High Schoolers Dissected Baby Brains in New Mexico

A Congressional committee is recommending criminal charges against the University of New Mexico (UNM) for illegally handling aborted babies after learning that the medical school instructed high school students in dissection of fetal brains at a summer camp.

“Documentation obtained by the panel in the course of its investigation reflects that the transfer of fetal tissue from SWWO to UNM for research purposes is a direct violation of New Mexico’s Jonathan Spradling Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.”
-- Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chair of the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives

For background, read Congress Finds: Dead Baby Parts Have NEVER Cured Disease

Also read Government Wants 'Defective Babies' to Harvest Organs



-- From "Medical School Dean Admits High School Students Dissected BRAINS OF ABORTED BABIES" by Eric Owens, Education Editor, Daily Caller 8/25/16

Paul Roth, the dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, can be seen admitting to the allegation in [the above] video published this month by the New Mexico Alliance for Life.

Roth would not elaborate about the source of the aborted baby brains or the way in which the taxpayer-funded university obtained them to be sliced up by high school kids on the summer learning adventure.

Earlier this summer, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) of the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives cited a May 2012 request to the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center “for digoxin treated tissue 24-28 weeks for methylation study + because [redacted] wants whole, fixed brains to dissect w/ summer camp students. Clinic est. 27 and 28 weeks.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "House panel seeks criminal charges for University of New Mexico in abortion research" by Joseph J. Kolb, FoxNews.com 8/26/16

[Congresswoman Marsha] Blackburn charged the school broke state laws governing the use of aborted fetal tissue it received from Southwestern Women’s Options [SWWO], which provides late-term abortions. Published reports said the tissue was used for research and even dissected at what has been described as summer camps in 2012 and 2014.

Blackburn told [New Mexico Attorney General Hector] Balderas that university officials trained new abortion doctors, referred women to outside abortion clinics, sent UNM faculty and residents to an abortion clinic during transition between owners, extended “voluntary faculty” status to local abortionists, supplied residents and fellows to perform abortions for SWWO, and put pressure on employees and students for political support, all in violation of state law..

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Congress: University Broke Law Buying Brains of Aborted Babies for Students to Dissect" by Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews.com 8/26/16

Blackburn’s letter was accompanied by a scathing 291-page report outlining the relationship between UNM and SWWO and the use and advocacy of aborted tissues for research.

“Today, UNM Hospital performs surgical abortions for any reason through 25 weeks gestation,” said the report. “Since the time when opposition to participating in abortion procedures was the predominant view of UNM medical staff, the culture appears to have changed—along with the composition of UNM hospital and clinic personnel—to one aggressively in favor of the expansion of abortion.”

Earlier in June, the [House] panel sent evidence to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicating that Planned Parenthood and the human tissue procurement company StemExpress may have violated patients’ privacy under HIPPA.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "University of New Mexico Dept. head confirms high school students dissected aborted baby brains" by Susan Michelle, Live Action News 8/25/16

[Paul Roth stated in the video,] "Yes, we had a faculty member who obtained some tissue, and during one of these summer workshops, uh, dissected I think one or two fetal brains."

Roth declined to confirm the source of the fetal brains when the questioner asked him “were those from Dr. Boyd’s?” The questioner is referring to the abortion facility operated by late-term abortionist, Curtis Boyd, who also teaches at the university’s medical school. . . .

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Planned Parenthood Sells Aborted Baby Parts for Research

Dead Baby Parts Have NEVER Cured Disease: Congress

While Planned Parenthood insists that their baby-killing business furthers medical science, the Congressional Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has found no such benefits.

“Fetal tissue has been used in biomedical research for over 90 years. In this time, not a single medical cure has resulted from this research.”
-- Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

UPDATE 8/27/16: Congressional Panel Finds Criminality — High Schoolers Dissected Aborted Baby Brains

For background, read Planned Parenthood Sells Aborted Baby Parts for Research

Also read Stem Cell Breakthrough: Embryos Needn't Be Killed

-- From "Congressional Report: ‘Fetal Tissue Has Not Been Directly Linked to a Single Medical Cure’" by Jeannette Richard, CNSNews.com 7/19/16

“While it is commonly claimed that fetal tissue was used to produce the polio vaccine, this is largely false. The polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk in 1955 using a monkey cell line, and is still produced using monkey cells.

“Some might object that while fetal tissue research has not directly resulted in medical cures, it has helped advance the overall body of scientific knowledge and thereby assisted in producing cures. It is impossible to determine whether this claim is true, and if so to what extent. Yet the fact is that no one can point to a single medical advancement that critically depended on the use of fetal tissue.”

“In fact, vaccines against eight diseases (Rabies, Diphtheria, Typhoid, Cholera, Plague, Tetanus, Pertussis and Bacille-Calmette-Guerin disease) were all developed in the 1800s and early 1900s, well before the first use of fetal tissue in research,” according to the report.

The panel examined the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) list of approved vaccines which prevent 26 different diseases, and found only three (Varicella, Hepatitis A, and Zoster) for which vaccines were developed using fetal tissue. However, these vaccines rely on fetal cell lines only for “economic, not scientific reasons,” the panel reported.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "How fetal tissue is used in medical research" by The Week Staff 10/24/15

How do scientists use fetal tissue?

It's used to find potential treatments for a wide range of common diseases and afflictions, including cancer, diabetes, birth defects, HIV, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and Alzheimer's. Unlike adult tissue cells, fetal tissue cells can be manipulated into almost any kind of tissue, are less likely to be rejected by a host, and have the capacity to replicate rapidly — making them perfect for analysis into how diseases work. They are also being tried as actual treatments for Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, and diabetes, with researchers injecting fetal cells directly into organs in hopes of regenerating them. Fetal tissue was also a vital component in the development of vaccines for polio, chicken pox, rubella, and shingles. The polio vaccine alone saves 550,000 lives a year. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says fetal tissue research has benefited "virtually every person in this country."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "The Transfer of Fetal Tissue and Related Matters" a report to Select Investigative Panel of the U. S. House of Representatives 7/14/16

Fetal Cell Research is Outdated Technology - Beginning in the 1930s, viruses were propagated using fetal tissue and some laboratories continued to this method until the 1970s. During that time, scientists did not yet know how to work with more mature human cells, and fetal tissue was easier to grow in the laboratory. Science has now advanced beyond these earlier approaches. In short, human fetal tissue is outdated technology that is not necessary for modern vaccine research. For example, current vaccine research for HIV/AIDS, Cancer, Malaria and Ebola does not rely on fetal tissue.

Fetal Tissue is not Mainstream Science - In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available,200 NIH funded a total of 76,081 research grants, only 160 of which (less than 1%) involved the use of human fetal tissue. In contrast, in the same year, NIH funded 1,136 grants using adult stem cells. The fact that fetal research is such a tiny fraction of all scientific research calls into serious question the claim that fetal research is vital and that science will not advance without it. In reality, use of human fetal tissue is increasingly an outdated and unnecessary scientific technology, used only by a handful of scientists.

To read the entire report above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Mutant Human-pigs Created for Organs in U.S.

Mutant Human-pigs Created for Organs in U.S.

