Breakthrough! Animal Parts and Organs To Be Used in Humans

If this is true, it is huge. A breakthrough in preventing tissue rejection may permit animal parts and organs to be transplanted into humans--a process known as xenotransplantation. From the story:

Blood vessels, tendons and bladders from animals are to be used in humans for the first time after a breakthrough in transplant surgery.

Scientists have overcome the problem of rejection, which has previously prevented animal tissues from being used in patients. It opens the way for a range of new procedures using animal parts.

Children could be given pigs' heart valves that can grow with them, avoiding the need for repeated surgery; tissues such as ligaments, which have previously been difficult or impossible to repair, could be replaced; and eye patients could even be provided with new corneas.

By stripping the animal tissue of its cells with a series of chemical treatments, the scientists were left with a biological scaffold that provides a structure but no longer carries the factors that can trigger a recipient's body to reject a transplant. When the scaffold is surgically inserted into the patient's body, his or her own cells grow into it to create new tissue.

Because the patient's own cells fill the scaffold to create the tissue, scientists say there are no problems with rejection and the tissues are also able to regenerate, allowing them to last longer.

Before we go over the top with excitement, there is still the issue of potential viruses crossing the species barrier to consider. But perhaps this procedure is able to avoid that problem since some parts, like pig valves already in use in heart surgery, don't appear to carry that risk.

In any event, this story fits right in with two consistent themes here at SHS. First, some of the best biotechnology is not controversial, at least not from a human exceptionalism POV. Second, animal research offers tremendous human benefit. Let's continue to move forward with all dispatch.

Two Wesley J. Smith Blasts from the Past

I was doing a little research and came across an article of mine, "Depressed? Don't Go See Kevorkian," published in the New York Times all the way back in 1995. Anyone interested, can check it out here.

Then, I thought I would see whether the very first piece I ever published about assisted suicide--back when I was writing books with Ralph Nader--is available on-line. Whaddya know: It is.

In "The Whispers of Strangers," published in the June 28, 1993 Newsweek (back before my beard was gray), I described my reaction to the suicide of my friend Frances under the influence and instruction of proselytizing pro suicide literature put out by the Hemlock Society (now Compassion and Choices). I also analyzed the subversive nature of the euthanasia movement, of which Frances had been a part.

The mail I received from this article was nasty and voluminous (and this was before e-mail made it so easy to reach out and hate), convincing me (along with reading Rita Marker's Deadly Compassion), that something was going desperately wrong with our culture and that I needed to engage the issue of assisted suicide as a public policy advocate. My life changed forever.

I think these paragraphs from the piece--which were based not on research as much as projecting out and connecting dots--were and are certainly right:

Frances once told me that through her death she would be advancing a cause. It is a cause I now deeply despise. Not only did it take Frances, but it rejects all that I hold sacred and true: that the preservation of human life is our highest moral ideal; that a principal purpose of government is as a protector of life; that those who fight to stay alive in the face of terminal disease are powerful uplifters of the human experience.

Of greater concern to me is the moral trickledown effect that could result should society ever come to agree with Frances. Life is action and reaction, the proverbial pebble thrown into the pond. We don't get to the Brave New World in one giant leap. Rather, the descent to depravity is reached by small steps. First, suicide is promoted as a virtue. Vulnerable people like Frances become early casualties. Then follows mercy killing of the terminally ill. From there, it's a hop, skip and a jump to killing people who don't have a good "quality" of life, perhaps with the prospect of organ harvesting thrown in as a plum to society.

The journey from there to here has been a long, shocking, and often disheartening experience. But everything I have learned along the way has only served to reinforce my commitment to working alongside so many others to thwart the death agenda. Hopefully, we will succeed. But even if we ultimately fail, it will have been well worth the trying.

Of Course it is: True Story of Assisted Suicide to be Made into a Movie

The purveyors of popular culture never tire of pushing the euthanasia/assisted suicide agenda. We see it in movies, often made from pro-assisted suicide books, e.g., Million Dollar Baby, The Sea Within, One True Thing. Many of the top television dramas have had pro-assisted suicide themes, sometimes more than once, e.g. ER, Law and Order, Star Trek Voyager.

