Bioethics – Page 13 – Family Council

Committee Passes Bill to Prohibit Public Funding of Research That Kills Unborn Children

Feb 14, 2019Jerry CoxAbortion, Arkansas Capitol, BioethicsAbortion, Bioethics, Legislation, Legislature, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life, Stem Cell Research

Family Council staff member Charisse Dean (left) and Rep. Karilyn Brown (R – Sherwood) present H.B. 1399 in the House Public Health Committee.

This morning the Arkansas House Public Health Committee passed H.B. 1399 by Rep. Karilyn Brown (R – Sherwood).

This good, pro-life bill strengthens our state’s laws against human cloning. It prohibits public funding of human cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

In recent years we’ve seen examples of unethical companies using unborn children for scientific research. H.B. 1399 helps address that issue by ensuring taxpayer dollars won’t be used to create and kill unborn children in the name of science or medicine.

This is a good bill that Family Council supports. Unborn children are not lab material, and state tax dollars should not be used for research that treats them as such.

This good bill will go before the Arkansas House of Representatives, where it likely will be voted on sometime next week.

You can leave a message asking your state representative to support H.B. 1399 by calling the Arkansas House of Representatives during normal business hours at (501) 682-6211.

You can read H.B. 1399 here.

Video: One in Four Dutch Deaths Caused by Doctors

Jan 24, 2019Jerry CoxBioethics, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, VideoAssisted Suicide, Bioethics, Ethics, Euthanasia

Euthanasia and assisted suicide have become so acceptable in Europe than 25% of deaths in Netherlands are now caused by doctors. The same problem could be coming to the U.S.

In Europe, Euthanasia is Driving Doctors and Nurses to Quit

Jan 29, 2018Jerry CoxBioethics, Euthanasia and Assisted SuicideAssisted Suicide, Bioethics, Euthanasia, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

Author, attorney, and ethicist Wesley J. Smith recently penned a column outlining a serious problem in European countries like Belgium: Doctors and nurses are quitting because of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Smith writes,

You become a doctor or nurse to be a healer palliator of people in serious pain and distress. You have a special place in your heart for the dying, and so you enter the specialized field of palliative care and hospice medicine.

But then, your country decides you should also become killers of the patients you want to succor. If you refuse, you face public criticism, the prospect of being sued, and perhaps one day, professional censure.

What do you do? If you are an ethical professional, rather than be complicit in homicide, you leave the field.

Doctors who specialize in end of life care and pain management — such as palliative care doctors in hospices and long term care facilities — are being forced to choose between their convictions and their careers.

One Belgian doctor said, “palliative care units are . . . at risk of becoming ‘houses of euthanasia’, which is the opposite of what they were meant to be.”

This is a disturbing trend. Palliative care offers terminally-ill people relief from pain and the opportunity to spend quality time with family as they near the end of life. These doctors and nurses provide vital services to people who are dying and to their families. Unlike euthanasia and assisted suicide, palliative care offers actual relief from suffering — without poisoning or killing any patients.

As we have said time and time again, being pro-life is about much more than opposing abortion. We do not eliminate suffering by eliminating people who are suffering. We must respect the sanctity of human life at the end of life as well as at the beginning.