Physician's Ordeal Leads to a Realization

For years I've heard friends describe experiences of being caught in a web of excessive and unnecessary medical testing. Their doctors ordered test Z to investigate a seemingly incidental finding on test Y, which had come about because of a borderline abnormality on test X. I often wondered why test X was done in the first place. As a primary care physician, I would have treated them for the likely diagnosis and done diagnostic tests -- especially a series of diagnostic tests -- only if they didn't respond as expected. Washington Post

Life and death: Hospital ethics panels help families decide

An infant is born with no functioning brain. A teen is ravaged in a car wreck. A 90-year-old with dementia and pneumonia lies unconscious in intensive care. Medical and moral decisions must be made. But there's no written directive for guidance. Family and physicians disagree. What now? Every day, in a hospital somewhere in the USA, a group of strangers — the hospital ethics committee — is called in to help people make the choices of a lifetime. USA Today

Tufts' stem cell breakthrough

Tufts researcher Jonathan Garlick and his team of scientists generated multi-dimensional tissue with human embryonic stem cells. School of Dental Medicine Professor Jonathan Garlick succeeded earlier this year in growing three-dimensional tissues from human embryonic stem cells, making him and his team of scientists the first to achieve the pioneering research for the field. Tufts Daily

Reflection on Galatians 6:1-2

Restoring those who are broken from sexual sin and who desire to live life differently -- a life focused on Christ -- is a burden the church must share. What an awesome opportunity for a spiritually mature woman to come alongside a single mom as a mentor and friend: a regular time together praying and studying God's Word will help her mature in her walk with the Lord; allowing her opportunity to observe life as you live it; introducing her to a small group or class in the church where she and her baby are welcomed . . . these are just a few examples of things the body of Christ can do. 40 Days for Life

What parents need to know about sex education

If you think sex education is still about the birds and the bees, you're wrong. And it's not about science either. If you're a parent with children in the public school system, you need to know what's really going on. In You're Teaching My Child What? Dr. Miriam Grossman rips back the curtain on sex education today, exposing a sordid truth. Instead of teaching our children the facts of life, sex educators are lying to them, ignoring medical fact in favor of politicized, and dangerous, propaganda that could ruin your child's life forever. eBookstore

Twice-Born Macie

Technology has no morals. Things are not evil in and of themselves (Col. 2:20–23). What people do with the things of this creation is the determining factor. This is certainly true with power (Matt. 10:25; 2 Cor. 1:24) and wealth (1 Tim. 3:3; 6:10; Heb. 13:5). Technological devices do not come with morality tags attached specifying how they should be used. Two men trained as physicians can use their skills to save a life or end a life. The American Vision

Shared via AddThis

Chinese Parents Allege Government Officials Coerced, Forced Adoptions

Some Chinese parents are coming forward with claims that their infant daughters were forcibly taken for foreign adoption. About 80,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad since the early 1990s, with the majority going to U.S. families. The "conventional wisdom" is that the infants, mostly girls, were abandoned by their parents because of China's one-child policy and a cultural preference for boys. Although this is likely true for tens of thousands of the adoptions, some Chinese say that government officials took their children by coercion, fraud or kidnapping to collect money from orphanages. Some have said they were beaten, threatened or tricked into relinquishing their parental rights. Medical News Today

Order now for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

You'll be getting a sample of our 2010 Sanctity of Human Life Sunday bulletin insert soon (see picture at right) -- presuming we have your church's mailing address -- but you can download the order form from our web site now.

October is National Down Syndrome Awareness Month!

It's a great time to raise awareness, acceptance, and understanding about people who live with this disability. Read about one family's "unexpected blessings" with their precious daughter Ava (longer version here).

Adopt a Liberal

Liberty Counsel invites you to participate in a vital new prayer program solidly built upon St. Paul's admonition to pray for our national leaders from 1 Timothy 2:1-3. Here's how it works: Pick one or more of the liberals from the list posted online, or choose your own liberal(s) to adopt. Pray earnestly and intensely for them! Pray that the Lord would move upon them and cause them to be the kind of leaders who will encourage others to lead "a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence." We encourage you to seek the Lord's guidance on how to pray for your liberal(s), always allowing Him to temper your prayer with His love and mercy.

Christians at the clinic

Melissa in Charlotte, North Carolina, found out that abortion can even tempt people of faith. At the 40 Days for Life vigil, she met a woman who was at the clinic to schedule an abortion. "She broke down crying and revealed that she was a Christian, who had fallen into sin," Melissa said. The child's father, a married leader in her church, was pressuring her to have an abortion. "She knew it was wrong, but she didn't know what to do." She had spoken to her pastor, but had not received any definitive counsel. Still, it was obvious the woman knew the truth; her car had a "let God have his way" sticker and the bible was sitting on the passenger seat. "We hugged her and listened to her as she poured her heart out and wept on our shoulder. After baring her soul," Melissa said, "she chose life!" 40 Days for Life

Editor: For additional perspective on the phenomenon of Christians at abortion clinics, read this edition of Life Matters from Baptists for Life.