Then there was the fawning made-for-TV-movie made from Ruth Klooster's side of the story about the legal contest that ensued with her son Chip when he prevented her from taking her husband Gerald--who had Alzheimer's disease--to Jack Kevorkian. Chip, for whom I was a spokesperson, was rewarded for saving his father's life by being excoriated in press for "kidnapping" his father and for "imposing" his religious beliefs on his family. The biased reporters repeatedly wrote that Chip was somehow in it for the money, while Ruth was just a compassionate wife. Yet, it was Ruth who sold her story. After it was over, Chip, who was one of the most selfless people I have ever known, just went back to his life. (Gerald died several years later of natural causes.)

Now, in the UK, the story of a woman who went to Switzerland for an assisted suicide will be extolled. How do I know it won't be critical? Puhleeze! But here's a clue from the story:

Screenwriter Frank McGuinness said: "As a doctor Anne Turner lived and worked by her principles, and she chose to die by them. This film recognises that rare courage."

What a cliche`. You see, to the arteests, killing yourself in the face of illness is always the courageous enlightened course. Living fully until you die, well where's the uniqueness and specialness in that?

Never underestimate the power of "the movies" to change morality and public attitudes. This is part of the pro euthanasia propaganda war that has been pushing the culture of death for nearly two decades now.These showbiz types are like termites chomping away at the equality of life ethic. And it isn't going to stop any time soon.

Making Chimps Human

The zeal to demote humans into apes, and thereby destroy human exceptionalism, continues. The National Geographic has an extended article in the April 08 issue--which I saw in the dentist's office today--entitled "Almost Human." It is about some chimps--all given cute names in the article--some of which sharpen sticks with which to kill small monkeys called bush babies for consumption. The piece is interesting, and typical of the genre, overflowing with anthropomorphism. But this quote is why I bring the article up. From the story:

The taboo on anthropomorphizing seems odd, given that the closeness--evolutionary, genetic, and behavioral--between chimpanzees and humans is the very reason we study chimps so obsessively.

The answer is that when observation and reporting slips into anthropomorphism, it ceases to be science and becomes ideology.

National Geographic has a venerable history. But every time I look at it now, I see ideological agendas across a wide spectrum of issues. It remains a very interesting magazine, with great photos and interesting articles. But too often these days it ain't science reporting. It is politics. And the real shame is that so many people in the sciences and media either don't understand the difference--or don't care.

Huxley was Right: A Whole New Meaning to the Term "Making Babies"

The hubris of the Brave New Worlders--and their folly--is on abundant display in this story about a future in which 100-year-old women will give birth. From the story:

Woman will soon be able to give birth at the age of 100 due to advances in fertility treatment, scientists have predicted.

Within three decades, women of any age--from children to pensioners--could successfully conceive as infertility is effectively eradicated, it is claimed. Experts say advances in germ cell technology in which skin cells are used to create sperm and eggs and then combined to make human embryos will soon allow women to start a family at any time in their lives.

This pathetic need to control everything--including the natural rhythms of human existence--is sad and doomed to failure. For 100-year-olds to give birth will require bodies like those of 30-40 year-olds--the old transhumanist pipe dream.

And get how deeply the desire among brave new worlders for hyper mastery of all aspects of existence has advanced:

Biologist, Davor Solter, of the Institute of Biology in Singapore, said: "The goals will remain the same in that we'll be trying to give children to those who can't have them and remove children from those who don't want them. I think IVF has gone about as far as it can..."

Other steps forward that are envisaged in the next 30 years include gestation taking place in an artificial womb, low-cost IVF treatment being made available at £50 a cycle and more controversially the creation of embryos for experiments.

In the coming years, scientists also believe that people will be freezing cells from an early age to avoid diseases as they get older. Mr Solter added: "Today you can't experiment on human embryos because it's considered morally repugnant--and they are difficult to get. If embryos could be grown in culture like any other cell line, this latter problem would disappear. It would mean you could introduce any kind of genetic modification. The cell lines could be used to correct a mutation or to engineer an improvement, and used to make a mutant embryo for research purposes. They would become objects and would be used as objects."

