Reproductive Technologies and the Risk of Birth Defects

Reproductive Technologies and the Risk of Birth Defects — NEJM: Although the large majority of births resulting from assisted conception were free of birth defects, treatment with assisted reproductive technology was associated with an increased risk of birth defects, including cerebral palsy, as compared with spontaneous conception. In the case of ICSI, but not IVF, the increased risk of birth defects persisted after adjustment for maternal age and several other risk factors. Although we cannot rule out the possibility that other patient factors contribute to or explain the observed associations, our findings can help provide guidance in counseling patients who are considering treatment for infertility.

Translation please! Here are a couple articles that put the above in plain English:
Risk of major birth defects in fertility babies almost double, research finds
In vitro fertilization off the hook for causing birth defects
Related: 
Fertility treatment only partly responsible for increase in birth defects

Couple has children from different racial backgrounds following alleged IVF mix-up

First study of chromosome test suggests increase in IVF success - success by destroying some embryos

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A long shadow: Nazi doctors, moral vulnerability and contemporary medical culture

A long shadow: Nazi doctors, moral vulnerability and contemporary medical culture -- Colaianni -- Journal of Medical Ethics: More than 7% of all German physicians became members of the Nazi SS during World War II, compared with less than 1% of the general population. In so doing, these doctors willingly participated in genocide, something that should have been antithetical to the values of their chosen profession. The participation of physicians in torture and murder both before and after World War II is a disturbing legacy seldom discussed in medical school, and underrecognised in contemporary medicine. Is there something inherent in being a physician that promotes a transition from healer to murderer? With this historical background in mind, the author, a medical student, defines and reflects upon moral vulnerabilities still endemic to contemporary medical culture.

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Amnesty International Blasts New Chen Deal, "Ignores His Family"

Amnesty International Blasts New Chen Deal, "Ignores His Family" | LifeNews.com: Amnesty International is condemning a new deal the United States is attempting to arrange with China to allow Chen Guangcheng, the forced abortion opponent, to come to the United States to study as a visiting student.Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, says China has allowed Chen to submit the application and could travel to the United States with his wife and children.

But the human rights watchdog group says the deal ignores the plight of Chen’s extended family, which has already faced persecution in the form of arrests and beatings following Chen’s escape from home confinement. AI says the pledge by China that it will allow Chen Guangcheng to go abroad with his family so he can study seems empty as long as the Chinese state keeps the activist’s wider family in detention and retaliates against his supporters.

Editor: Another irony -- Amnesty International ignores the very cause for which Chen has fought and suffered: forced abortion. Legalized abortion is one of their top five priorities.


Related: Planned Parenthood says it opposes ‘forced abortion’ but is tied to China’s one-child policy
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Abortion Activist: Religious Groups Have No Conscience Rights

Abortion Activist: Religious Groups Have No Conscience Rights | LifeNews.com: Some advocates of the HHS so-called “preventive services” mandate assert, “conscience rights belong to individuals, not institutions.”

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Deal to Allow Chen Guangcheng to “study abroad” faces many obstacles

Deal to Allow Chen Guangcheng to “study abroad” faces many obstacles and unanswered questions | NRL News Today: The Washington Post reported that “the Chinese government had promised to quickly process his paperwork so he can leave the country for the United States,” but in the very next paragraph made the key point that Chen and U.S. officials were “in the same position they have been stuck in for days: relying on the word of the Chinese government.”

Related:
Melinda Liu on the true story of a dissident’s life–and daring escape
Chen Guangcheng Fears Authorities Will Persecute Relatives He Leaves Behind
ABC, NBC All But Ignore Chinese Dissident's Crusade Against Forced Abortions
One-child policy is China’s ‘nuclear issue’, says Congressman

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More College-Educated Women Having Children

More College-Educated Women Having Children: An increasing number of college-educated American women in their late 30s and 40s are having children, a new study shows. The findings may represent a turnaround from previous decades, when the trend was for college-educated women to have fewer children, the researchers noted.

