Bill Filed to Restrict Buying and Selling of Human Eggs in Arkansas

Bioethics,

On Monday Rep. Cindy Crawford (R – Fort Smith) filed H.B. 1441 to address commercial egg harvesting in Arkansas.

This good bill restricts the buying and selling of human eggs.

Currently, Arkansas law contains no specific protections for egg donors.

State law does not prohibit companies from coercing young women to sell their eggs or paying large sums of money to harvest unfertilized human eggs.

State law does not ensure women are informed of the health risks associated with egg harvesting.

H.B. 1441 addresses these problems.

The bill prohibits companies and individuals from paying women for their eggs, but it permits altruistic egg donations.

It prohibits companies and individuals from advertising compensation for human eggs to prospective egg providers.

It requires human eggs to be harvested by a physician in a hospital, clinic, or other medical facility that meets Arkansas Department of Health licensing standards.

Egg harvesting requires hormone treatments that carry serious health risks. H.B. 1441 requires individuals or companies that harvest eggs to give the woman important information regarding the procedure, including a summary of drug or hormone treatments involved.

You can read the bill here.

READ MORE

From Abortion to Assisted Suicide to Infanticide

Abortion, Bioethics, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, , , , , ,

According to a recent survey, an astounding majority of Belgian doctors favor “after-birth abortion” for kids born with disability. In plain English, that would be called “infanticide.”

When asked whether it is morally permissible to “administer drugs” to end the life of a baby born with a “serious (but non-lethal) neonatal condition,” 94% of Belgian doctors surveyed said “yes.”

While the survey didn’t define “non-lethal condition,” it’s already permissible in Britain to abort babies with Down Syndrome, cleft lip, or club foot.

To be clear, we are not talking about Nazi doctors, or North Korea or Chinese party officials. Belgium is a Western, highly educated, democratic, modern nation which, not not coincidentally, has the world’s most liberal assisted suicide laws.

Certain ideas make other ideas thinkable. It’s how the unimaginable become acceptable. The slope from abortion to infanticide by way of doctor-assisted-suicide is a slippery one indeed.

Copyright 2020 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

READ MORE

Catholic Hospital Sued for Declining to Perform Transgender Surgery

Bioethics, Religious Freedom, Rights of Conscience, , ,

A Catholic hospital in Maryland is being sued for declining to perform a transgender surgery, according to news outlets.

The hospital reportedly opted not to perform a hysterectomy as part of an apparent sex-reassignment surgery. Now the hospital is being sued.

There are several problems with this case, but here are a couple:

First, Catholic hospitals operate according to the principles and teachings of the Catholic Church — including the Catholic Church’s teachings about abortion, assisted suicide, and gender identity.

It should come as no surprise that a Catholic hospital would decline to participate in sex-reassignment surgeries.

Second, Catholic hospitals generally object to performing major surgeries on healthy patients.

As bioethicist Wesley J. Smith notes,

Catholic moral principles only permit body parts to be removed to treat physical pathology. If the patient’s uterus had been cancerous, the surgery [hysterectomy] would not have been a problem.

Stories like this one underscore why Arkansas needs to strengthen its laws protecting rights of conscience for healthcare workers and hospitals.

Unfortunately the Arkansas Legislature has failed to pass measures protecting healthcare workers’ rights of conscience two legislative sessions in row — once in 2017 and once in 2019.

Conscience protections are very important for healthcare workers and hospitals.

Without them, we could end up with doctors and hospital boards who are not guided by conscience at all.

That’s a very sobering thought.

READ MORE