Now, read the first chapter of Brave New World, which I wish there was room to quote in full, that includes this exchange:

But one of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage lay.

"My good boy!" The Director wheeled sharply round on him. "Can't you see? Can't you see?" He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. "Bokanovsky's Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!"

Major instruments of social stability. Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg. "Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!" The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. "You really know where you are. For the first time in history." He quoted the planetary motto. "Community, Identity, Stability." Grand words. "If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved."

Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.

Huxley sure understood human nature. But we don't have to passively allow our values to shift to the point that we view human life as mere potter's clay. We have the power of choice. We have the power to say no to the attempt, that even when it failed, would cause tremendous moral damage.

SHS Funnies

Natural selection in the metrosexual age.

Pro Incest Advocacy in the London Times! Proof I am Right About the New World A' Borning

In my recent Weekly Standard article about Spain's pending legal adoption of the Great Ape Project, I worried about the consequences that would follow from demoting human beings from the moral pinnacle. I wrote:

Should that come to pass, the ancien régime (as they view it) based on the sanctity and equality of human life would crumble. In its place would emerge a society sufficiently hedonistic to eschew moralizing about personal behavior (Singer has defended bestiality), but also humbled to the point where people would willingly sacrifice our own flourishing "for the animals" or to "save the planet" and utilitarian enough to countenance ridding ourselves of unwanted human ballast (Singer is the world's foremost proponent of infanticide). Thus, in the world that would rise from the ashes of human exceptionalism, moral value would be subjective and rights temporary, depending on the extent of each animal's individual capacities at the time of measuring.

I rarely comment about issues of personal behavior here, but now my allusion to hedonism as a coming primary societal value--being but one of the costs that flow from eschewing human exceptionalism--was reinforced by an article in the Times of London, in which a woman, using pretty frank (although not graphic) language, defended incest with her brother and announced that she not only does not feel guilty, but has has fond memories of the relationship.

I won't quote it here, but I think the issue isn't whether the woman bedded her brother. We all know that such events happen. It is that the Times editors thought it was worth publishing! I mean this isn't Penthouse, after all. The Times is one of the world's premier publications, a newspaper that is about as mainstream as mainstream gets. Publishing the column there has the effect of granting society's respectability to voluntary incest! Good grief.

Jesse Ramirez: Working Out Instead of Dead

I have heard from the Jesse Ramirez family--and the news is good. Readers of SHS may recall that Ramirez was badly injured in an auto accident and quickly pronounced in a PVS. His wife wanted his feeding tube pulled, but this was resisted by his family. Litigation ensued, and--he woke up. Later, when I was in Phoenix speaking, he and his family came to meet me. It was a real thrill to shake Jesse's hand.

This is the latest news from Jesse's sister, which I share in an abridged and slightly edited form with SHSers with her kind permission:

Just a brief update since it's been just over a year when we experienced our hasty ordeal in the fight for Jesse's life. Since you last spoke and saw Jesse, he has made such a miraculous recovery! He walks semi without the gait walk, but is now running and really working out at the gym 3 times a week for 3&1/2 hours. WOW, considering a year ago he was said to have been in a vegetative state.

Why? He was not a vegetable literally speaking at all. He was a human with a life and deserved his dignity. What he has not experienced is his eye sight. He can see to some degree and he continues to get some eye sight back daily...[A]nd yet the medical staff and facility participated and agreed on what could of happened- days away to his door of death all by the means of starvation and dehydration and nothing related to the accident that could have killed him.

He wanted to Thank You for all your support on his case...Thank God for A D F [Alliance Defense Fund] they were Angels sent from up above. Again, Thank You for sharing Jesse's story to many others/organization speeches, this should inspire them to know that our family just didn't [stay] quiet there, the processing of saving brother's life, we took still another step ["Jesse's Law"] by making it clear that no one has that authority to remove hydration and nutrition from someone who is incapacitated...Our family believes Jesse was that statistic of being misdiagnosed. God Bless

This is the thing: How ready we have become generally to write people like Jesse off. How many have died as a consequence will never be known. But before we decide the time has come for "death with dignity," let us recall the lessons of Jesse, Haleigh Poutre, and Seema Sood: When in doubt, choose life.

