Politicians Still Attacking the Pro-Life Hyde Amendment

Abortion, , ,

One issue we have discussed repeatedly in recent years is the strange attack against the federal Hyde Amendment from some candidates and politicians.

The Hyde Amendment is a bipartisan budget provision that’s been on the books for more than four decades. It prevents Americans from being forced to subsidize abortions with their tax dollars, except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life or physical health are in jeopardy.

For years the Hyde Amendment was seen as a reasonable compromise between pro-life and pro-abortion politicians. But since 2016, organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL and their allies in Washington have stepped up efforts to abolish the Hyde Amendment.

In 2016 the Democratic Party approved a platform that says,

We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose—and seek to overturn—federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.

Last June presidential hopeful Joe Biden reversed course after supporting the Hyde Amendment throughout most of his political career.

And at a recent town hall meeting sponsored by NARAL, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said,

“[W]e will eliminate the Hyde Amendment and restore funding for abortion care for Medicaid patients and other federal help programs.

It’s worth noting that taxpayer-funded abortion is not very popular among Americans — especially in Arkansas, where a large number of people believe abortion ought to be either completely illegal or legal only under certain circumstances.

The increased attacks on the federal Hyde Amendment just go to show we’ve come a long way since the days when people like President Bill Clinton said abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare.”

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Scientists In Michigan Engage in Clone-and-Kill Human Research

Bioethics, ,

University scientists in Michigan reportedly have developed a new technique to rapidly create “embryoids” — living organisms that are very similar to ordinary human embryos — in a lab.

According to an article published in Nature, researchers created the “embryoids” from embryonic stem cells as well as adult stem cells. Scientists experimented on the embryoids for a few days, and then apparently destroyed them.

There are several problems with this research:

First, it used embryonic stem cells to create the embryoids.

Embryonic stem cells are harvested from healthy unborn babies during the embryonic stage of development. Scientists create or clone an unborn child and then harvest its embryonic stem cells soon afterward, killing the child in the process.

Embryonic stem cell research is highly unethical, which is why it is illegal in some states — including Arkansas — and why there has always been controversy over efforts to fund embryonic stem cell research with public tax dollars. The fact that researchers used embryonic stem cells to create some of their “embryoids” is a real problem.

Second, the “embryoids” researchers created in the lab arguably are human embryos who simply are missing a couple of parts.

Researchers noted that the embryoids were similar to human embryos, but they lacked a placenta and yolk sac that develops into the umbilical cord and gastrointestinal tract.

But the placenta and yolk sac are not what make human embryos living, sacred human beings. An umbilical cord does not make an unborn child a “person” any more than an arm or a lung does. Scientists apparently want to argue that an embryo isn’t really an embryo if it’s missing a part or two. That’s very troubling.

Third, these “embryo structures,” as one of the researchers called them, were created, experimented on, and then killed in the name of science.

Over and over again we’ve seen scientists clone-and-kill human embryos in labs across America and around the world. As we have said for 20 years, this type of research simply is unethical.

Unborn children — including human embryos — aren’t lab material. All scientific research must respect the sanctity and dignity of human life.

Read more about this story from NPR.

Read the research article here.

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