American researchers are using human stem cells and modified pig embryos to create a new life form dubbed "chimera" in order to cultivate a variety of human organs suitable for subsequent transplantation to humans.

“Our hope is that this pig embryo will develop normally but the pancreas will be made almost exclusively out of human cells and could be compatible for transplantation.”
-- Pablo J. Ross, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis

“The organ would be an exact genetic copy of your liver but a much younger and healthier version . . .  With every organ we will look at what's happening in the [pig's] brain and if we find that it's too human like, then we won't let those foetuses be born.”
-- Walter Low, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Minnesota

“Chimeras will be seen to be what they are which is a saviour, given that they will provide, life-saving, sustaining organs for our patients.”
-- Scott Fahrenkrug, Recombinetics (a Minnesota-based company)

For background, read U.S. Government Creates 'Humanized Mice' via Abortion to Advance Gay Agenda

Click headlines below to read previous articles:

Human 'Lab Rats' Tortured for Weeks, Then Killed

Creation of Synthetic Humans Planned at Secret Harvard Meeting

UK Government OKs Frankenstein Designer Babies

Genetic Scientists Worshiped as Creators of Life

Government Wants 'Defective Babies' to Harvest Organs

Also read Implanting Harvested Aborted Organs in Animals for Human Transplant

-- From "Scientists growing human pancreas inside 'mutant' pig in bid to solve transplant shortage" by Patrick Gysin, The Sun 6/5/16

The chimera embryos have been implanted in living sows and allowed to grow for 28 days before being tested and destroyed.

Pigs are thought to be an ideal biological incubator for growing human organs and could potentially be used to create hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs and corneas.

Critics say the experiment is “offensive to human dignity”.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "US bid to grow human organs for transplant inside pigs" by Fergus Walsh, Medical Correspondent, BBC News 6/5/16

The team from University of California, Davis says they should look and behave like normal pigs except that one organ will be composed of human cells.

Creating the chimeric embryos takes two stages. First, a technique known as CRISPR gene editing is used to remove DNA from a newly fertilised pig embryo that would enable the resulting foetus to grow a pancreas.

This creates a genetic "niche" or void. Then, human induced pluripotent (iPS) stem cells are injected into the embryo. The iPS cells were derived from adult cells and "dialled back" to become stem cells capable of developing into any tissue in the body.

But the work is controversial. . . . The main concern is that the human cells might migrate to the developing pig's brain and make it, in some way, more human.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists attempting to harvest human organs in pigs create human-pig embryo" by Nicola Davis and Kevin Rawlinson, UK Guardian 6/6/16

It was reported earlier this year that scientists had begun attempts to create the embryos, but there has been opposition from authorities. In September last year, the US National Institutes of Health said it would not back research into “chimeras” until it knew more about the implications.

Concerns have been raised about whether the transplantation of an organ from an animal into a human could risk introducing animal viruses into a patient. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, however, revealed last year that it was possible to use gene-editing technology to inactivate more than 60 retrovirus genes in pigs in a step towards such organ transplantation.

Prof George Church, who has led similar research into the possible use of chimeras, [said] “It opens up the possibility of not just transplantation from pigs to humans but the whole idea that a pig organ is perfectible.

“Gene editing could ensure the organs are very clean, available on demand and healthy, so they could be superior to human donor organs.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Creating Synthetic Humans: Secret Harvard Meeting

On Tuesday, well over a hundred elite scientists were invited to discuss synthesizing the human genome — creating life from basic chemicals without biological parents, thus advancing beyond designer babies to creatures such as a synthetic Einstein (or Frankenstein).  Although the ethics of such advancement is controversial, what upset the greater scientific community and the media was their exclusion from the meeting.

“. . . would it be OK to sequence and then synthesize Einstein’s genome? If so how many Einstein genomes would it be OK to make and install in cells, and who could get to make and control these cells?”
-- Drew Endy, Stanford scientist & Laurie Zoloth, Northwestern University bioethicist

For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:

Genetic Scientists Worshiped as Creators of Life

Scientists Create Artificial Human Eggs and Sperm

Secret Designer Babies via Gene-editing Science

Human 'Lab Rats' Tortured for Weeks, Then Killed

Embryo-killing Essential for Life, Scientists Say

3-Parent Babies are Ethical: Experts to Obama FDA

-- From "Secret Harvard meeting on synthetic human genomes incites ethics debate" by Joel Achenbach, Washington Post 5/13/16

Drew Endy, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, and Laurie Zoloth, a professor of medical ethics and humanities at Northwestern University, published an essay this week raising questions about whether the gathering at Harvard had gone too far. After citing the beneficial possibilities of such research, they raised the thornier ethical questions . . .

Meanwhile, Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Center for Genetics and Society, a politically progressive organization that has had a skeptical view of biotechnology, issued a statement Friday criticizing the Harvard gathering: "If these reports are accurate, the meeting looks like a move to privatize the current conversation about heritable genetic modification."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Critics attack Harvard’s secret meeting on human genome synthesis" by Lisa M. Krieger, Santa Cruz Sentinel 5/14/16

The goal of the project — discussed Tuesday by an invitation-only group of about 130 scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and government officials from five continents — “would be to synthesize a complete human genome in a cell line within a period of 10 years,” according to the invitation.

Organizers included Harvard Medical School genetics Professor George Church and San Francisco-based Andrew Hessel of Autodesk’s Bio/Nano Research Group.

It portends a future with sci-fi implications, when a human genome — the complete set of genetic instructions for a human being — could be assembled like a Tinkertoy.

“Genomics is in the middle of four revolutions: sequencing, editing, synthesizing and understanding,” said Hank Greely, director of Stanford’s Center for Law and the Biosciences. “The first is well-advanced, the second coming on strong, the third just starting and the fourth — and most important — still scratching the surface.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists Talk Privately About Creating a Synthetic Human Genome" by Andrew Pollack, New York Times 5/13/16

Organizers said the project could have a big scientific payoff and would be a follow-up to the original Human Genome Project, which was aimed at reading the sequence of the three billion chemical letters in the DNA blueprint of human life. The new project, by contrast, would involve not reading, but rather writing the human genome — synthesizing all three billion units from chemicals.

But such an attempt would raise numerous ethical issues. Could scientists create humans with certain kinds of traits, perhaps people born and bred to be soldiers? Or might it be possible to make copies of specific people?

The project does not yet have funding, Dr. Church said, though various companies and foundations would be invited to contribute, and some have indicated interest. The federal government will also be asked. A spokeswoman for the National Institutes of Health declined to comment, saying the project was in too early a stage.

Right now, synthesizing DNA is difficult and error-prone. . . . But the cost and capabilities are rapidly improving. Dr. Endy of Stanford, who is a co-founder of a DNA synthesis company called Gen9, said the cost of synthesizing genes has plummeted from $4 per base pair in 2003 to 3 cents now. But even at that rate, the cost for three billion letters would be $90 million. He said if costs continued to decline at the same pace, that figure could reach $100,000 in 20 years.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Top scientists hold closed meeting to discuss building a human genome from scratch" by Ike Swetlitz, STAT 5/13/16

Synthesizing genomes involves building them from the ground up — chemically combining molecules to create DNA. Similar work by Craig Venter in 2010 created what was hailed as the first synthetic cell, a bacterium with a comparatively small genome.

