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ENGLAND
Conjoined twin condemned
One infant sister condemned by judge to save other
Pro-life and religious people from around the world reacted angrily in August to a judge’s decision that one Siamese twin must die to give the other the chance of a normal life.
Jodie and Mary (not their real names) were born conjoined on August 8 in St. Mary’s Hospital in Manchester. Only Jodie has lungs, and the twins share a damaged heart which is struggling to supply oxygen to them both. Doctors have given them a maximum of six months to live unless they are separated.
On August 25, High Court Judge Mr. Justice Robert Johnson ordered the surgical separation of the girls, against the wishes of their Catholic parents, even though the operation means that the weaker baby will die. Without separation, the babies would probably die in three to six months.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that it was never defensible to take the life of one person in order to save the life of another.
In a statement read to the court, the babies’ parents said: “Everyone has the right to life, so why should we kill one of our daughters to enable the other one to survive? That is not God’s will.”
The statement continued: “We have very strong feelings that neither of our children should receive any medical treatment. We certainly do not want separation surgery to go ahead, as we know and have been told very clearly that it will result in the death of our daughter Mary.”
Giving his judgment, Mr. Justice Johnson said: “For Jodie, separation means the expectation of a normal life; for Mary it means death. Little wonder that the parents are overwhelmed by the circumstances that confront them. They love, love dearly, both their children, but they love them equally and simply cannot bring themselves to choose life for one at this frightful cost to the other.”
Meanwhile, an Italian cardinal has offered a safe haven and free medical treatment in his diocese for the twin girls. Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, Archbishop Emeritus of Ravenna, said the family can receive “indefinite and completely free medical services” and an apartment in an Italian hospital as soon as they wish.
Instead, the unnamed parents, originally from Eastern Europe, launched their appeal of the judge’s decision. The Lord Chancellor’s department, which heads the British judiciary, was to take up the appeal at press time.
Embryo research is “cannibalism”
Cardinal condemns cloning, embryo research plans
Cardinal Thomas Winning of Glasgow has condemned recommendations put to the British government on August 16 which would allow for a limited form of human cloning.
A final decision on the issue will be left to a free vote in Parliament, but ministers have endorsed the recommendations put forward by the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, and his advisory group.
The decision means that cells can be “harvested” from human embryos when they are just a few days old in order to be used for scientific research. The final report recommends that all research proposals be scrutinized by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, with permission only granted where it can be shown there are no other ways of meeting an experiment’s objectives. The Donaldson group also suggested that any research should be constantly monitored, both by that authority and the newly created Human Genetics Commission.
Cardinal Winning, chairman of the bioethics committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Great Britain and Ireland, said the recommendations “will shock and disappoint many.”
“Human stem cell research is a scientific field that may offer promising new developments in health care,” he allowed, in a statement issued just minutes after the Donaldson report was published. “But science cannot operate in a moral vacuum.”
The cardinal continued: “Obtaining stem cells from a human embryo is morally wrong, because it involves the destruction of a human life. Human life is inviolably sacred, both before and after any arbitrary 14-day deadline.” He observed that one morally acceptable alternative—using stem cells from adults for the research—was being dismissed in favor of “a process which very many people—not just Catholics—would find morally repugnant.”
Mike Nichols of the Movement Against Human Cloning told the BBC: “We have to look at history and the way things move forward. One of our greatest concerns is that you would be legalizing the very methodology needed to do full human cloning.”
Ruth Deech, chairman of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, told BBC Radio that nobody wanted the cloning of babies, but there was a growing consensus that good could come out of “therapeutic cloning” of embryos.
She said, “The research would be looking for ways to grow new cells and tissues to help people with Parkinson’s, with Huntington’s, with Alzheimer’s, with cancer, and with burns.” She added: “It will be gradual and every step will be checked by us. We give licenses and we can take them away.”
But Tom Horwood of the Catholic Media Office said: “We are fundamentally opposed to any such development. A human embryo is a human life. It is creating a human life for the purposes of cloning.”
Catholic Peer Lord David Alton, has described the technique as “technological cannibalism.” John Smeaton of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children told the Observer newspaper that the Government should have published the report, allowed a debate, and then come to a decision.
Link between abortion and cancer?
Royal College denies supressing study
According to reports by several British newspapers, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG) has acknowledged a link between abortion and breast cancer. But the RCOG has sharply denied those reports.
Several of the country’s leading newspapers—the Times, Mail, Mirror, Sun, Metro, and Guardian—had reported that the RCOG saw merit in the 28 scientific studies that have shown an increased rate of breast cancer among women who have had abortions. The increased risk has been estimated at 30 percent or more.
Dr. James Drife, vice president of the RCOG, was quoted as saying that the latest studies suggesting a tie between abortion and breast cancer “cannot be ‘rubbished’ or regarded as sub-standard.”
However, the RCOG issued a public statement on August 14 denying an endorsement of the scientific studies. The RCOG said that the newspaper reports were inaccurate, and that—contrary to the stories reported in the media—the group would not be warning women about the risks of breast cancer after abortion.
Catholics turning to Islam, Judaism
Study says growing number are converting
A growing number of British Catholics are converting to Islam every year, according to a new study.
Up to 1,000 people per week are switching faiths or denominations, claims Your God Shall Be My God by Rabbi Jonathan Romain. “Religious traffic” is “heading in all directions” claims Romain. “People previously used to one faith are now presented with an array of different religious options that were hardly thought of beforehand.”
A high proportion of the 2,500 annual converts to Islam every year are Catholics according to Dr. Ahmed Andrews, a lecturer in the sociology of religion at Derby University and himself a convert from Catholicism to Islam. “There are between 5,000 and 10,000 white Muslim converts in this country, and most of the ones I know are former Catholics,” he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. And Romain claims that about a fifth of the 300 to 400 annual coverts to Judaism are Catholics.
Catholicism has also received some high-profile converts in recent years, including the Duchess of Kent and Ann Widdecombe.
Romain says that Britain is a more fertile land for “new religious movements” than the United States and that the Millennium created a further spiritual impetus. “While there has been a decline in knowledge about religion, the spiritual yearning for answers to questions of the meaning of life and personal direction remain,” he says. “People feel a spiritual vacuum so they look outside their own religious backgrounds, and there is a lot more on offer.”
Peter Brierley, of Christian Research, told the Daily Telegraph that the rate of cross-fertilization appears to have increased. He said: “What we don’t know is whether people, having changed, are not changing back again five years later.”
A second report reveals that older people, traditionally the backbone of parish life, are disappearing from British churches of all denominations.
Brierly added that within 40 years fewer than 0.5 percent of the population will attend services regularly.
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