Glad She Wasn't Euthanized

This is a story that should receive much attention. Two years ago a woman with disabilities in India asked to be euthanized. But now, she is glad she is alive. From the story:

Two years back Seema Sood longed for death and had even petitioned the President of India for euthanasia. But hope triumphed over despair and today, walking with difficulty, but walking nonetheless, after a total knee replacement surgery, the Bits Pilani gold medallist is ready to take on life once again. The turnaround has been both spectacular and miraculous for the 37-year-old who lost all movement of her limbs for 15 harrowing years after a crippling attack of rheumatoid arthritis. The disillusionment was so intense that she wanted permission for mercy killing.

But that was then. "I regret the letter to the President," she said, still frail and moving in tiny steps with the help of a walker. "Everything was so dark for me earlier, but I am excited about my mobility now and I am confident I will improve."

It is important to note that if she had received her wish, as would be the case should euthanasia become deemed just another "medical treatment," she wouldn't have lived to change her mind. And while we were patting ourselves on the back about our compassion and respect for choices, we would be none the wiser that our tacit agreement that her life was only good for ending actually stole from her what would have been the rest of her life.

I would also add that people who become disabled often become despondent. But they also often don't stay despondent: Regardless of whether they obtain increased mobility, within several years their rates of depression are the same as the rest of the population. But the message they receive from society too often is that being dead is better than being disabled--as a recent poll of Americans illustrated.

This is just one reason why disability rights groups are adamantly opposed to legalizing assisted suicide. In the end, among other anti-human equality values, it validates that destructive meme.

Check Out the Debate on Animal Research

I was asked by Opposing Views, a new Web site dedicated to on-line civil debate about contentious issues, to argue against PETA and PCRM about the need to use animals in research. I agreed. If you are interested, here is the link. You may have to register and once you do, comments are allowed.

The site gets into all kinds of issues, some covered here at SHS, and others, not. Check it out.

Atkins Was Right

Oh, how the animal rights ideologues hated him. By him, I mean Dr. Robert Atkins, whose famous "Atkins Diet" has helped so many people lose weight through a low carbohydrate diet--meaning high on meat and other animal products. And that is all that mattered to them, to the point that animal rights front groups like Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine--whose membership is actually less than 5% doctors--even went so far as to leak private medical records and scurrilously and mendaciously try to convince the public that he was obese after Atkins died from the effects of a fall on an icy sidewalk. His elevated weight was actually caused by water buildup during a coma.

Oh, they like to pretend in opposing Atkins that their focus is human health, but it is and was always about the animals. Truth, as is too often the case with animal rights activists, simply takes a back seat to the agenda.

Well, it's going to be harder for them to pretend that the Atkins diet is dangerous now, with a new study--and it's not the first one--showing that low carb diets are not only effective for losing weight, but can reduce cholesterol too. From the story:

The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.

A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite...Average weight loss for those in the low-carb group was 10.3 pounds after two years. Those in the Mediterranean diet lost 10 pounds, and those on the low-fat regimen dropped 6.5.

More surprising were the measures of cholesterol. Critics have long acknowledged that an Atkins-style diet could help people lose weight but feared that over the long term, it may drive up cholesterol because it allows more fat. But the low-carb approach seemed to trigger the most improvement in several cholesterol measures, including the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, the "good" cholesterol.

That is precisely what Atkins said would happen, claiming that cholesterol was primarily a matter of processed food's reaction on the pancreas. That was certainly my experience when I went on Atkins after turning fifty. In 7 months I went from 242 pounds to 202, and my cholesterol numbers dropped significantly. I gained some of that back, but only because I went back to the eating habits that caused me to gain the weight in the first place.

(As an aside: Weight gain is almost always caused by gluttony. Most commercial diet plans push that particular vice--including Atkins--assuring the overweight that they can still eat all the goodies they want, or in Atkins case, as much as they want. That approach only reinforces the behavior that caused the dieter to be fat in the first place. Then, when the diet is over, people gain the weight back.)