In recent months, Church has been vocal in saying that the much-hyped genome-editing technology called CRISPR, which is only a few years old and which he helped develop, would soon be obsolete. Instead of changing existing genomes through CRISPR, Church has said, scientists could build exactly the genomes they want from scratch, by stringing together off-the-shelf DNA letters.

The topic is a heavy one, touching on fundamental philosophical questions of meaning and being. If we can build a synthetic genome — and eventually, a creature — from the ground up, then what does it mean to be human?

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "How Close Are We To An Entirely Synthetic Human?" by James Maynard, Tech Times 5/15/16

Human genomes are normally passed on from parent to child, transferring inheritable traits. Creating such a genome may be possible in as little as a decade, organizers of the meeting contend. However, even if the creation of such a genetic code transpired in the coming years, these sequences could only be placed within a cell to test the genome. This would still be a far cry from the creation of an entire synthetically-formed human being.

Once the technology is available to easily and inexpensively synthesize human genomes, a bevy of ethical dilemmas will present themselves. First, if it is possible to sequence and produce genomes of the best and brightest people in the world, how many copies of the same sequence should be produced, and who would be able to obtain them? Will parents who wish to raise a scientist be allowed to utilize genes patterned after famed physicist Albert Einstein? What about sports-minded parents who want a child with the baseball-related skills of Red Sox slugger David Ortiz?

Researchers are still a long way from the development of an entire synthetic human genome, however. The first man-made species, JCVI-syn1.0, was created in 2010.

Those people who worry about the development of this technology have a long time to wait before their fears may be realized, but that day is coming.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Virgin Births: IVF Eliminating Fatherhood

And read Government Wants 'Defective Babies' to Harvest Organs

Human 'Lab Rats' Tortured for Weeks, Then Killed

American and British scientists are heralding a new-found ability to cultivate embryonic human beings for weeks and perform experiments on them in a "laboratory womb" where they "feel as good as they would feel in the body of the mother," says Magdelena Zernicka-Goetz at the University of Cambridge in England.

"Now that it has become possible to culture human embryos to the 14-day limit and perhaps beyond, the time is right for the scientific community to educate the public about the potential benefits and to work with regulators on ethical consensus to guide this important research."
-- Amy Wilkerson, Rockefeller University

"The question has to be: 'Are there any limits to what we will do to human beings in order to gain scientific knowledge?' And then who counts as a human being?"
-- Daniel Sulmasy, University of Chicago

For background, read Embryo-killing Essential for Life, Scientists Say

Also read Government Wants 'Defective Babies' to Harvest Organs

And read Genetic Scientists Worshiped as Creators of Life

-- From "Advance In Human Embryo Research Rekindles Ethical Debate" by Rob Stein, All Things Considered, WBEZ NPR (National Public Radio) 5/4/16

Zernicka-Goetz says being able to go past the previous limit is "extremely important" from a scientific point of view.

That's because the seventh day of development is the time when the human embryo becomes embedded within the body of the mother — when it becomes implanted in the womb.

Scientists had thought embryos could only keep developing if they were safely in the womb and receiving instructions from the mother's body.

But the embryos in the studies implanted in the dish as they would in the womb. Then they started organizing themselves into the very early stages of different complex organs and tissues and structures in the body, the researchers report.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Why this lab-grown human embryo has reignited an old ethical debate" by Patrick Monahan, Science Magazine 5/4/16

It’s easy to obey a rule when you don’t have the means to break it. For decades, many countries have permitted human embryos to be studied in the laboratory only up to 14 days after their creation by in vitro fertilization. But—as far as anyone knows—no researcher has ever come close to the limit. The point of implantation, when the embryo attaches to the uterus about 7 days after fertilization, has been an almost insurmountable barrier for researchers culturing human embryos.

Now, two teams report growing human embryos about a week past that point.

. . . Both groups initially removed each embryo’s outer membrane and grew the embryos in two different types of culture media, the first containing fetal bovine serum. Together, that allowed embryos to “implant” onto a plastic substrate, which was transparent, enabling the researchers to take images of what followed.

After normal implantation, part of a mammalian embryo reorganizes itself into what will become the placenta and the yolk sac. This is also the stage at which many developmental defects originate. The lab-grown human embryos hit all of the bases expected of one implanted on a uterus. They developed the right shape and generated various cell types, even though they lacked the structure and nutrition that maternal tissues would normally supply. As Harvard University stem cell researcher George Daley puts it, “The embryo is somewhat on autopilot.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Human embryos grown in lab for longer than ever before" by Sara Reardon, Nature - International weekly journal of science 5/4/16

The work, reported this week in Nature and Nature Cell Biology, also raises the possibility that scientists could soon culture embryos to an even more advanced stage. Doing so would raise ethical, as well as technical, challenges. . . .

The ability to grow an embryo in vitro for 13 days raises ethical and policy considerations. At least 12 countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, bar scientists from working with embryos older than 14 days. The US government introduced the limit in 1979, on the basis that 14 days marks the beginning of gastrulation in humans. It is also around the latest point at which an embryo can split into identical twins. After this time, the logic goes, a unique individual comes into being.

[However, these new] achievements in the lab may be grounds for re-examining the limit, says George Daley, a stem-cell researcher at Children’s Hospital Boston in Massachusetts. He says that it is somewhat arbitrary. Such a debate would be complex and heated, and it could reach beyond researchers working directly with human embryos. If scientists succeed in growing stem cells into embryo-like structures, it could be difficult to determine whether the structures count as embryos, and thus are subject to the 14-day rule. . . .

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "New method allows first look at key stage of human development, embryo implantation" Source: Rockefeller University, posted at Science Daily 5/4/16

Despite significant biomedical advances in recent decades, the very earliest events of human development -- those that occur during a critical window just after fertilization -- have remained an unobservable mystery, until now.

New research from scientists at The Rockefeller University shows, for the first time, molecular and cellular processes in human development that occur up to day 14 after fertilization. Published in Nature on May 4, the breakthrough system is the first in which the process of implantation has successfully been replicated in an experimental setting, outside of the uterus. This novel technique vastly expands the ability to answer basic questions about our own development, as well as to understand early pregnancy loss.

Perhaps most importantly, this new method opens the door to a wide variety of studies, never before possible, on the molecular events that occur during the very earliest stages of human development.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read 3-Parent Babies are Ethical: Experts to Obama FDA

Florida Defunds Planned Parenthood, Liberals Fume

Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed House Bill (HB) 1411 to eliminate all state funding of any organization that performs abortions.  The new law that takes effect July 1st also bans sale of aborted fetus remains and enacts requirements for fetus disposal.  Planned Parenthood, which is spending about as much money fighting the legislation as it receives annually from the state, may contest the law in court as unconstitutional.

