Her problems did not start here, but they will surely get worse if this scandal is followed through with.

There’s No Substitute for the Truth

ChelseaDisabled, Stem Cell Research1 Comment

As much as it feels like it sometimes, I’m not the only one with a disability/disease who oposes the use of nascent human life for scientific research. MSNBC reports on a man with ALS with just such a principle.

ALS is a terrible, terrible disease and Mr. Jim McKevitt is in its advanced stages. Says his wife, “He’s losing ground. I can see it all the time.” And yet, he insists that he won’t take part in any experiment that “costs another life.”:

As soon as he heard that President Barack Obama gave the go-ahead to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, (Jim) McKevitt fired off an e-mail to the president, calling him a “member of the culture of death.”

McKevitt, 71, is appalled, he said, by the groundswell of support for what he calls an immoral and “pointless” approach to pursuing cures when so many other routes such as adult stem cell research already have shown promise.

“If experimenting on just one embryo would lead to a cure for me, I absolutely would not do it. It’s murder of a human being,” McKevitt said…

“If experimenting on just one embryo would lead to a cure for me, I absolutely would not do it. It’s murder of a human being”

There are actually many of us who have disabilities or suffer terrible diseases who oppose ESCR. You just wouldn’t know it, esp. when you see news stories like this typical piece wherein the pro-ESCR side is represented by a patient with diabetes (or SCI or some other debilitating disease/condition) and the anti-ESCR side by a representative from the Family Research Council (or some other pro-life/conservative organization – who is not sick).

News stories like this always have me screaming, “NOT ALL SICK AND DISABLED PEOPLE SUPPORT ESCR!” and wondering where all the patient advocates from our side are hiding. These stories frustrate me to no end as many people put their support behind this research out of sympathy for those who suffer and the general assumption, which the media perpetuates, that all of us want to explore every avenue of scientific research if there is even the slightest hope for some relief. Example: I ran into the mother of a friend of mine a few weeks ago, shortly after the President issued his stem cell research executive order. She asked, sincerely: so, are you excited about the news this week about stem cells?! No, I said. And I had to explain to her, as she then looked shocked and a little confused, that I don’t approve of destroying human embryos for research and I don’t appreciate the President rescinding an order that required funding for ethical and more effective alternatives.

This is why I try to be an alternative voice to the many sick and disabled people who are used, or use themselves, to push the pro-cloning/ESCR agenda. However, looking back now to the campaign for Amendment 2 and cloning here in Missouri in 2006, where I first got heavily involved in this issue, does have me questioning whether these pro-ESCR patient stories really do the job they’re supposed to do in garnering sympathetic support for research that destroys nascent human life in the process.

The entire pro-cloning, pro Amendment 2 campaign centered around this kind of emotional manipulation. Every news story was about cures and giving “hope” to the sick and suffering. People in wheelchairs and small children with deadly diseases were put on billboards and in campaign commercials as those who would benefit from “stem cell research” (they never dared differentiate between the different kinds of stem cell research or mention the word cloning). Besides their regular campaign commercial they also aired, a couple of times, a 30 minute infomercial on most or all network channels that detailed the lives and the hardships of a handful of patients (with diabetes, spinal cord injury, etc…) and why “stem cell research” (really, cloning/ESCR) is their only hope. And of course there was the infamous and manipulative Michael J. Fox ad for Claire McCaskill.

Yet despite this massive $30 million emotional campaign, with a little (junk) science mixed in here and there, they only managed to pull off a victory of less than two percent. In fact, in the final weeks leading up to the election they were continually losing support. Why?

It turns out emotions are no match for the truth. Although people certainly have the desire to help those who are suffering, the more people learned about the facts of the issue (whether spoken by the sick or the able) from an ethical and scientific standpoint the more they opposed the research and the idea of enshrining it as a right in our state Constitution.

Of course I am delighted when the mainstream media picks up on the fact not everyone who is sick or disabled supports research that destroys human life. I hope they do it more often and that many others with spinal cord injury, diabetes, Parkinson’s and more will have the courage to speak out on behalf of the life in danger of being manipulated or destroyed in the name of curing people like themselves. But even if the media still leaves us out and our side of the story continues to go unheard, we can rejoice because the truth is on our side and it will win out in the end.