My point here is not to tout Atkins, but to illustrate how his animal rights detractors misled the public about the safety of the diet and the late doctor's own health--solely because they hated Atkins passionately because he boosted the eating of meat, cheese, butter, and other animal products.

SHS Funnies

Childhood sure has changed since I was a kid.

Bunny Letter Opener

Watch in horror as a cruelly enslaved rabbit is forced to open a letter by her lazy master.

Techical Issues Update

Regular readers will have noticed that there were no new posts here at SHS for about a week. That wasn't because I had nothing to say. (That will be the day!) Rather, and I won't use the bad words that are in my mind, Blogger would not upload to my FTP.

It got so bad, and I became so frustrated, I started Secondhand Smoke II. If this crashes again, I will be over there for the duration of the outage: http://www.wesleyjsmith.blogspot.com/.

It appears the problems have resolved (or you would not be reading this). However, this isn't the first time I have experienced these difficulties. So, I am planning some changes here. They will take awhile to effectuate. More when the time comes.

In the meantime, I apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your reading and participation in Secondhand Smoke.

Pediatric Nursing Article's Nonjudgmentalism About Infanticide

Terminal Non Judgmentalism Alert: An important professional journal aimed at pediatric nurses has discussed killing sick and profoundly disabled patients with studied neutrality.

This is precisely how the Culture of Death permeates our society. A bioethical practice once almost universally condemned is promoted at the fringes. The initial response is resistance. But soon, the non judgmentalism arrives, usually in professional journals and among "progressive" pundits, asserting that these issues are "complex," or "difficult," or "gray," or "complicated." Once this non judgmentalism softens the ground, the issue shifts to one of mere "choice" (as with dehydration of PVS patients), and finally the decision of bioethicists (as in Futile Care Theory).

"The Groningen Protocol: What Is It, How Do the Dutch Use It, and Do We Use It Here?," (Pediatric Nursing/May-June 2008/Vol. 34/No. 30) by Anita Catlin and Renee Novakovich, is a case in point. (The Groningen Protocol is an infanticide "guideline" used in the Netherlands, discussed often here at SHS.) The article does a very good job of dispassionately describing infanticide practices in the Netherlands and Belgium, and contrasts it with American practices of palliative support, noting that euthanasia is unethical for nurses to participate in at the present time. It also gives both sides of the arguments about the Protocol, with yours truly the quoted opponent.

That is flattering, but the authors' rigorous objectivity about a matter that should be ipso facto condemned, is, to me, very worrying. From the article's bland conclusion (no link available):

Issues related to suffering infants, their families, and the nurses and doctors who care for them have been debated for many years. These issues have been examined medically(Carter & Levetown, 2004), ethically (Cassell, 2004), morally(Romesberg, 2003), and legally (Hurst, 2005). In the U.S.,with the desire for beneficence (doing good), the lives of extremely premature infants are frequently supported at the estimated cost of nearly one million dollars per hospitalization. The principles of social justice (care for all children) and non-maleficence (allowing no harm) are seen as less important. However, in countries with socialized medicine, the principles of social justice and non-maleficence (avoiding doing “good,” which causes suffering) have been seen as more important. As long as the U.S. health care system supports the use of extensive technology for infants with life-limiting conditions and provides reimbursement for extremely long hospital stays, the dilemma over what some might consider miracles and others view as suffering will continue

Beware! What we don't condemn, what we claim to be mere "dilemmas," we eventually are urged to allow. Infanticide is moving into the mainstream of bioethics and the medical intelligentsia.

(Can provide copy for those who e-mail me privately.)

Some Truths About PETA and HSUS

My friend David Martosko--who is the driving force behind the industry sponsored Center for Consumer Freedom--has a piece in today's Seattle Post Intelligencer about the need to spend Leona Helmsley's bequest to dogs on their welfare rather than animal rights proselytizing. Along the way, he makes some pithy points about two of the most prominent animal rightist organizations that the media generally ignore or about which reporters are woefully unaware. From his column:

So far, two familiar national animal rights groups, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States have announced their intentions to claim big slices of the $8 billion bounty. But neither one has the track record to handle such a responsibility.