“Abortionists will finally be held to the same standard as all other physicians who perform invasive procedures in a non-hospital setting by the requirement to have admitting privileges or a transfer agreement with a nearby hospital.  It is incomprehensible that opponents suggest the bill makes women less safe.”
-- Ingrid Delgado, Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops

For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:

Planned Parenthood Funding Cut Off in Utah & Texas

Oklahoma Gov. Terminates Payments to Planned Parenthood for Ripping off Taxpayers

Taxpayers' $Billions to Abortionists: Government Report

Also read 75% of Abortion Clinics Closed: Jan. 2015 vs. 1991

And read Planned Parenthood Illegally Dumps Babies in Landfills in Ohio, Kentucky and South Carolina

-- From "Florida Governor Signs Law to Cut Funding for Abortion Clinics" by Liam Stack, New York Times 3/25/16

State funding of abortion was already prohibited in Florida, but the law signed by the Republican governor also cut off funding for preventive services at clinics that also provide abortions.

The law appeared to be aimed at Planned Parenthood, which said on Friday that it could mean the end of birth control, cancer screenings, tests for diseases and other services for thousands of low-income women in Florida.

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the new law seemed “designed to rip health care away from those most at risk.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Gov. Rick Scott signs abortion restrictions, medical marijuana laws" by Michael Auslen, Miami Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau 3/25/16

Starting July 1, abortion clinics will be required to have admitting privileges or transfer agreements with a nearby hospital. They also will face annual inspections by the state as part of a law that sponsor Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, said is about ensuring women’s safety.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which has an ongoing lawsuit over a mandatory 24-hour abortion waiting period passed last year, said it hasn’t decided whether it will sue the state over the new law. The organization did decry Scott’s decision in a statement by executive director Howard Simon.

The law redefines the trimesters of a pregnancy, validating claims by state regulators last summer alleging Florida’s Planned Parenthood sites violated their licenses. And the funding cuts could affect six Planned Parenthood clinics.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Florida governor signs law tightening abortion clinic restrictions" by Margie Menzel, Florida Times-Union 3/25/16

The bill, which passed largely along party lines, restricts state agencies, local governments and Medicaid managed-care plans from contracting with organizations that own, operate or are affiliated with clinics that perform elective abortions. Duval County is one of the health departments with a Planned Parenthood contract that may be affected by that provision.

Senate sponsor Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, said on the Senate floor that the bill would likely close six of Florida’s 65 abortion clinics.

Additionally, the bill changes the definition of a first trimester to the period from fertilization through the end of the 11th week of pregnancy. That’s a different definition than the state has used in the past, but it’s consistent with an administrative action last year by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which alleged that five clinics — including three Planned Parenthood facilities — performed second-trimester abortions without the proper licenses. Clinics have filed challenges, contending that the state changed the definition of a first trimester without notice.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Gov. Rick Scott Signs Abortion Bill Into Law" by Lynn Hatter, WFSU (PBS & NPR Tallahassee, FL) 3/25/16

“Would I like a bill that outlaws abortion? Sure. But that’s not what this bill does. Because that’s unconstitutional. Because we’re allowed to have a woman’s right to choose," Stargel argued prior to the bill passing the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Florida Family Policy Council is claiming a major victory. Last year the council’s John Stemberger criticized Governor Rick Scott for not banning state funding from flowing to Planned Parenthood after false accusations last summer that planned parenthood was illegally selling fetal remains caused a national uproar.

“We would have liked for him by executive order to de-fund Planned Parenthood without having to go through this process," Stemberger said. "But we are pleased he signed this today. He did the right thing, and so we’re happy about that. We wish he would have exercised leadership, but he followed the leadership of the legislature and the same result has occurred.”

Florida’s Planned Parenthood Clinics say they’ll weather the coming storm. Public dollars are already prohibited from funding abortions, but the bill would cut off reimbursements for routine preventive services as well if they are done by an abortion provider.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Gov. Rick Scott signs abortion restrictions bill into law" by Gray Rohrer, Orlando Sentinel 3/25/16

The law, which takes effect July 1, requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, requires annual licensure inspections for clinics and bans the purchase, sell or transfer of fetal remains. The law upgrades the failure to properly dispose of fetal tissue from a second-degree misdemeanor to a first-degree misdemeanor.

A similar law in Texas, which women’s health activists say has helped shut down several abortion clinics there, is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. During a debate on the Senate floor earlier this year, sponsor Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, said the bill would likely close six of Florida's 65 abortion clinics.

[Last year, Gov.] Scott’s investigation . . . did cite three clinics for performing abortions after the first trimester. Planned Parenthood disputed those allegations, and the case is still pending in court. A separate criminal investigation prompted by House Republicans turned up nothing.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Planned Parenthood Caught Selling Aborted Babies on Video

And read ObamaCare Funnels $1 Million to Planned Parenthood

Gov't Wants 'Defective Babies' to Harvest Organs

Due to a shortage of human organs, the UK National Health Service (NHS) is reportedly pressuring expectant mothers suspected of carrying offspring with serious abnormalities to fully gestate while offering their babies as non-consenting organ donors upon delivery in return for remuneration.  Responding to media uproar, the NHS admitted to the financial support and said that such donation is solely a parental decision.

For background, read Implanting Harvested Aborted Organs in Animals for Human Transplant

Click headlines below to read previous articles:

Boy 'Created' Artificially to Cure Sister's Disease

Harvesting Blood of Children for Fountain of Youth

Planned Parenthood Caught Selling Aborted Babies on Video

Also read 'Humanized Mice' Created from Organs Harvested via Abortion

-- From "Babies’ organs ‘could save 100 lives a year’" by Elizabeth Beynon, UK Sunday Times 3/6/16

Some defects or disorders, which mean a child cannot survive after birth, can be detected early in pregnancy. One defect, anencephaly, in which the child’s brain fails to develop, can be spotted by a scan as early as 12 weeks.

Under the proposals, pregnant women discovered to be carrying such babies would be supported through the remainder of their pregnancy, allowing the child’s organs to develop fully. They would give birth as normal and key organs would be removed from the baby once it had been certified dead.

About 230 babies with anencephaly are aborted every year in Britain. Only a dozen are born alive.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Organ Harvesting: Are UK Women Going To Be Pressurized To Have Babies?" posted at HealthAim 3/7/16

A shortage of donated organs poses a problem for health authorities across the world who fail to save the lives of the patients who need them. Organ harvesting has always been surrounded by an ethical debate, however, it has largely become an accepted medical practice in the recent times.

The issue became highlighted following the annual meeting of the British Transplantation Society in Glasgow. Participating parties discussed and suggested ways to increase organ donations, wherein the NHS considered “proposals that would see mothers ‘supported’ to go ahead with the birth of children with non-survivable conditions,” reports The Independent.

However, the claim has been completely ridiculed by the NHS authorities. According to an NHS spokesperson, the organization has no way to figure out who is pregnant with a baby affected by non-survivable conditions. They can only get to know about such babies if the pregnant mother expresses her wish to donate the organs of the baby.