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BREAKING: Chen allowed to fly to U.S., report says

BREAKING: Chen allowed to fly to U.S., report says | LifeSiteNews.com: A deal has been brokered to allow Chen Guangcheng and his family to leave China to take up a fellowship at an America university, the Epoch Times reported Friday afternoon. The Times says U.S. State Department officials disclosed the agreement Friday morning.

Chen’s wife and children, whom Beijing officials had threatened to return to oppression in their home village if Chen did not leave his refuge at the U.S. Embassy earlier this week, will also be allowed to leave the Communist country with him.

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A University Professor’s Response to Sanctity of Life and Disability

Lausanne Global Conversation:  A response to Joni Eareckson Tada’s "Sanctity of Life and Disability."

Tyranny consists in the universal desire to dominate beyond one’s own station. . . . Our freedom becomes tyrannical when it is removed from the Christian tradition, for it is the tradition which gave us our freedom in the first place. We have no notion of freedom apart from this tradition. We can’t pick and choose at will because it is not our place to do so. For when we do, we become tyrants, picking and choosing who may live and who must die!

There is nothing wrong with the desire to have a child. . .  The problem is the message it sends about persons affected by disability. They are better not to exist at all. Nothing subverts a pro-life ethic more than such a pursuit.

Biola's 'Theology of Disability and Suffering' Course

Biola First to Offer 'Theology of Disability and Suffering' Course « News & Events « Biola University: Discovering the theology of suffering and disability in the midst of following a "good" God is a difficult thing for many Christians. Biola University was the first university to offer a course at the undergraduate level, not only answering this hard question, but also exploring the theology behind suffering and disability.

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Now is the Time to Focus Attention on China’s War on Baby Girls

China’s War on Baby Girls - Jing Zhang - National Review Online: Chen Guangcheng's daring escape has now triggered renewed attacks on organizations engaged in helping Chinese women keep and feed their infants. Since April 28, the Family Planning Commission of Susong County in China’s Anhui province has been harassing families of pregnant women and infants who have received aid from a charity that helps rural families raise infant girls. Often the girl is a second child, in violation of China’s one-child policy.

The offending charity is the Rural Chinese Infant Assistance Program, which has grown in response to the severe gender imbalance among newborns.

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Chen Guangcheng's Rescuer Released from Detention

Chen Guangcheng's Rescuer Released from Detention - Christian Newswire: He Peirong, known as Pearl, has been released from detention and has been interviewed by the BBC. Pearl has become known as the rescuer of blind activist Chen Guangcheng, having driven the car that brought him from Dongshigu village to Beijing.

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The healthy baby doctors said should have been aborted

Daily Mail: When Leeann Phelan was told her unborn baby had an incurable brain abnormality, she faced an agonising decision. Doctors said he would be stillborn or severely disabled and advised her to have an abortion. But Miss Phelan and her partner Stephen Crane stoutly refused and carried on with the pregnancy.  Now at six months old, tests have proven that little Jayden was wrongly diagnosed and is a fit and healthy little boy. 'It makes my blood run cold to think we could have lost him'

NARAL may disinvite CT congressional candidate over abortion comment

NARAL might un-invite Roraback to fundraiser over abortion comment | Connecticut 5th District: Andrews Roraback is pro-choice and doesn't believe that the government should make that choice for women, has repeatedly said he finds abortion “personally repugnant.” That view is apparently intolerable to pro-choicers.

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The real fight for Chen Guangcheng begins now

The real fight for Chen Guangcheng begins now | The Cable: Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch's Washington director says the Chen case is an opportunity for the United States to reposition itself on the issue of human rights in a way that aligns American foreign policy with the Chinese people. "Chen is more than a dissident; he's a folk hero," Malinowski said. "This is someone who the Chinese people are rooting for. The fact that the only power in Beijing willing to protect him was the U.S. gives the U.S. government the moral high ground in this drama in the broader Chinese public."

Editor: Ironically, Human Rights Watch's position on abortion states that "[a]ny restriction on abortion that unreasonably interferes with a woman's exercise of her full range of human rights is unacceptable. Governments should take all necessary steps, both immediate and incremental, to ensure that women have informed and free access to safe and legal abortion services as an element of women’s exercise of their reproductive and other human rights." They do not recognize any right to life of the unborn that surmounts the rights of the pregnant women.

