Catholic Church Favours Birthing Hybrid Humanoids

I don’t know how I missed this when it was announced, but the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said women should be allowed to give birth to human-animal hybrids created in the laboratory. The bishops said this in a submission related to the Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill, which overhauls the law regulating fertility treatment and embryo research.

The bishops have said there should be no ban on implanting hybrid embryos in the womb of the woman who supplied the egg. According to their statement: “Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so.”

This is not to say that the bishops are in favour of hybrids. They oppose creating them, but say if hybrids (or chimera, as they are called) are allowed to be created then they have to be allowed to live. The Church had to make this distinction because one aspect of the legislation that is not up for change is the requirement that any embryos that undergo experimentation must be destroyed within 14 days of fertilisation.

Chimera are not true hybrids of the sperm of one species with the egg of another. This would still not be allowed under the draft legislation. The proposal allows for the introduction of non-human DNA, but the embryo would still be 99.9% human. Perhaps when they are allowed to be 1% non-human and then 5% non-human and then whatever percent can be technologically managed, the Church will have to modify its position. Or not. The current position of the bishops is based upon the view that “At very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly.” So a 50.01% human should still be carried to term.

The full response to the draft bill can be downloaded from here.

Improving Access to Abortion

In light of the increasing medical evidence of how early the foetus shows signs of sentience  and the increasing number of abortions in this county, the British Medical Association voted yesterday to make abortions easier to obtain. Yes, that’s right.

Under the current law, two doctors have to sign off on the abortion.  the BMA wants to drop that requirement. It may have something to do with the fact that more and more doctors are refusing to do abortions. With more teens wanting to kill their babies and fewer doctors willing to serve as executioner, I suppose something has to give.

There was also a motion before the BMA annual conference to allow nurses and midwives to carry out abortions, but that was defeated on the grounds that they are not sufficiently trained to perform such a complex operation. This is just more evidence of the crisis.

There are 200,000 babies out there needing to be killed every year and no one seems to want to do the killing.  There has been some relief through the increased use of drug-induced abortion, but demand for surgical abortions is still outstripping supply. What is an immoral nation to do in such a situation?

Teens, Sex, and Consequences

I’m sure it is coincidental that these stories appeared on consecutive days. Yesterday, we learned that teenagers have pushed the abortion rate to a record high in this country and are having a record number of abortions. Today, Department of Health said it had agreed “in principle” that Gardasil should be given to all girls in the first year of secondary school. Most readers will be aware that this is the vaccine against human papilloma virus.

According the Daily Telegraph:

Despite huge Government spending on contraception education, 19-year-olds are now the most likely of any age group to have an abortion, with 35 in every 1,000 having the procedure, according to Department of Health figures.

A total of 40,244 abortions were carried out on girls aged between 15 and 19 years, and 18,691 on girls aged under 18, including 1,042 on under 15-year-olds, 907 on 14-year-olds and 135 on girls under 14.

In total, 3,990 abortions were carried out on girls aged under 16 – the age of consent – last year.

 There were there were 193,737 abortions in England and Wales last year. This is an increase of nearly 4% over 2005.  And over 21% of these were carried out on babies with mothers 19 and under. (I have to disagree with the language used by the Telegraph – its not the mothers who are aborted.) Teens have now ousted the 20- to 24-year-olds as the biggest age group of aborters.

The Government spent £40 million in tax money on contraception education to bring down the abortion rate. Sadly, the one thing they don’t emphasise is that the only way to avoid pregnancy is to avoid sex. But how can they do that when political representatives are fornicators, teachers are fornicators, parents are fornicators, and the Government pays for entertainment programming on television and radio which openly and aggressively promotes fornication? How is any teenager going to keep their legs closed if everyone they know, see, and respect has theirs splayed open?

Now I am all for preventing cancer. Gardasil works best if it is introduced before girls are sexually active and especially before they are exposed to HPV. It is part of the sad commentary on teen sex that they have to get them at 11 in order to make sure they gotten most of them protected.

And I have to say I’ve no doubt it will serve as another green light to the safeness of sex as a game and a toy. That pubescent boys in an amoral society see it like this is no surprise, but that is exactly how it is viewed by many girls by the time they are even in Year 8 (7th grade).  By Year 10 (when the topics I teach include cohabitation, contraception, and abortion) many of them are aggressive about their sexuality and against any suggestion that there is any reason, moral or otherwise, to curb their appetites. It is truly frightening.