The spokesperson further said that organ donation of the baby under non-survivable conditions will only be considered if the potential parents express their own wish to explore the option of organ donation. The organization further claims that while supporting such families, it makes sure to explain to them that the procedure is complex and it is not always possible to go ahead with organ harvesting.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "NHS denies reports women will be pressurised to have babies so their organs can be harvested" by Adam Withnall, UK Independent 3/6/16

Until recently, transplants were banned in children under the age of two months, but the rules were changed after it was proven that the organs of new-borns can make the difference between life and death – even for adults.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, transplant surgeon Niaz Ahmad said the NHS was looking at options for “rolling out [new-born transplants] as a viable source of organ transplantation nationally”.

And raising the prospect of discussing the option with pregnant women directly, he was quoted as saying: “There is a real potential for using these organs [and] we are going to discuss whether it is an option, somehow, to tell women in this situation, that organ donation is an option.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Obama Administration OKs Aborted Baby Brain Experiments

Embryo-killing Essential for Life, Scientists Say

Recent advancements in stem cell research using adult skin cells have demonstrated that destruction of human embryos is not necessary to advance disease-curing science.  However, this week, scientists at the University of Cambridge claimed that their new method of obtaining naïve pluripotent stem cells from human embryos — destroying life at its earliest stages — is the best hope to cure disease.

For background, read Stem Cell Science Advances WithOUT Killing Embryos

Click headlines below to read previous articles:

Human Embryos Cloned, Killed to Harvest Stem Cells

Unborn Must Die so Others Can Live, Scientists Say

Hollywood Actor Recants Embryonic Stem Cells for Parkinson's Cure

-- From "Scientists develop early stage embryonic stem cells" by Stephen Feller, UPI 3/4/16

The technique, described in a study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports, is significant because current methods of obtaining stem cells can be difficult, and those cells often still contain instructions to become a specific cell type.

Naive pluripotent stem cells are the earliest incarnation of the cells before they have differentiated into the types of cells found in different organs and parts of the body.

While researchers have two resources for pluripotent stem cells -- embryonic stem cells derived from fertilized eggs discarded from IVF procedures and skin cells that have been induced into becoming stem cells -- both have been "primed" to differentiate into other cell types.

In addition to opening up new methods of research -- such as how Down syndrome occurs during cell development -- scientists said earlier stem cells could make it easier to develop cells needed for regeneration of damaged organs and tissues, including those that do not regenerate very well, such as the heart, brain and pancreas.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Cambridge Researchers Develop New Technique of Deriving Embryonic Stem Cells" by Barbara Mast, Lighthouse News Daily 3/5/16

The researchers from the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute managed to take cells from the blastocyst and grow them individually.

According to lead author Tony Parenti, other researchers may have spotted these cells before, but they probably thought they were defective or cancer-like formations. The Cambridge scientists, on the other hand, chose not to ignore those cells, that others overlooked, and decide to study their characteristics.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Scientists develop very early stage human embryonic stem cell lines for first time" posted at EurekAlert (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 3/4/16

When an egg cell is fertilised by a sperm, it begins to divide and replicate before the embryo takes shape. Around day five, the embryonic cells cluster together and form a structure called the 'blastocyst'. This occurs before implantation into the uterus. The blastocyst comprises three cell types: cells that will develop into the placenta and allow the embryo to attach to the womb; and cells that form the 'yolk sac', which provides nutrients to the developing foetus; and the 'epiblast' comprising the naïve cells that will develop into the future body.

In research published today in the journal Stem Cell Reports, scientists from the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute managed to remove cells from the blastocyst at around day six and grow them individually in culture. By separating the cells, the researchers in effect stopped them 'talking' to each other, preventing them from being steered down a particular path of development.

Naïve pluripotent stem cells in principle have no restrictions on the types of adult tissue into which they can develop, which means they may have promising therapeutic uses in regenerative medicine to treat devastating conditions that affect various organs and tissues, particularly those that have poor regenerative capacity, such as the heart, brain and pancreas.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read Type 1 Diabetics' Hope Rests in Dead Human Embryos

And read Harvesting Blood of Children for Fountain of Youth

3-Parent Babies are Ethical: Experts to Obama FDA

Experts from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine are advising President Obama's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve mitochondrial DNA replacement techniques (MRTs) to help about a hundred Americans give birth to creatures fabricated in a laboratory using genetic material from three unrelated people.  The experts promise that no scientists in the future will misuse the techniques to "play god" and create any Frankenstein babies.

For background, read President Obama's FDA Pushes 3-parent Babies

Click headlines below to read previous articles:

UK Government OKs Frankenstein Designer Babies

Secret Designer Babies via Gene-editing Science

Scientists Create Artificial Human Eggs and Sperm

Genetic Scientists Worshiped as Creators of Life

Also read Unborn Must Die so Others Can Live, Scientists Say

-- From "Three-parent babies are ok, experts say" by NBC News 2/4/16

Such "three-parent" babies could be a way for people with a high risk of rare, devastating genetic diseases to have healthy children that are genetically their own, the National Academy of Medicine panel said.

And at first, the panel advised, only male embryos should be made this way until it's clear that dangerous mutations would not be passed down to future generations.

The FDA asked the academy, formerly known as the Institute of Medicine, to look at the three-person embryo processes, called mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRT). These are variations of in vitro fertilization, or IVF — the method that creates so-called "test-tube babies."

MRT adds a step [to IVF]: The mother's nuclear DNA would be removed and placed into the egg cell of another woman. The father's sperm would then be used to fertilize that hybrid egg.

The new techniques would be used to prevent the transmission of certain types of diseases that occur at the mitochondrial DNA level, the experts said.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Babies With Genes From 3 People Could Be Ethical, Panel Says" by Rob Stein, WBEZ-FM91.5 NPR (Chicago, IL) 2/3/16

Critics of the research, meanwhile, say the number of women who could benefit from the experiments is so small that it's not worth crossing a line that's long been considered off-limits — making genetic changes that could be passed down for generations.

"The possibility of what you could call 'mission creep' is very real," says Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, a watchdog group based in Berkeley, Calif. "People are talking about going forward not just with this but with the kind of genetic engineering that will produce outright genetically modified human beings."

Once that happens, Darnovsky says, "I think you get into a situation of where some people are genetically enhanced and other people are the regular old variety of human being. And I don't think that's a world we want to live in."

. . . The FDA email praised the "thoughtful work" of the panel and said the agency would be "reviewing" the recommendations. But it noted that the latest federal budget "prevents the FDA from using funds to review applications in which a human embryo is intentionally created or modified to include" changes that could be passed down to future generations. As a result, the email says, any such research "cannot be performed in the United States" at this time.

"I think it's a great step in the right direction," Mark Sauer, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University who is a member of one of the teams . . . "Politics as usual often gets in way of progress," Sauer said in a subsequent email. While the FDA statement would cause "undue delays" in his research, he added that he hoped it wouldn't permanently "necessarily halt the efforts."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Should scientists be allowed to change DNA to prevent genetic disease?" by Daphne Chen, Deseret News 2/3/16

"I think the field has come together to say, 'Let’s think about this together and go forward carefully,'" said Dr. Jeffrey Botkin, a professor of pediatrics and chief of medical ethics and humanities at the University of Utah.

Botkin sat on the 12-person committee that included top bioethics experts from Johns Hopkins, Caltech and Harvard.