It also says, "restrictions on access to safe and legal abortion may give rise to situations that constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. These situations include forcing a pregnant woman to carry an unwanted or health-threatening pregnancy to term." Strangely, they have no position on the kinds of coercive practices that their champion Chen exposed -- forced abortion.

HRW also approves of forcing doctors to perform abortion against their will: "Freedom of religion and conscience is often invoked by health practitioners opposed to abortion, claiming a “conscientious objection” to providing certain services, notably abortions. While the human rights framework allows for conscientious objection in some cases, there are limits. For example, conscience cannot justify the refusal to perform a lifesaving abortion when there is no other suitable alternative treatment for the pregnant woman."

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Chen Guangcheng not just a "dissident"

Chai Ling on America's Latest China Disaster | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction: One of the leaders of the Tienanmen uprising writes:

Chen Guangcheng is not just a "dissident." In fact, he did not even advocate against the central government. He is a folk hero in China, a defender of women, children, and the poor. Chen has worked tirelessly on behalf of women who face forced abortion and sterilization at the hands of the officials who should be protecting their citizens' rights. 

Words simply cannot express Chen's value as a human rights advocate. He is fighting one of the most brutal state-sanctioned human rights abuses in the world.

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Family Breakdown at the Heart of Global Aging Crisis

Friday Fax: Analysis: Family Breakdown at the Heart of Global Aging Crisis: "Men who get and stay married work harder, smarter, and longer hours, and they earn between 10 and 24 percent more money," the report says. "Children in the United States who are raised outside of an intact, married home are two to three times more likely to suffer from social and psychological problems, such as delinquency, depression, and dropping out of high school."

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Libby’s Journey to Atheism

Answers in Genesis and Libby’s Journey to Atheism | Dr. Georgia Purdom's Blog: "I wish many pastors and Christians leaders could read Libby’s journey to atheism and realize the importance of a literal Genesis to trustworthiness and authority of God’s Word as a whole!"

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After doubts, some evangelical leaders put faith in Romney

After doubts, some evangelical leaders put faith in Romney - Chicago Tribune: Many ordinary evangelicals have not come out for Romney. But some of their leaders quickly shifted away from previous support of former Republican presidential hopefuls likeRick Santorum and Newt Gingrich as Romney to become the likely Republican nominee.

"There are probably two primary reasons for it. ... The first is just an interest in getting a Republican in theWhite House," said Mark DeMoss, a senior Romney adviser who has served as a campaign ambassador to evangelical groups. "The second is evangelicals, not unlike anybody else you could name, are interested in influence in government. And it's harder to have influence if you aren't part of the journey to winning."

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Barefoot and blind: how one Chinese peasant exposed China’s abuses to the whole world

Barefoot and blind: how one Chinese peasant exposed China’s abuses to the whole world | LifeSiteNews.com: Vice-President Joe Biden gave a speech at Sichuan University last year in which he spoke so diplomatically about the one-child policy that he seemed to be endorsing it: “Your policy has been one which I fully understand—I’m not second-guessing—of one child per family.” Now it’s time for the Obama Administration to show some courage of its own in standing up for Chen and his family.

There is a way to support him. Nominate him for the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Population Award “outstanding contributions to increasing the awareness of population questions.” An avalanche of nominations for Chen Guangcheng would show that the world has finally repudiated one of the most despicable, senseless violations of human rights ever implemented by a government against its own people. Click on this link to download an official nomination form.

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NY State Senator: ‘Hitler Was Pro-Choice’

Senator Ruben Diaz: ‘Hitler Was Pro-Choice’ | Politicker: State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. released a lengthy thousand word statement today outlining his views on abortion. Mr. Diaz explained why he believes abortion amounts to the “killing of unborn babies” and why he thinks it’s time to “forget about being politically correct by being Pro-Choice. Hitler was pro-choice. He chose to send the Jews to Auschwitz. That was not their choice that was Hitler’s choice. Murderers, assassins and criminals are pro-choice. They choose to put a gun to your head and take your life. That is not your choice. That is their choice.”