Coincidence?

ChelseaAbortion2 Comments

From ChristianNewsWire:

Some of you may have seen the major news story of the private plane that crashed into a Montana cemetery, killing 7 children and 7 adults.

But what the news sources fail to mention is that the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery owned by Resurrection Cemetery Association in Butte – contains a memorial for local residents to pray the rosary, at the ‘Tomb of the Unborn’. This memorial, located a short distance west of the church, was erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion.

What else is the mainstream news not telling you? The family who died in the crash near the location of the abortion victim’s memorial, is the family of Irving ‘Bud’ Feldkamp, owner of the largest for-profit abortion chain in the nation…

Although Feldkamp is not an abortionist, he reaps profits of blood money from the tens of thousands of babies that are killed through abortions performed every year at the clinics he owns. His business in the abortion industry was what enabled him to afford the private plane that was carrying his family to their week-long vacation at The Yellowstone Club, a millionaires-only ski resort.

The plane went down on Sunday, killing two of Feldkamp’s daughters, two sons-in-law and five grandchildren along with the pilot and four family friends.

Now, I don’t know if I believe that God is necessarily still in the practice of striking certain people (or their family members) dead who don’t obey His commands Old Testament style – but the irony of this is a little hard to ignore.

It reminds me of a story a little closer to home. In our town a small group of people go to our local Planned Parenthood (which doesn’t perform abortions) every Tuesday afternoon for about a half an hour to pray the rosary. One day a few years ago (when they were still picketing on Thursdays) a dentist whose office was in that same building complex came outside and said chided the protesters (who were mostly children) and told them that we would take some sort of legal action against them (though they were perfectly within their rights) if they showed up again the next week. Not only was he concerned about what their presence would do to his own dental business, but he was also one of the owners of the entire building and thus responsible for renting the office space to PP. Within a week or so of his threat against the pro-life group and some follow-up correspondence with one of the kids’ parents, that dentist died of a heart attack in his office…

The Annunciation and the Theology of the Body

ChelseaTheology of the BodyLeave a Comment

Though this is certainly not the first thing that comes to our mind when we think of the annunciation, when Mary accepts the message of Gabriel, her fiat, is a yes to God’s plan for her sexuality:

“Mary shows us how to accept the gift of our embodiedness, and this includes the God-given sex of the body. In this it is important to note that Mary’s exemplarity of what it means to accept the gift of one’s body means that the body is not an obstacle to overcome but, rather, a gift to be lived. Mary delights in her body, especially in its God-given sex: femininity. It is precisely in her gift of being a woman that Mary was fashioned and called by God to be the Theotokos [God-bearer]. The gift of her body is exactly what helps her to become the Theotokos. Just think of what would have happened if Mary had rebelled against the gift of her feminine body! We would be in a very different situation today” (Mary and the Theology of the Body, pp. 55-56).

Also, regarding the Incarnation: The basic thesis of JP II’s Theology of the Body is that

“The body in fact and only the body is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.” (TOB 19:4, Feb 20, 1980)

This became abundantly clear when Christ came into the world to make God visible to the whole human race. In the Incarnation the mystery of God has been revealed in human flesh. For in Christ, “the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Says the pope:

“The fact that theology also includes the body should not astonish or surprise anyone who is conscious of the mystery and the reality of the Incarnation. Through the fact that the Word of God became flesh the body entered theology…through the main door” (TOB, 23:4 – April 2, 1980)

Vatican II tells us that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light and that Christ fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear (Gaudium et Spes, 22). What God becoming man reveals to us about our bodies is that they are more than just carnal realities. The human body is intimately united to the human spirit and this unity is meant to be a sign in the world of the hidden mystery of God (for more see this previous post).

The Feast of the Annunciation

ChelseaPro Life, Vocation, WomenLeave a Comment

The AnnunciationToday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she had found favor with God and would conceive and bear a son who would be called the Son of the Most High. This day calls to mind two very specific moments which correspond with the culture of life.