Look at how PETA has spent the money it already has: The group raised more than $30 million last year, and found adoptive homes for 17 animals. Just 17. Meanwhile, it killed 1,815 dogs and cats--slightly more than the number of naked interns it sent out to "save" cows, chickens, and minks.

And although much of the public (and press) consider HSUS to be an actual "humane society," its record isn't any better. The group's name hides its lack of affiliation with any hands-on pet shelter anywhere in America. Of the $85-plus million HSUS spent in 2006, it gave only 4.2 percent to pet shelters.

My worry is that the term "animal rights" has become a catch-all term for animal welfare and animal protection, and thus in handing out the cash, a trustee or judge might not understand crucial distinctions. But animal rights and animal welfare are completely different concepts, the former being an ideology that ultimately seeks to end all domestication of animals, and the latter being in keeping with human exceptionalism to increase our efforts to treat animals humanely.

In my research for my upcoming book, PETA cames across as distinctly anti-human and profoundly mendacious. HSUS seems motivated by animal rights ideology but circumspectly spends its vast fortune biting at animal industries around the edges without actually promoting liberationist ideology.

But remember, money is fungible. If either organization gets their hands on the Helmsey fortune, woe betide animal industries that will be assaulted with increased litigation, propaganda, and agitation.

GP Gives Suicidal Patient Drugs for Overdose

A GP in the UK is accused of prescribing a suicidal elderly patient an overdose knowing that she wanted to die so as to not be a burden on her family. He's in the soup. From the story:

Dr Iain Kerr appeared before a General Medical Council (GMC) hearing in Manchester accused of prescribing sodium amytal sleeping tablets to the 87-year-old, known as Patient A, against official guidance. She later died of an overdose of three other drugs, including a dose of temazepam which the hearing was told he also gave her.

The woman had talked of taking her own life so as not to be a burden on her family, the GMC heard.

I am glad the authorities are pursuing the case, but if we pass assisted suicide legalization bills, I don't see how this very scenario can long be resisted generally. After all, if we have the right to choose the time, manner, and place of death with a doctor's help, why not also the reason?

Remember always: Terminal illness is not what assisted suicide is all about. That is the pretext, the bait if you will, to get people to accept the principle. The real goal--as Dutch doctors have shown by providing how-to-commit-suicide instructions for patients who don't legally qualify for active euthanasia--is death on demand.

Spain Apes the Declaration of Independence

I have written about Spain's plan to pass the Great Ape Project (GAP) here at SHS previously. Now, I have a more extended piece on the issue in the current Weekly Standard on. From the article:

But why grant apes rights? After all, if the Spanish parliament deems these animals insufficiently protected, it can enact more stringent protections, as other countries have. But improving the treatment of apes--of which there are few in Spain--is not really the game that is afoot. Rather, as Pozas chortled after the environment committee of the Spanish parliament passed the resolutions committing Spain to the Great Ape Project, this precedent will be the "spear point" that breaks the "species barrier."

And why break the species barrier? Why, to destroy the unique status of man and thus initiate a wholesale transformation of Western civilization.

And to what will breaking the spine of human exceptionalism lead? I supply the answer:

Should that come to pass, the ancien régime (as they view it) based on the sanctity and equality of human life would crumble. In its place would emerge a society sufficiently hedonistic to eschew moralizing about personal behavior (Singer has defended bestiality), but also humbled to the point where people would willingly sacrifice our own flourishing "for the animals" or to "save the planet" and utilitarian enough to countenance ridding ourselves of unwanted human ballast (Singer is the world's foremost proponent of infanticide). Thus, in the world that would rise from the ashes of human exceptionalism, moral value would be subjective and rights temporary, depending on the extent of each animal's individual capacities at the time of measuring.