Admitting Bias at the BBC

The BBC has admitted that it is biased. Or at least a report commissioned by the BBC about the BBC has found that it is liberally biased. Even when it isn’t saying liberal things, it is simple censoring out those views that are not.

I have often noted that the media in this country, including the BBC, is very anti-American. This is borne out by the report:

Justin Webb, the BBC’s Washington correspondent, said the BBC and other broadcasters failed to ask serious questions about why the USA is ‘as successful as it is, why the system it invented works. And, in the tone of what we say about America, we have a tendency to scorn and deride. We don’t give America any kind of moral weight in our broadcasts.’ When Webb was asked about ‘a casual anti-Americanism’, he said he consciously tried to redress it.

Likewise issues like abortion have been presented in a one-sided fashion:

One news and current affairs producer mentioned an instance where he had proposed a Newsnight investigation into the extent to which abortion in Britain was available, in effect, on demand. His argument was that there was a conspiracy of silence about this: although it had not been the intention of the legislation, most people in the field knew this was what was actually happening. But he was accused of being ‘anti-abortion’, and a perfectly reasonable – indeed fascinating – programme idea was not pursued.

It was interesting that tonight, in the wake of this report, the ten o’clock news did a piece on abortion that was much less biased than before. It still finished on a solid note about the law still protecting a woman’s right to choose.

On the theme of life and death there is the issue of capital punishment.

At the seminar, David Jordan cited capital punishment. ‘I challenge anybody in here to mention the last time that the Today programme did capital punishment and didn’t sound as if they were completely against it in principle – or, even in a non British/American context, had somebody on who was in favour of it.’

The report runs 80 pages. Will it change things at the Corporation? Time will tell.

Killing in Iraq

Someone else’s bad news may be good news. I came across a liberal blog that was complaining that Congressional Democrats have withdrawn legislation to require abortifacients to be stocked on all military bases. Foeticide activists are outraged.

“The situation is unconscionable,” says Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). “If you are a military woman in Iraq, and you are raped, it is this country’s obligation to make sure you have access to emergency contraception.” Something tells me that Saporta would feel the same way if you are a military woman in Iraq and can’t keep your legs closed. After all, you wouldn’t be surprised to know that the NAF favours the absolute right to abortion on demand.

Saporta is concerned about this because a survey paid for by the US Defense Department found that almost a third of military women reported being the victim of rape or attempted rape during their tenure in the military. Of course this raises two issues that she doesn’t address – why aren’t a third of male soldiers being charged with rape or attempted rape and what are women doing in a war zone? Resolving the latter might solve some of the problem – forget the silliness that women belong in combat situations with men.

But back to the main issue. Cases of pregnancy from rape are very rare. Nonetheless, this is always dragged out as an excuse for protecting foeticidal rights. It’s emotive, but philosophically useless. One crime is unrelated to the other. If every new life is uniquely its own, the circumstances under which it was created are irrelevant.

I suppose the NAF can’t make an strong a case if they say men and women living together in close proximity, in an emotionally charged atmosphere is asking for at least the same level of fornication as you get in civillian society. They don’t want to say that if we are going to pander to those who can keep their pants on outside the service, then we should at least equally provide for them in the service.

I just have to mention one other thing about the NAF. Their website has lots of information on how to stop Crisis Pregnancy Centers.  Instead, the NAF has a toll-free hotline which “offers women unbiased, factual information about pregnancy and abortion in English, Spanish and French.” Did I mention that the NAF is, openly and by its own admission, a professional association of abortion providers. Surely they have no vested interested in shutting down CPCs and anything they tell you about abortion (except about the wads of cash they are stuffing into their pockets and what they do with the chopped up little bodies) is trustworthy.

Devolution Redefined

In my Year 10 exam, one of the optional questions (which I took from a previous GCSE exam paper) was “‘Christian teachings about family life are not relevant in the 21st century.’ Do you agree? Give reasons to support your answer and show that you have thought about different points of view.”

As I was marking papers I came across one of the most unique answers from someone in one of my top sets. Exactly as it is written:

I do think that Christian teachings about family life are not relevant in the 21st century because people have moved on from doing what people think is right . More and more people are getting into the situation for them to have to abort their babies and more children are forming their own opinions quicker.

Christians whole believe system is based upon God, but now in the 21st century we have theories that we were made from matter and anti-matter and there are theories and evidence that we developed and evolutionerised from apes and monkeys, not from Adam and Eve.

In school, teachers are now teaching us these theories and are showing evidence of fossils, and so the opposition is overwhelming for Christians to teach at this stage in time.