"There's not a bright line between where this kicks over into unethical," [University of Utah, Department of Biochemistry Dr. Jared] Rutter said. "The technology that we have is expanding … more rapidly than our sophistication with thinking about how to use it."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Ethicists approve ‘3 parent’ embryos to stop diseases, but congressional ban remains" by Joel Achenbach, Washington Post 2/3/16

The committee, which was convened last year at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, concluded that it is ethically permissible to “go forward, but with caution” with mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRT), said the chairman, Jeffrey Kahn, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University.

But the advisory panel’s conclusions have slammed into a congressional ban: The omnibus fiscal 2016 budget bill passed by Congress late last year contained language prohibiting the government from using any funds to handle applications for experiments that genetically alter human embryos.

Thus the green light from the scientists and ethicists won't translate anytime soon into clinical applications that could potentially help families that want healthy babies, said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a pioneer of the new technique at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Ore.

“It seems like the FDA is disabled in this case by Congress," Mitalipov said. “At this point we’re still not clear how to proceed."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Report: It's ethical to test embryos from DNA of 3 people" by Lauran Neergaard, Medical Xpress 2/3/16

The genes that give us our hair and eye color, our height and other family traits—and some common diseases such as cancer—come from DNA in the nucleus of cells, the kind we inherit from both mom and dad.

But only mothers pass on mitochondrial DNA, to both daughters and sons. It encodes a mere 37 genes, but defects can leave cells without enough energy and can lead to blindness, seizures, muscle degeneration, developmental disorders, even death. Severity varies widely, and researchers estimate 1 in 5,000 children may inherit some degree of mitochondrial disease.

Critics have argued that the first such births would have to be tracked for decades to be sure they're really healthy, and that families could try adoption or standard IVF with a donated egg instead. And they say it crosses a fundamental scientific boundary by altering what's called the germline—eggs, sperm or embryos—in a way that could affect future generations.

"It is reckless to proceed with this form of germline modification," said Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society, an advocacy group.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

UK's Frankenstein: Designer Babies OK'd by Gov't

Today, the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced it authorized a private research firm to use abandoned babies, a.k.a. "leftover" embryos, to perform human genetic code editing.  Bioethicists have warned for years that such research will certainly lead to so-called "designer babies."

"This is the first step on a path that scientists have carefully mapped out towards the legalization of (genetically modified) babies."
-- David King, Human Genetics Alert

For background, read Secret Designer Babies via Gene-editing Science and also read Unborn Must Die so Others Can Live, Scientists Say

UPDATE 2/4/16: 3-Parent Babies ARE Ethical, Experts Tell President Obama's FDA

Also read Scientists Create Artificial Human Eggs and Sperm

And read Genetic Scientists Worshiped as Creators of Life

-- From "Britain Okays Gene Editing Experiment on Human Embryos" by The Associated Press 2/1/16

Scientists say gene-editing techniques could one day lead to treatments for conditions like HIV, which causes AIDS, and inherited diseases like muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease.

Peter Braude, an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at King's College London, said the mechanisms being investigated by [Dr. Kathy] Niakan and colleagues "are crucial in ensuring healthy, normal development and implantation" and could help doctors understand how to improve in vitro fertilization rates and prevent miscarriages.

The gene-editing technique was developed partly in the U.S. and scientists there have experimented with the method in animals and in human cells in the laboratory. Gene editing has not been used for any kinds of patient therapies yet.

Around the world, laws and guidelines vary widely about what kind of research is allowed on embryos, since it could change the genes of future generations. In the U.S., the National Institutes of Health cannot fund research on human embryos but private funding is allowed.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Britain gives scientists permission to genetically modify human embryos" by Rachel Feltman, Washington Post 2/1/16

The news comes less than a year after the first reports of human-gene editing — published by Chinese scientists in the journal Protein and Cell — using the fantastic and at times troubling technology known as CRISPR. By harnessing an ancient defense mechanism built into bacteria, CRISPR allows scientists to target, delete and replace specific genes. It has been used extensively in other organisms, but research in humans has been slow.

The Chinese experiments reported last year were largely unsuccessful. Few of the embryos in the experiment were successfully modified, and even fewer had the changes that scientists intended to make. None of the embryos were gestated, and the authors of the study readily admitted that their error rate was too high for use on viable embryos.

. . . Britain now has become the first country to approve the use of public funding for such research. In the United States, labs have to find private funding for any research that creates or destroys human embryos, and some lawmakers seek to ban it altogether. Even in China, where the first "successful" editing occurred, the guidelines are murky.

The University of Kent's Darren Griffin called the [HFEA] ruling "a triumph for common sense" in a statement, and Sarah Norcross, director of Progress Educational Trust, lauded the decision as "a victory for level-headed regulation over moral panic."

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "UK scientists given go-ahead to genetically modify human embryos" by Sheena McKenzie, for CNN 2/1/16

Scientists will be focusing on the first seven days of a fertilized egg's growth. In these early days, a fertilized egg evolves from a single cell to around 250 cells.

The research, which will be led by Dr. Kathy Niakan, will take place at the Francis Crick Institute in London and has been hailed as a "triumph for common sense" by leading figures of the British science community.

However, the research has also raised concerns that it could pave the way for "designer babies" -- going beyond health improvements and modifying everything from a child's eye color to intelligence.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "British scientists granted permission to genetically modify human embryos" by Sarah Knapton, Science Editor, UK Telegraph 2/1/16

Currently around 50 per cent of fertilised eggs do not develop properly and experts believe that faulty genetic code could be responsible.

If scientists knew which genes were crucial for healthy cell division, then they could screen out embryos where their DNA was not working properly, potentially preventing miscarriages and aiding fertility.

The team at Francis Crick are already in talks with fertility clinics across the country to use their spare embryos.

Dr Calum MacKellar, Director of Research of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics said: “Allowing the gene editing of embryos opens the road to genetically modifying all the descendants of a person as well as full blown eugenics which was condemned by all civilised societies after the Second World War.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Britain grants first licence for genetic modification of embryos" posted at Medical Xpress 2/1/16

[Dr. Kathy] Niakan has said she is planning to modify the embryos using a technique known as CRISPR-Cas9, which allows scientists to insert, remove and correct DNA within a cell.

The embryos will not become children as they must be destroyed within 14 days and can only be used for basic research.

She plans to find the genes at play in the first few days of fertilisation when an embryo develops a coating of cells that later become the placenta.

The embryos to be used in the research are ones that would have been destroyed, donated by couples receiving In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment who do not need them.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "British researchers get green light to genetically modify human embryos" by Haroon Siddique, UK Guardian 2/1/16

Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, group leader at the Francis Crick Institute . . . said it would also provide invaluable information about the accuracy and efficiency of the technique, helping to inform the debate about whether genome editing could be used in future to correct faulty genes that cause devastating diseases.

That prospect remains a long way off but is already a subject of concern. There are also fears that changes to an embryo’s DNA could have unknown harmful consequences throughout a person’s body and be passed on down the generations.