Mislabeled and unaccounted for embryos prompt lawsuit against US fertility clinic

A US fertility clinic faces legal action following the results of an independent audit which showed that some embryos stored there had been mislabelled and others were destroyed or unaccounted for. Ochsner Hospital, New Orleans, has admitted mishandling frozen embryos and that some embryos were wrongly destroyed, although deliberate mishandling has been denied. Other embryos are simply 'missing' and the hospital said that its fertility department cannot determine their whereabouts. BioNews

Update on health care reform

On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee voted 10-13 to defeat the Hatch Amendment. It would have explicitly prohibited federal funding and coverage of abortions. The AUL legal team has documented for you the facts behind their myth that the Hyde Amendment would adequately prevent federal funding and coverage of abortion in health care reform. At this crucial stage, the Congressional leadership is going to be negotiating backroom deals with your legislators. Please tell your congressman and senator you will only accept health care reform that includes an explicit prohibition on federal funding and coverage of abortion, much like the pro-life Stupak-Pitts and Hatch amendments that were defeated in Committees. AUL

Get to Know: The National Embryo Donation Center

The National Embryo Donation Center is a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect the lives and dignity of human embryos by promoting, facilitating and educating about embryo donation and adoption.

Churches Ask Senate for Abortion Funds

A coalition of mainline Protestant churches have authored a letter to members of Congress asking them to make certain the health care bills they are considering contain taxpayer funding for abortions. Under the umbrella of the Religious Institute, the church denominations and more than 1,100 pastors and church staff from the denominations endorsed the letter. The denominations endorsing the letter include the American Baptist Churches, Church of the Brethren, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Unitarian Universalist Association, and United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, and others. LifeNews

A Day in the Life of a Pregnancy Care Center

What's it like inside a PCC? What goes on behind the scenes? Read Baptists for Life's most recent issue of Life Matters and find out how each day carries potential for great joy and great loss, and every encounter with a client brings a unique challenge. Then download it, copy it, and distribute in your church bulletin.

Cooling Down the Cassandras

Warnings about cataclysmic warming increase in stridency as evidence of warming becomes more elusive. JWR

Post-human Earth: How the planet will recover from us

Whether our species would survive is hard to predict, but what of the fate of the Earth itself? It is often said that when we talk about "saving the planet" we are really talking about saving ourselves: the planet will be just fine without us. But would it? New Scientist

Events in Congress reveal abortion funding is in health care plans

The Senate Finance Committee Wednesday continued a series of meetings to amend the "America's Healthy Future Act," a health care restructuring bill proposed by Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). The bill has a number of major abortion-related problems. Most of today's abortion-related debate in the committee focused on a proposed new program that would use tax money to help purchase private health insurance for about 19 million Americans. The bill specifically authorizes the use of these federal funds to pay premiums on private plans that cover elective abortions -- a departure from longstanding federal policy. NRLC

Hope for the sanctity of human life

“Planned Parenthood had financial resources to deal with every legal and political challenge imaginable,” says Care Net President Melinda Delahoyde. “But the irony is that their electoral victory last November pushed Care Net pregnancy centers to the front lines of the fight for life. Now, they have to compete for women’s hearts on our terms. To stop abortion, we offer grace, compassion, and unconditional support — reaching one woman at a time, saving one life at a time. When your empire is built on the slaughter of innocent life, you cannot compete in those arenas. Planned Parenthood can only hope our message doesn’t reach too many of their clients.” Care Net

Antiabortion black ministers to endorse Obama's healthcare plan

For weeks, President Obama has tried to combat claims that his healthcare overhaul would mean tax dollars going toward abortions, calling the assertion a "myth." Today, his argument may gain some strength: A group of black church leaders who oppose abortion is set to endorse the president's health plan. LA Times

NIH issues new stem cell research guidelines

The National Institutes of Health released draft guidelines that permit federal funding for research on stem cells from human embryos set to be discarded by fertility clinics. Scientific American

Abortion Fight Complicates Debate on Health Care

As if it were not complicated enough, the debate over health care in Congress is becoming a battlefield in the fight over abortion. NY Times

Shared via AddThis

Why I am Pro-Life

Why am I personally pro-life? There are several reasons in several areas. I will freely admit most of them are firmly set in my faith. With the Bible as my guide I see staunchly defending life at all stages is the only way to go. Carolyn Cavanaugh's blog

7 billion and counting

Overpopulation is often singled out as the planet's root problem. If only it were that simple. Leading thinkers on population can't agree on what the answers – or even the questions – are. New Scientist