I have to say that I have never before seen the argument that Christian teaching about family life – that husbands and wives should love and respect each other, that children should honour and obey parents, that older family members should be cared for – is irrelevant because of the fossil record and theories about it which suggest that we were “evolutionerised.”

Apart from the bit about being made from matter and anti-matter, I have to say I found this to be a very perceptive answer. When people reject the Creator God and believe they are indistinct from, and merely exist on a continuum with, animals, they have no reason to love and respect. In fact, they end up treating their own worse than many animals would treat theirs.

She is also right that even though I’ve never felt overwhelmed, many students have been brainwashed with the idea that science has somehow disproved the existence of God. I see this on a daily basis. When I attempt to discuss it with the rationally in terms of evidence and argument, they don’t want to know. All they do is shout louder that the world was created by science. (Yes, I know that is nonsensical, even for someone who believes in atheistic evolution, but it is actually what they say.) The few who don’t say this, still operate off the plane of reality by saying that science has explained everything.

Sadly the truth was given many, many years ago: “The fool says in his heart there is no God.”

Labour Favours Hybrid Humanoids

The Government in this country is now no longer opposed to the hybridisation of humans and animals.

The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill was published this morning. It will allow Parliament to review whether there is a good case for manufacturing human-animal embryos. The initial use would be for advancing stem cell research.

Health Minister Caroline Flint insists this isn’t a shift in policy from the proposal for an outright ban last year. “Our position was not to stop this research but to be clear that it’s sensitive research, and we have to be sure about what we’re going to permit to happen in the future.” Ministers expect Parliament to permit the creation of the embryos.

Of course the humanoids would be killed at 14 days for now, just as humans who are experimented upon. But that limit is up the to fiat of Parliament as well. All that has to be made is a good case for letting them live a little longer.

There are scientists out there like Panayiotis Zavos pushing for more license in this area. They will take anything governments will allow and stretch it to the limit. Professor Zavos has already cloned three embryos from dead people.

The thing about humanoid hybrids is that it can be argued they are non-human and therefore not entitled to human rights. If they can eventually be grown to birth, they could be considered chattel, yet able to do all the work of a human. They would look human, so it is likely that they would reproduce and eventually a significant part of the population of the planet would no longer be human. Isn’t this supposed to be the stuff of science fiction?

All About Sex

I hadn’t tag surfed in a while, so I was skimming through and came across some anti-Christian Right stuff.  I’m not really affiliated with the Christian Right anymore, but given my background and the fact that most anti-Christian Right stuff is heavy on the anti-Christian bit, I thought I’d go in a have a poke around.

In the past I have been a critic of some of the Christian history of America material. I think some of it has been poorly research and most of it has been written to an agenda, neither quality I find particularly endearing.  Now I come across the anti-Christian history agenda and it seems to suffer from the same problem.

Eugenics License

For the first time, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has granted a license to kill embyros for cosmetic reasons. The Bridge Street clinic run by Professor Gedis Grudzinskas is going to release to heaven all the souls connected to bodies that might have a squint.

Grudzinskas will kill for any reason he can get away with, really. He said: “We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions.” He even said he would screen embryos for hair colour say it “can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it.”

Let’s get to the point of it. He is happy to kill redheads. No other hair colour a typical cause of bullying. However, as a ginger, I can personally attest to the cruelty from which I suffered during my formative years. Were the technology available in the 1960s, if only my parents had known my red hair would be the focus of taunting, they could have had me killed.

Professor Mengele Grudzinskas clearly thinks its a good reason. After all, you can never tell which redheads might be driven to suicide and which might not. If it’s right to kill one, it right to kill all. That would be the safest option.

Society Without Boundaries

The ladette culture is getting younger and younger. It has been revealed that girls 11-13 are drinking 83% more alcohol than they were six years ago. Alcohol Concern, a national voluntary agency on alcohol misuse funded by the Department of Health, has also released information showing that for boys in the same age group, the increase is 43.4%.

In my experience as a teacher, I find this unsurprising. My students in that age group as a whole are very conversant with the drinking culture. Some are open about their drinking. By the time they are 14 or 15, they find it absolutely incredible that someone would suggest to them that drinking to the point of drunkeness is in some way inappropriate. And just like the number indicate, it is girls who are more brazen about this.

Unfortunately, Alcohol Concern’s response to this is to urge the Government to make it illegal for anyone, including parents, to provide alcohol to anyone under 15. This takes away parental responsibility to teach the appropriate use of alcohol. This will especially impact Jewish families who may have their children partake of a bit of the Sabbat wine. It also affects children taking Communion. After all, in the Orthodox Church, infants are provided with wine from the time of their baptism. In the Roman Church, they are communing from about seven years old. It may be the Most Precious Blood, but to an unbelieving policeman and prosecutor, they may not be able to discern between the accidents and the true reality.