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Planned Parenthood's deadly sea of 'sexualityism'

STOPP - Stop Planned Parenthood - Swimming in what we do not recognize: Planned Parenthood's deadly sea of 'sexualityism': Harvard professor Lant Pritchett explains that sexualityism says that the expression of human sexuality is in and of itself a positive good, and limitations on that expression are in and of themselves bad. The influence of sexualityism upon our culture is profound.

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2012: 400-Plus Pro-Life Laws So Far

2012 Sees 400-Plus Pro-Life Laws So Far | Daily News | NCRegister.com: Pro-life legislation has been on the rise in recent years, says new study.

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Jon Will, 40 years and going with Down syndrome

Jon Will, 40 years and going with Down syndrome - The Washington Post: In 1972, people with Down syndrome were still commonly called Mongoloids. Now they are called American citizens, about 400,000 of them, and their life expectancy is 60. Much has improved. There has, however, been moral regression as well.

Jon was born just 19 years after James Watson and Francis Crick published their discoveries concerning the structure of DNA, discoveries that would enhance understanding of the structure of Jon, whose every cell is imprinted with Down syndrome. Jon was born just as prenatal genetic testing, which can detect Down syndrome, was becoming common. And Jon was born eight months before Roe v. Wade inaugurated this era of the casual destruction of pre-born babies.

This era has coincided, not just coincidentally, with the full, garish flowering of the baby boomers’ vast sense of entitlement, which encompasses an entitlement to exemption from nature’s mishaps, and to a perfect baby. So today science enables what the ethos ratifies, the choice of killing children with Down syndrome before birth. That is what happens to 90 percent of those whose parents receive a Down syndrome diagnosis through prenatal testing.

Related: 
George F. Will: Eugenics by abortion
Patricia E. Bauer: If the test says Down syndrome
Jennifer LaRue Huget: An upbeat look at life with Down syndrome

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Chen Guangcheng: Let Me Leave China on Hillary Clinton’s Plane

The Daily Beast’s Melinda Liu writes: "I’ve known Chen Guangcheng for more than a decade—he’s been through intimidation, beatings, jail, and extralegal house arrest—but through it all I never sensed he was scared. Now he’s scared. . . . At the hospital, Chen’s fears mounted as his wife told him she’d been tied to a chair, beaten, and interrogated by Chinese guards after they learned he had entered the U.S. embassy in Beijing last Friday. . . . As dinnertime came and went, he and his wife and two young children, who had traveled to Beijing, had nothing to eat. Their 6-year-old daughter began crying from the hunger pangs. Chen and his wife hadn’t seen their son for two years before their reunion at the hospital. 

". . . Human-rights activists are now extremely worried about Chen’s fate, and some are astonished at this startling—and dark—turn of events. . . . Bob Fu, president of the U.S.-based ChinaAid Association, spoke by phone with Chen and said, 'He was very heavy-hearted. He was crying when we spoke. He said he was under enormous pressure to leave the embassy. Some people almost made him feel he was being a huge burden to the U.S.' Chen decided to leave, Fu confirmed, because he was told 'he would have no chance of reunification with his wife and children if he didn’t.' . . . [I]n order to go abroad, Chen and his family need passports—and in order to apply for them, the family would have to go back to Shandong, where the provincial thugs are waiting. 'If the U.S. can intervene, and if the Chinese central government can make a phone call, those passports can be ready in a day. It might require a diplomatic push,' said Fu hopefully.

The social cell

New Statesman - The social cell: "Cells may be the simplest life forms on the planet - even the simplest possible life forms - but their inner workings, at the molecular level, are breathtakingly complex, composed of thousands of molecular machines, all of them interacting to provide the cell with the energy it needs to build offspring and maintain its membrane. Echoes of the design wisdom embodied in this very effective machinery can be found in human culture, which is dazzlingly complex, too, composed as it is of about seven billion interacting people, with their traditions, languages, institutions, occupations, values and economies. Some cultural phenomena bear a striking resemblance to the cells of cell biology, actively preserving themselves in their social environments, finding the nutrients they need and fending off the causes of their dissolution."

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