The first is Mary’s response to the Angel’s message. Imagine that you are a young girl – roughly between the ages of 12 and 15 – not yet married and an angel of the Lord informs you that you shall be with child. This surely was not something that she would have ever expected and most likely did not understand at the time. It was also likely to cause her and her family great shame and scandal. But Mary, being “full of grace”, surrendered humbly to God’s will saying, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” (Lk 1:38). By accepting this precious gift of life, Mary become not only the Mother of God, but a supreme example to all mothers. Mary’s role as the Mother of God reveals the dignity and sacredness of maternity. May all pregnant women imitate Our Lady’s gracious acceptance of new life and all women have recourse to this perfect example of authentic femininity.

Secondly, Mary’s fiat marks the exact moment of the incarnation, the Word Made Flesh. By the Incarnation Christ, the Son of God, intimately united Himself to the entire human race and revealed, in the words of JP II, the incomparable value of every human person. Not only did Christ elect to take on our human nature, becoming like us in all things but sin, but he chose to begin his life on earth as the weakest and most defenseless among us, an unborn child. Because of this saving event we realize the splendor of all human life – including the unborn child and the unformed embryo. Let us pray on this day that such innocent life may once again be preserved and protected in our Nation through the intercession of this Immaculate Mother, Patroness of our Land.

Recommended reading:
Mary of Nazareth

TOB Tuesday: Fasting is Preparation for Feasting

ChelseaTheology of the Body, TOB TuesdayLeave a Comment

If you’ve ever wondered what the purpose of Catholic fasting is, TOB expert Christopher West offers this beautiful explanation:
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Fasting allows us to feel our hunger. And feeling our physical hunger can, if we allow it, lead us to feel our spiritual hunger, that is, our hunger for God. Think of the woman at the well: she came there physically thirsty and left with the promise of living water flowing from the well of salvation.

If feeling our hunger can awaken our spiritual senses, never feeling hunger can dull them. Furthermore, when we always satisfy our hunger, we can become enslaved by the pleasures of this world. Fasting and abstinence “help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart” (CCC 2043). And this kind of freedom is especially important for people like me who love to eat.

Oh, do I ever! In fact, at the end of a meal I often feel a pointed (and even poignant) sadness…Something in me screams: No! I want this to last forever…

And there it is – my yearning for the infinite … my yearning for God. The sadness I feel at the end of a meal can either lead to gluttony (the idolatry of food) or I can accept the “pain” of my desire and allow it to open me to the living hope of the eternal banquet. Fasting, properly practiced, is a wide open door precisely to this hope.

God desires to feed us – and not just from any po’ boysmenu, but with “juicy, rich food, and pure, choice wines” (Is 25:6), with “bread come down from heaven” (Jn 6:41). Scripture describes heaven itself as a feast – a wedding feast (see Rev 19:9). And let us not forget Christ’s first miracle: at the end of the party when the wedding guests had already finished the wine, Christ provides gallons and gallons of the finest wine imaginable. As the glory of Pentecost indicates, we are all called to get “drunk” on this new wine (see Acts 2:13).

This kind of “holy intoxication” is a favorite theme of the mystics. For in the Song of Songs, the King invites his bride into the “wine cellar” (1:4). Teresa of Avila offers this commentary: “The King seems to refuse nothing to the Bride! Well, then, let her drink as much as she desires and get drunk on all these wines in the cellar of God! Let her enjoy these joys, wonder at these great things, and not fear to lose her life through drinking much more than her weak nature enables her to do. Let her die at last in this paradise of delights; blessed death that makes one live in such a way.”

Read more

See previous Lent and TOB posts

TOB Tuesdays

Dismissing Successful Science

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research, Cloning2 Comments

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a steadfast advocate for ethical research and treatments and I will frequently point out the ineffectiveness of embryonic stem cell research and the existence of more effective and ethical alternatives. Although I make it a point to stress the fact that, in the final analysis, the question of whether or not science should proceed with ESCR is really a matter of ethics, not science (in other words, it’s not a battle between ASC and ESC research, that’s not the point) – it still really bothers me when successful, ethical research is constantly dismissed or belittled by those who advocate destroying tiny human beings in the name of science.