Last year, leading UK funders called for a national debate on whether editing human embryos could ever be justified in the clinic. Some fear that a public backlash could derail less controversial uses of genome editing, which could lead to radical new treatments for disease.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Pro-life charity criticises decision to allow UK scientists to genetically modify human embryos" by Staff Reporter, Catholic Herald 2/1/16

After the announcement Anne Scanlan, the education director of Life, said . . . “[HFEA] has ignored the warnings of over a hundred scientists worldwide and given permission for a procedure, which could have damaging far-reaching implications for human beings. We do not know what long term side effects the tampering with some strands of DNA could have on other strands. However once genetic changes have been made they will be irreversible and handed down to future generations.”

Miss Scanlan added: “We are also concerned that such controversial intervention in the human germline opens up the very real possibility of eugenics where the existence of human beings becomes conditional on the possession of certain physical characteristics.

“Whilst we note the HFEA restriction on the implantation of genetically modified embryos, it is sending the wrong signals by allowing scientists the ability to develop and possibly perfect the technology here in the UK. To mitigate any advancement on the potentially dangerous work being undertaken by these British scientists, we believe that an international ban on human DNA editing is urgently needed to protect the future of the human species.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

Also read President Obama's Food and Drug Administration considers lab science that 'Creates' Designer Baby with 3 Biological Parents

And read IVF Eliminating Fatherhood via Virgin Births

Creators of Life Worshiped — Prizes to Scientists

Disappointed after decades of searching in vain for life beyond Earth, science journalists have turned their focus to proven success in creating life here on Earth through genetic manipulation known as CRISPR-Cas9.  Not only are Nobel prizes in the offing, but funding sources have opened up, including from billionaire Bill Gates.  Although scientists envision endless possibilities for the potential good, they equally fear the inevitable devastating evil uses of such breakthroughs.

"The gene drive immediately makes the organisms that carry it have the characteristic, and then secondly it causes them to have all their children have the same characteristic."
-- Ethan Bier, Biologist, University of California, San Diego

"If any group or country wanted to develop germ warfare agents, they could use techniques like this.  It would be quite straightforward to make new pathogens this way."
-- Stuart Newman, Biologist, New York Medical College

For background, read Secret Designer Babies via Gene-editing Science and also read Unborn Must Die so Others Can Live, Scientists Say



-- From "Gene editing: Research spurs debate over promise vs. ethics" Lauran Neergaard, Medical Writer, Associated Press 10/11/15

Should we change people’s genes in a way that passes traits to future generations? Beyond medicine, what about the environmental effects if, say, altered mosquitoes escape before we know how to use them?

“We need to try to get the balance right,” said University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Jennifer Doudna. She helped develop new gene-editing technology and hears from desperate families, but urges caution in how it’s eventually used in people.

Laboratories worldwide are embracing a technology to precisely edit genes inside living cells — turning them off or on, repairing or modifying them — like a biological version of cut-and-paste software. . . .

“It’s transforming almost every aspect of biology right now,” said National Institutes of Health genomics specialist Shawn Burgess.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Powerful 'Gene Drive' Can Quickly Change An Entire Species" by Rob Stein, WBEZ-NPR (National Public Radio) 11/5/15

[Biologist Ethan] Bier was stunned by what he saw. . . . His student, Valentino Gantz, had found a way to get brown fruit flies to produce blond-looking offspring most of the time.

Turning fruit flies from brown to yellow might not sound like a major achievement. But it was. It showed that scientists had a very fast and easy way to permanently change an entire species.

The drive is a sequence of DNA that can cause a mutation to be inherited by the offspring of an organism with nearly 100 percent efficiency, regardless of whether it's beneficial for that organism's survival.

By combining it with new genetic editing techniques, scientists are able to drive changes they make quickly through an entire species.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Bill Gates on Revolutionary Tech: CRISPR" by Carlos Watson, Yahoo News 11/9/15

The technology Bill Gates is most excited about: Say hello to gene editing!

. . . CRISPR technology, which is changing how we think about genetics and health. CRISPR technology basically allows for gene editing — it’s like a scapel that can cut out harmful mutations and turn genes on and off. The potential applications range from fighting hereditary disease in people to boosting crop yields to engineering cows without horns, so as to obviate a painful dehorning procedure. The ethical implications have barely been sussed out.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Nobel speculation kicks into high gear" by Chris Cesare, Nature 9/24/15

Nobel prize season is approaching, and scientists and other pundits have begun the annual ritual of speculating — with varying degrees of seriousness — about who will win this year’s awards.

The annual predictions by Thomson Reuters, released this year on 24 September, name more women than ever before: four in total. Among the potential laureates for the chemistry prize are Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany, and Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, who would share the prize for helping to create the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technique.

If Doudna and Charpentier won, it would be just three years after they published their seminal paper.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "The Gene Hackers" by Michael Specter, The New Yorker 11/9/15 (November 16, 2015 Issue)

CRISPR has two components. The first is essentially a cellular scalpel that cuts DNA. The other consists of RNA, the molecule most often used to transmit biological information throughout the genome. It serves as a guide, leading the scalpel on a search past thousands of genes until it finds and fixes itself to the precise string of nucleotides it needs to cut. . . .

With CRISPR, scientists can change, delete, and replace genes in any animal, including us. . . .

Inevitably, the technology will also permit scientists to correct genetic flaws in human embryos. Any such change, though, would infiltrate the entire genome and eventually be passed down to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and every subsequent generation. That raises the possibility, more realistically than ever before, that scientists will be able to rewrite the fundamental code of life, with consequences for future generations that we may never be able to anticipate. Vague fears of a dystopian world, full of manufactured humans, long ago became a standard part of any debate about scientific progress. . . .

Developing any technology as complex and widely used as CRISPR invariably involves contributions from many scientists. Patent fights over claims of discovery and licensing rights are common. [Feng] Zhang, the Broad Institute, and M.I.T. are now embroiled in such a dispute with Jennifer Doudna and the University of California; she is a professor of chemistry and of molecular biology at Berkeley. By 2012, Doudna, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, a medical microbiologist who studies pathogens at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, in Germany, and their lab teams, demonstrated, for the first time, that CRISPR could edit purified DNA. Their paper was published that June. In January of 2013, though, Zhang and George Church, a professor of genetics at both Harvard Medical School and M.I.T., published the first studies demonstrating that CRISPR could be used to edit human cells. Today, patents are generally awarded to the first people to file—in this case, Doudna and Charpentier. But Zhang and the Broad argued that the earlier success with CRISPR had no bearing on whether the technique would work in the complex organisms that matter most to scientists looking for ways to treat and prevent diseases. . . .

CRISPR research is becoming big business: venture-capital firms are competing with one another to invest millions, and any patent holder would have the right to impose licensing fees. Whoever wins stands to make a fortune. Other achievements are also at stake, possibly including a Nobel Prize. . . .

From the moment that manipulating genes became possible, many people, including some of those involved in the experiments, were horrified by the idea of scientists in lab coats rearranging the basic elements of life. . . .

Normally, it takes years for genetic changes to spread through a population. That is because, during sexual reproduction, each of the two versions of any gene has only a fifty per cent chance of being inherited. But a “gene drive”—which is named for its ability to propel genes through populations over many generations—manages to override the traditional rules of genetics. A mutation made by CRISPR on one chromosome can copy itself in every generation, so that nearly all descendants would inherit the change. . . .