I conclude that attempting to knock ourselves "off the pedestal of exceptionalism" is terribly misguided:

The way we act is based substantially on what kind of being we perceive ourselves to be. Thus, if we truly want to make this a better and more humane world, the answer is not to think of ourselves as inhabiting the same moral plane as animals--none of which can even begin to comprehend rights. Rather, it is to embrace the unique importance of being human.

After all, if not our humanity, what gives rise to our duty to treat animals properly and to act toward each other in accordance with what is--the Great Ape Project notwithstanding--our exclusive membership in a community of equals?

I hope you'll read the whole thing. Whether one agrees or disagrees with my perspective, I don't think there is any gainsaying my analysis.

The Justice Department's Failures on Human Slavery

My colleague at the Discovery Institute, John R. Miller, has a piece in today's New York Times on slavery. Slavery is an important matter impacting human exceptionalism that I have covered here at SHS, but not nearly enough. Thank goodness for Miller-whose work at the State Department on this issue was unremitting, and who continues his commitment in a new project being developed at the DI (of which I am a part) called the Program for Human Rights and Bioethics. He writes:

From 2002 to 2006, I led the State Department's efforts to monitor and combat human trafficking. I felt my job was to nurture a 21st-century abolitionist movement with the United States at the lead. At times, my work was disparaged by some embassies and regional bureaus that didn't want their host countries to be criticized. I didn't win every battle, but the White House always made it clear that the president supported my work and thought it was important.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the Justice Department started a campaign against a new bill that would strengthen the government's anti-human trafficking efforts. In a 13-page letter last year, the department blasted almost every provision in the new bill that would reasonably expand American anti-slavery efforts.

What? Wait, there's more:

Should the State Department’s annual report on trafficking, which grades governments on how well they are combating modern slavery, consider whether governments put traffickers in jail? The Justice Department says no. Should the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services Departments streamline their efforts to help foreign trafficking victims get visas and care? No. Should the Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, State and Justice Departments pool their data on human trafficking to help devise strategies to prevent it? Amazingly, no.

In its letter, the Justice Department even opposes authorizing the president to create new awards for the international groups that are leading the struggle for abolition. It also doesn't want the State Department to be required to give the names of American anti-trafficking phone lines to visa applicants at American consulates overseas. It doesn't want a citizen task force to help develop an information pamphlet for victims.

Why on earth?

A culture clash, I suspect, is the real reason for the Justice Department's opposition. This isn't the usual culture clash of right and left, religious and secular. In this case, the feminist, religious and secular groups that help sex-trafficking survivors are on one side. And on the other are the department's lawyers (most of them male), the Erotic Service Providers Union and the American Civil Liberties Union--this side believes that vast numbers of women engage in prostitution as a "profession," by choice.

And to think I was once a "card carrying member" of the ACLU (as they say).

Miller calls on President Bush to intervene. Let us hope the president listens.

Bad News for Vegans

I don't put much stock in studies such as this, but since animal rights activists are ever about the purported unhealthful nature of meat, it may be that tofu increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease. From the story:

Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests. The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java. The researchers found high tofu consumption--at least once a day--was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s. The Loughborough University-led study features in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. Soy products are a major alternative protein source to meat for many people in the developing world...

Soy products are rich in micronutrients called phytoestrogens, which mimic the impact of the female sex hormone oestrogen. There is some evidence that they may protect the brains of younger and middle-aged people from damage--but their effect on the ageing brain is less clear. The latest study suggests phytoestrogens --in high quantity--may actually heighten the risk of dementia.

Don't expect this study to be posted on PETA's Web site.

Why the Scientocracy Won't Work

Regular readers of SHS know that I am critical of the trend to let "the scientists" decide what is ethical and what our public policies should be. That not only subverts science by mutating it into an ideology or social movement rather than a method (scientism), but is nuts because scientific "facts" often change at breakneck speed.

Example: A new report from Australian astronomers warning of global cooling. From the story:

The study's lead author, Ian Wilson, explains further, "[The paper] supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years."

According to Wilson, the result is a strong, rapid pulse of global cooling, "On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by 1 - 2 C."

A 2 C drop would be twice as large as all the warming the earth has experienced since the start of the industrial era, and would be significant enough to impact global agriculture output.