A commenter on this post from Regular Guy Paul’s blog recently objected to some claims against ESCR by quoting from this piece on Scienceblogs.com regarding the claims from adult stem cell research advocates that ASCs have treated over 72 different diseases and/or disabilities. The author’s main objection is that there aren’t actually 72 “different” treatments, but only one treatment (Hematopoietic stem cell replacement of bone marrow) for most of those 72 conditions.

First of all, those of us who use that list of 72 ASC successes, don’t claim that it’s 72 different treatments, but that – in humans – 72 different diseases and conditions are or have been treated with ASCs – whether it was the “same” treatment or not – something that cannot be said of ESCs, even in animal models. At any rate, he goes on to say:

while these cells (ASCs) are great at doing their job, the issue with adult stem cell research is, can they do another stem cell’s job? That is, instead of making just blood, could a hematopoietic stem cell make, say, an insulin secreting pancreatic cell? The answer, despite some initial promising results around 2001, is no.

And the commenter asserts:

ASCs don’t look like they have the potential to rebuild organs or repair the CNS…Hematopoietic stem cell replacement of marrow is a far simpler matter than using ESCs to treat Parkinson’s or spinal cord injuries, or to regenerate livers and kidneys.

It must be said here that, although they have had the most success, there is way more to ASCs than just those derived from bone marrow and these folks are ignoring some pretty significant advancements that have been made in ASCR (though, in their defense they may have never seen these stories as they are typically not carried by any mainstream media outlets.) A few examples:

Re: ASCs and insulin:
5/25/07, scientists are able to make umbilical cord blood produce insulin. 3/17/09, scientists successfully use a gene called neurogenin3 to induce cells in the liver to produce insulin. said Dr. Vijay Yechoor: “They look similar to normal pancreatic islet cells (that make insulin normally).”

ASCs and Parkinson’s:
Dennis Turner was treated for Parkinson’s disease with his own neural stem cells, taken from his brain, nearly ten years ago. He went into a significant remission that lasted for about four or five years before symptoms returned. This study has now been peer-reviewed as of 2/09 and phase II trials are now in the works.

Another study with humans: Stem Cell Implant to the Brain Helps Improve Parkinson’s Symptoms – said Dr. Augusto Brazzini Armestar, MD, Director, Instituto Brazzini Radiologos Asociados, Lima, Peru when it was presented at a recent meeting for the Society of Interventional Radiology: “Stem cells from bone marrow have the ability to differentiate into neurons and other tissues”

Most recently: researchers at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., have converted skin cells from people with Parkinson’s disease into the general type of neuron that the disease destroys.

ASCs and Spinal Cord Injury:
I just did a post last week on the latest ASC-SCI success in which SCI patients were treated with bone marrow derived stem cells and received increased bladder control, regained mobility and sensation. A video accompanies the amazing story.

I link to a number of other stories on that post of SCI being treated with bone marrow derived stem cells, however, the most famous SCI study comes from Dr. Carlos Lima’s treatment of SCI patients with stem cells from their own noses using olfactory mucosa autograft transplantation – not bone marrow.

Adult stem cells are only good for the replacement of bone marrow??

ASCs regenerating organs:
Last November scientists conducted the first stem cell derived organ transplant when they grew a new windpipe using the patients own stem cells both from bone marrow and cells taken from the healthy part of her own trachea.

Scientists have been able to grow a beating heart in the lab using ASCs.

Study uses bone marrow stem cells to regenerate skin.

Also:

There is evidence that stem cells taken from a patient’s nose could produce dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain.

Heart derived stem cells have developed into heart muscle.

Australian trials found the injection of adult stem cells – taken from human donors’ bone marrow, abdominal fat, hip, skin or teeth – protected damaged knee cartilage for up to nine months.

Uterine Stem Cells Create New Neurons That Can Curb Parkinson’s Disease.

There have been impressive results in clinical trials using bone marrow, muscle, and fat cells in in heart therapies.