Existing laws are sufficient to tackle the problem. It is not the law, it is the enforcement. It is the 14 and 15 year olds drinking in pubs and clubs and buying from the off-license. It is those who informally supply young teens with drink.

It is no surprise a society that practices complete hedonism sees its children picking up the worst aspects of it. A binge drinking culture will have binge drinking children. A completely promiscuous society will have a huge teen pregnancy problem.

Morality knows no age restrictions. These are false barriers that a society erects when it wants to protect the innocent from its own decisions. They are used to justify bad behaviour and immorality. These arbitrary limits by their nature proclaim there is a time when it is appropriate for a person to do what is right in their own eyes. But just like in the book of Judges, everytime a society does what it right in its own eyes, it only brings the judgment of God.

In this country, it has given us a binge drinking culture with children suffering from alcohol-related diseases formerly only known in the aged after intemperate lives. It has led to 500 abortions in this country every day, about 20% of which are performed on teenagers. It has led to unprecedented levels of robbery and vandalism, almost all of which are attributed to youthful offenders.

In the end it costs the society itself in so many ways.

Perspective

I am very sad about the massacre at Virginia Tech. I even teared up when reading in The Times about the solidarity as students on other college campuses wore VT colours.

However, I just have to wonder at calling this some sort of national tragedy. Sure, it is a tragedy for the families and friends of the victims. It is even a tragedy for the student body of VT. But it is hardly a national tragedy.

I wonder how much higher the murder count was in the US on that day as opposed to other days. According to the FBI in 2005 there was a murder every 31.5 minutes. There were 16,692 murders or nonnegligent homicides in 2005. The murder rate increased from 2005 to 2006. Seems to me that’s a national tragedy.

And that’s just the murders of the post-partum population. What about the murders of the unborn? There are approximately 3,700 of those each day in the US. Seems to me, that’s even more of a national tragedy. Where are the flags at half-staff for those? Where are the MySpace pages and the FaceBook pages for those victims?

And why do we have such national solidarity when it comes to tragedy? There is gun crime on a massacre scale in Iraq every day. As someone commented on one of Fr Dcn Steve’s blogs, 33 would have been a good day in Iraq. But most of them are Muslims, so I suppose we don’t really have to care.

Yes, it was a bad thing that happened at VT. We just need to get some perspective and care about life extinguished everywhere around us.

Crisis of Conscientious Objection

There is finally a crisis in the NHS that I’m glad to hear about. There are too many doctors who will not perform abortions. The number who refuse due to conscientious objection is rising significantly.

Even though tax money pays for 80% of abortions in the UK, half of these are done in private facilities.

I’m glad to see that even though the number of abortions continue to rise, those who really know what abortion is increasingly want nothing to do with it. The scientific evidence demonstrating the sentience of the unborn continues to mount. In 1967, it may have been easier to suggest that it was just a blob of tissue. Now doctors must go through extensive mental and philosophical gymnastics to convince themselves otherwise.

To make up for the lack of doctors willing to do the deed, there is a serious move afoot to allow nurses to carry out surgical abortions. Currently they can give abortion pills, but they can’t actually invasively attack the child and kill it with instruments.

I’m not sure what other surgical procedures nurses can perform. It seems there are those so desperate to kill babies they will do whatever it takes to make sure the abortuaries keep running at full capacity.

Amillia’s Transatlantic Impact

She’s American, but Amillia Taylor is big news in the UK. She has re-ignited the abortion debate that fires up from time to time.

Abortion isn’t the political litmus test issue that it is the States. Views cross party lines. Peter Garrett was the spokesman for Life while a member of the Labour Party (though he has since become a Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidiate) and David Alton was the highest profile pro-life activist in the House of Commons when a member of the Liberal Democrats (though he is now a Crossbencher in the House of Lords). , It would be fair to say that most of those opposed to abortion on principle are Tories.

However, despite the Conservative attempts at attracting feminist votes, the Labour Party depends on the social left to support it’s incursion into Middle England. This makes it difficult for the Government to lower the age of preservation for unborn lives. Critically, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt is not in favour changing the law, which makes it unlikely to get any Parliamentary time for debate.

Currently abortions can be carried out up to 24 weeks for “social” (meaning “any”) reasons and up to the time of birth for medical reasons. Partial birth abortion is practiced in this country.