Screenwriter William Goldman once famously said about Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything." To some (obviously, not literal) degree, that is--and should be--true about science because otherwise new and novel theories will never be explored. Still, this story that utterly pierces the global warming meme is a caveat against confusing the current scientific consensuses, which are always subject to change, with truth.

NHS Meltdown: "Converyor Belt Childbirths"

Sigh: The NHS continues to collapse and I continue to report--but even I don't post all the stories, striving as I do to keep SHS varied and interesting. But this can't be overlooked: The NHS has been accused of "conveyor belt" childbirths. From the story:

Women are giving birth on a virtual conveyor belt because maternity wards are so overcrowded and understaffed, a damning report has revealed. The Healthcare Commission report--the most detailed ever undertaken--has exposed a grim picture of women giving birth in units where there are not enough toilets or showers and women are rushed through so fast that more than one mother gives birth in each bed every day.

Consultants are not present on the wards enough of the time, midwives and doctors do not get on with each other and severe staff shortages mean women are left alone during the birth, the report found. The investigation into every aspect of antenatal, labour, birth and postnatal care, was prompted after high death rates among new mothers were found in successive hospitals.

Good grief.

Haleigh Poutre to Go to School and be Adopted

The Boston Globe is reporting how far Haleigh Poutre has progressed since bioethicists, social workers, and courts decided to dehydrate her to death. From the story:

Haleigh, now 14, has stayed for more than two years at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton, where she is described as a friendly child who routinely smiles and waves at staff. Haleigh can speak some words and attends a day school in a wheelchair. A juvenile court judge has declared that Haleigh is functioning at a level "too high" for placement in a nursing home, and she is likely to go into an adoptive home with a personal assistant or a group home.

It is so typical that the reporter, who did such a thorough job of exposing how Haleigh was failed by those who should have protected her when she was being abused, barely scratched the issue of the dehydration order.

Here is the key question: Will anyone learn the lesson of this case?

Answer: Nope. Legislation is pending in MA requiring second opinions in such cases, but at the time the order was made, the second pair of eyes would probably also have found her to be unresponsive, and gone along with the dehydration.

It isn't the responsiveness that matters, it is the humanity of the patient. But accepting this view gets in the way of too many agendas.

Dehydration of a Conscious Patient in Florida Reported as No Big Deal by St. Petersburg Times

For more than ten years I have been telling anyone who will listen that unquestionably conscious cognitively disabled patients are being denied sustenance in every state in this country--so long as no family member objects (and eventually, if futile care theory takes hold, it will be even if they do). Here's the latest proof: A young man was catastrophically injured by a drug overdose. For years his parents kept vigil, and then decided to transfer him to the hospice in which Terri Schiavo died, which removed his feeding tube. But he wasn't unconscious. From the story:

His brain was severely damaged, and he never spoke again. If his mother pulled his chin, he could mouth "Mama." If she leaned close, he could kiss her. That "broke my heart," Sue, 53, said.

For nearly three years, his mother and father did nothing but "work, sleep and spend time with Bradley," she said. There was a chance his condition would improve. But it didn't. Infections kept landing him in a hospital. Finally, his family transferred him to the Hospice of Florida Suncoast, where Terri Schiavo died.

They removed his feeding tube, and his mother lay in bed beside him. He died July 2.

It is my understanding that a patient is supposed to be PVS in Florida before a tube can be removed. But never mind. That law isn't really designed to protect, but give false assurance.

I think the bigger story here is the blase`, matter-of-fact reporting about the matter by the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg Times--which exhibited profound, nay, nasty, bias against the Schindlers during the Schiavio debacle. Can you imagine the paper's reaction had a dog or a horse been denied sustenance?

This is the truth: Once we decided that people who are diagnosed as persistently unconscious could have sustenance denied based on quality of life, then we stripped all profoundly cognitively disabled people from moral equality. The wall was breached allowing utilitarian bioethical values to come pouring in. Now, virtually anyone who needs a feeding tube and can't make their own decisions--conscious or not--can and are being denied food and water. What a testimony about the state of the times in which we live.