A Finnish man was able to replace his upper jaw thanks to stem cells taken from his own fatty tissue.

a 50 year old man awaiting a heart transplant was treated with muscle stem cells taken out of his thigh.

According to a Japanese study, doctors have used stem cells from liposuctioned fat to fix breast defects in women after they have undergone breast cancer surgery.

University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells – and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life.

Stem cells collected at birth from the umbilical cord may help doctors fashion new heart valves for children born with heart valve defects.

Louisville clinical trial will use cardiac stem cells to regrow muscle after attack

From a snippet of a patient’s skin, researchers have grown blood vessels in a laboratory and then implanted them to restore blood flow around the patient’s damaged arteries and veins.

Heart valves have been grown from cells in womb.

And I’ll just end with this one since this is starting to get rather lengthy: Scientists have been able to grow a beating heart in the lab.

Obviously there’s much more than just bone marrow replacement here and ASCs are showing themselves to be way more diverse and useful than was ever originally thought. To assert otherwise is to simply ignore science and dismiss real advancements that are being made in either treating patients now or developing treatments for the future – this with science that does not use or destroy tiny human beings in the process.

See my ASCR archive or check out Adult Stem Cell Awareness
Also check out Don Margolis’ blog for the latest in ASCR news and success.

Another Amazing ASC-SCI Success!

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research, Cloning, DisabledLeave a Comment

Thanks to Rebecca Taylor for finding this story – which I’m sure has not been picked up by many other media outlets, if any.

DaVinci Biosciences, in collaboration with Luis Vernaza Hospital in Ecuador, this week had the results of its study demonstrating the safety and feasibility of its acute and chronic spinal cord injury treatment published in an issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cell Transplantation:

The study documents eight patients (four acute and four chronic) who were administered autologous bone marrow derived stem cells using a multiple route delivery technique. A two-year follow-up was performed on all the patients in the study who received the treatment. Using sequential MRIs, the follow-up demonstrated noticeable morphological changes within the spinal cord after administration of autologous bone marrow derived stem cells. Participating spinal cord injury patients experienced varying degrees of improvement in their quality of life, such as increased bladder control, regained mobility and sensation. Most importantly, the study demonstrated no adverse effects such as tumor formation, increased pain, and/or deterioration of function following administration of autologous bone marrow derived stem cells.

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There is even a video (below) to accompany this amazing story. One patient was paralyzed for 22 years!

Studies like this should not be taken lightly by the media or the medical/scientific community at large. Spinal cord injuries – especially complete injuries – are not reversible. There is, quite literally, “no hope” null– no common therapy or drug that will ever improve your mobility or function over time. It’s really a big mystery in the medical/scientific field which is why, especially doctors, find the injury so devastating. I think the most frustrating thing is that, for the most part, SCI patients are otherwise very healthy individuals. We just, for reasons science cannot fully figure out or explain, cannot reconnect the communication between our brain and the nerves and muscles below our point of injury.

I used to watch the TV show Trauma, Life in the ER a number of years ago and I had seen them react to many different situations including death, disease, coma, head injuries, but in one episode a young man came in with an SCI after a car accident and I never saw a reaction from the doctors like that. It was one of total devastation – for them, as doctors, healers, knowing that there was nothing they could offer that would even give that otherwise healthy young patient a chance to ever walk again – beyond a miracle. (note: this does not mean disabled life need be depressing or hopeless – see my posts linked below)

Now we see that that may be changing. These are still very early trials, but for several years now we’ve seen stories like this one – see here, here, here, here and here – where stem cells, ADULT stem cells, have been successful in repairing at least some of the damage associated with SCI. This is simply amazing, a real and true scientific breakthrough – better yet, it comes from research that does not require the use and destruction of tiny human beings.

One correction to the story above: those patients had their health improved, their mobility and function improved – the “quality” of their lives, however, has not changed as it is not dependent on their physical ability, but on their nature as human beings.

Previous posts:
People With Disabilities Can Live Normal Lives
I Enjoyed Every Minute of It
Better off Dead?
Disability Advocates Need NOT Support ESC Research!