While CRISPR will clearly make it possible to alter our DNA, serious risks remain. Jennifer Doudna has been among the most vocal of those calling for caution on what she sees as the inevitable march toward editing human genes. “It’s going to happen,” she told me the first time we met, in her office at Berkeley. “As a research tool, CRISPR could hardly be more valuable—but we are far from the day when it should be used in a clinical setting.” . . .

Until April, the ethical debate over the uses of CRISPR technology in humans was largely theoretical. Then a group at Sun Yat-sen University, in southern China, attempted to repair, in eighty-six human embryos, the gene responsible for betathalassemia, a rare but often fatal blood disorder. If those disease genes, and genes that cause conditions like cystic fibrosis, could be modified successfully in a fertilized egg, the alteration could not only protect a single individual but eventually eliminate the malady from that person’s hereditary lineage. Given enough time, the changes would affect all of humanity. The response to the experiment was largely one of fear and outrage. The Times carried the story under the headline “Chinese Scientists Edit Genes of Human Embryos, Raising Concerns.” . . .

[Doudna] told me that she was constantly amazed by [CRISPR] potential, but when I asked if she had ever wondered whether the powerful new tool might do more harm than good she looked uncomfortable. “I lie in bed almost every night and ask myself that question,” she said. “When I’m ninety, will I look back and be glad about what we have accomplished with this technology? Or will I wish I’d never discovered how it works?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “I have never said this in public, but it will show you where my psyche is,” she said. “I had a dream recently, and in my dream”—she mentioned the name of a leading scientific researcher—“had come to see me and said, ‘I have somebody very powerful with me who I want you to meet, and I want you to explain to him how this technology functions.’ So I said, Sure, who is it? It was Adolf Hitler. I was really horrified, but I went into a room and there was Hitler. He had a pig face and I could only see him from behind and he was taking notes and he said, ‘I want to understand the uses and implications of this amazing technology.’ I woke up in a cold sweat. And that dream has haunted me from that day. Because suppose somebody like Hitler had access to this—we can only imagine the kind of horrible uses he could put it to.”

To read all of the extremely long article above, CLICK HERE.

Virgin Births: IVF Eliminating Fatherhood

Fertility clinics are now furthering the notion of the “synthetic family” by making fathers obsolete in procreation even among non-lesbian women who prefer to give birth prior to sexual intercourse with "Mr. Right."

"Some wish to save sexual intercourse for a special relationship. They feel they have not found the right partner to share sex with, but they know they want a baby now."
-- Tracey Sainsbury, The London Women's Clinic

For background, read IVF: Women Living & Procreating Without Men as well as UK: Women Win Right to Children Without Fathers

Click headlines below to read previous articles:

Gay Skin Cells Can Create Babies, Scientists Say

Scientists Create Artificial Human Eggs and Sperm

Human Eggs Best When Fresh, NOT Frozen - DAH!

Married Birthing Nearly Extinct Among Non-college Grads

Also read President Obama Replaces Fathers with Government Mentors

-- From "Women who have never had sex give 'virgin birth' through IVF, say doctors" by Jess Staufenberg, UK Independent 9/28/15

About 25 young women in the UK who are hetereosexual and in their twenties have opted for IVF in the past five years because they feel ready to be a parent, doctors told the Mail on Sunday.

Whilst some religious groups have said a child should be brought up in a traditional family, one doctor said these single mothers are often more emotionally and financially stable than others who have been left to bring up a child after a relationship breakdown.

The news follows up a survey in 2013 which showed that one in every 200 women in the US reported to have become pregnant without having had sexual intercourse.

Out of these women, 31% said they had signed a chastity pledge whereby they vow, usually for religious reasons, not to have sex. About 28% of those girls' parents said they rarely talked to them about sex or contraception - compared to only 5% of other women who became pregnant and had had intercourse.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Virgin Births: 25 Heterosexual Women In Britain Have Given Birth Without Ever Having Sex" by Ellen Wallwork, The Huffington Post UK 9/28/15

Fertility treatments have opened up the ways by which women and men can become parents and four British IVF firms have said they had assisted a heterosexual virgin to have a baby: Care Fertility, The London Women’s Clinic, Create Fertility, and the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre.

The decision to provide fertility treatment in such cases was criticised by some religious groups, who claimed it undermined the importance of bringing up children in stable marriages, as well as from Josephine Quintavalle, from the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, who said to the Mail:

"The message from nature is for a male and female to have a child, and I am saddened that we are willing to distort this.

"The diminished role of the father is not desirable for the child. Once you start down this route, where do you stop?"

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Rise of the virgin birth: four IVF clinics admit taking on such cases" by Laura Donnelly, Health Editor, UK Telegraph

Fertiilty doctors said single women who had never had sexual intercourse were seeking donor-assisted treatment – at a cost of around £5,000 – because they wanted to have a child now and save sex for a “special relationship”.

Maha Ragunath, medical director of its clinic in Nottingham, said: “The number of single women I see has doubled over the last decade and single women now account for at least ten per cent of my patients.

“A lot of them are very young, in their 20s, sometimes studying or doing very ordinary jobs and often living with their parents, rather than career women who have been driven and focused too much on their work”

“They are extremely happy to go ahead on their own and don’t care about the implications that might bring for the child or how they would go into a new relationship.”

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Virgin Births: Women Become Impregnated Thanks To IVF Treatment At British Clinics" by Ted Ranosa, Tech Times 9/28/15

Supporters of the traditional family system, however, have blasted the "distorted" move, stating that it was turning young children into "teddy bears" that are to be "picked off the shelf."

Some religious groups have also claimed that the move undermines the value of having children brought up in a stable marriage, while one leading psychotherapist has warned that a mother who has never been in a relationship could potential harm the development of the child.

Imam Suhaib Hasan, head of the Islamic Sharia Council in the UK, accused doctors engaged in providing IVF treatment to patients of acting like God.

Hasan said that when the man is removed from the aspect of a family, the woman becomes merely a breeding machine. He added that it effectively denies the right of the child to have a father.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Virgin Babies: Side Effects After Birth" by Anna Amad, The Science Times 9/28/15

Professor Robert Winston said "test-tube babies could suffer terrible health problems because the clinics were using IVF techniques which had not been properly tested."

He added, that the risk could include birth defects, genetic damage which may not emerge until adulthood and an increased chance of cancer. The medical profession was ignoring the evidence of problems that could take place.

Aside from that, he stressed the long-term attack of IVF, and follows a growing body of evidence that test tube babies are less healthy than the naturally conceived children.

Conversely, another study had been generated by Lord Winston at over three million normal conceptions and 40,000 IVF babies that found that IVF babies were two and half times more likely to have a low birth weight and prematurity compared to those babies with normal reproduction. Since it is not 100% guaranteed, it can lead to unsuccessful birth cycle.

Winston even stated, that small babies are more likely to grow up to develop vascular disease, diabetes, hypertension and osteoporosis.

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Also read Feminism Destroying America: Census Childlessness

And read Women Who Give Birth Live Longer and Healthier