Abortion
Friday
24 June 2022 – a landmark day. The
Justices of the Supreme Court of America have today
voted by 5 to 4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the
1973 ruling that supposedly gave American women the
constitutional right to abortion. While today’s
judgement will not ban all US abortions, it is a mighty
significant move in the right direction. The
personal and political ramifications will continue but,
above all, unborn human life in the USA now has a
restored dignity and greater protection. Rejoice
and give thanks!
Abortion statistics, England and
Wales: 2021
Tuesday 21 June, the first day of summer – a beautifully
warm and bright morning. And then in the afternoon
came the publication of the latest abortion statistics
for England and Wales – horribly chilling and
bleak. And they are the worst ever. The
total figure is 214,869 abortions. The vast
majority of these (214,256) were for residents of
England and Wales. That is an average of 825
abortions every weekday – every Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday …
All the data can be viewed at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2021/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2021 You may have to Copy and Paste this
URL.
As ever, most abortions (98%, 209,939) were performed
under ground C, the so-called social clause. A
further 1.6% (3,370 abortions) were carried out under
ground E, the risk of serious handicap. This is an
increase of 287 from the previous year. We are
still no more compassionate towards the disabled.
In 2021, 89% of abortions were performed under 10 weeks
gestation – an increase from 88% in 2020 and 78% in
2011. There were 276 abortions performed at 24 and
more weeks. Why are early abortions better?
During 2021, 43% of women undergoing abortions had had
one or more previously. This proportion has
increased steadily from 36% in 2011. Is abortion a
form of contraception?
The trend towards medical abortions continues – 87% of
all abortions in 2021 were medically induced, up 2% from
2021. Some of this increase was due to the ‘pills
by post’, ‘DIY abortion’ scheme introduced during the
Covid-19 pandemic. Taking both medications
(mifepristone and misoprostol) at home is now the most
common procedure, accounting for 52% of all abortions in
2021.
During 2021, there were 88 selective abortions, an
increase from 65 in 2020. These are usually
performed for multiple pregnancies often caused by
overzealous IVF. 80% of these selective
terminations were performed under ground E.
These figures mock us – they are stark and
irrefutable. What to do? What should we
think, what do we say, how can we respond when faced
with this increasing tragedy of human life destroyed in
the womb? First, we educate ourselves. We
need to be clear about the personal and societal
devastation caused by abortion. Second, we speak
out against this calamity and educate others.
Third, we care. Abortion tells us that many woman
and girls need real help, principled compassion in their
lives. So we give of our time, money and energy
probably by joining and supporting a pro-life
organisation. Without such responses nothing much
will change. Except it will get worse.
DIY abortions
Are you familiar with the concept of a government
U-turn? Here is an excellent example, but it
is also an appalling case of political shenanigans.
In March 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19
pandemic, the UK government introduced an emergency
arrangement whereby the two pills required for an
early medical abortion, up to 10 weeks of a
pregnancy, could be accessed by post. This
so-called DIY abortion scheme was said to be needed
because women could not travel to pill providers,
such as doctor’s surgeries, and take part in
face-to-face appointment because of the national
lockdown. So after a simple video or telephone
consultation with a healthcare professional, the
pills could be mailed to the approved patient.
These new rules were promised to be temporary.
And so, in the not too distant future, women would
have to revert to the old scheme of in-person
medical supervision. After all, this is safer
in determining medical suitability, proper informed
consent, fraudulent access, whether coercion was
involved, and so on. However, the battle lines
of the temporaries versus the permanents were drawn.
Between November 2020 and February 2021, the
government launched a public consultation.
More than 600 medical professionals wrote an open
letter to the prime minister and the equivalent
heads of Wales and Scotland. The majority
(70%) of 18,000 respondents to the public
consultation called for the temporary scheme to end
immediately. The outcome was that on 24
February 2022, the Minister for Vaccines and Public
Health, Maggie Throup MP, stated that, ‘The
temporary approval will end at midnight on 29 August
2022.’ So, a win for the temporaries?
Not so fast. That decision was welcomed by
many, but not by the abortion lobby. It pushed
to make the pills by post permanent. And on 16
March, Baroness Sugg tabled an amendment to the
Health and Care Bill seeking to overturn the
government’s decision, even though the issues had
never been raised in the Lords. Furthermore,
this amendment, voted on in the Lords during the
early hours of the morning, without prior debate and
scrutiny, was never the proper way to decide a
controversial policy.
And then on 30 March 2022, MPs debated the issue,
claimed that the old scheme would increase late
abortions, and finally on a free vote, decided to
make the temporary scheme an indefinitely permanent
fixture in England by 215 votes to 188.
Therein, a government U-turn, or two. The
Welsh and Scottish governments have already acted to
make the continuation of at home DIY abortions
lawful.
The WHO and abortion
worldwide
On 9 March 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO)
published its new guidelines on abortion. The
WHO is biased. It maintains that, ‘Being able
to obtain safe abortion is a crucial part of
healthcare.’ Of course there are unsafe
abortions everywhere – the WHO reckons there are 25
million each year – but pressing for unlimited
abortions everywhere under the guise of human rights
and creating an abortion-minded world is not a
rational or moral policy.
The pages of Abortion Care Guideline are a
terrible read. The opening Guideline Highlight
sets the tone. It reads, ‘The abortion care
pathway. Comprehensive abortion care includes
provision of information, abortion management
(including induced abortion and care related to
pregnancy loss), and post-abortion care. This
guideline includes recommendations for different
abortion indications, and for different stages of
the continuum of care (the “who”, “what”, “where”
and “how”.)’
Then follows pages of details that underscore the
fact that the WHO has little, if any, ethical
framework to abortion. For example section 1.3
states, ‘Securing sexual and reproductive health
including availability of safe abortion respects,
protects and fulfils the right to health.’
Basically, the WHO wants to allow abortion under all
circumstances. It calls on states to remove
all legal time limits on abortion. It claims
that laws preventing abortion at any point during
pregnancy risk violating the rights of ‘women, girls
or other pregnant persons’. It wants to limit
medical professionals’ rights to refuse to take part
in abortions.
This is all bad
news. The WHO is a powerful, influential
global organisation. Its Abortion Care
Guideline is set to become the vade mecum of
the world, at least, the developing world. It
looks like a dystopian future.
Abortion in Guatemala
Given an atlas, can you truthfully put a finger on
the Republic of Guatemala? It may be famous
for the ancient Maya civilisation, a recent bloody
civil war and good coffee. But it also has a
strong pro-life culture. In March 2022, its
Congress approved a bill that will increase prison
sentences from 3 years up to 10 years for women who
have abortions. Heavier penalties will be
imposed on doctors and others who assist women in
ending pregnancies. Exceptions, like when the
life of the mother is in danger, remain. The
new legislation was passed by 101 votes versus 8
with 51 abstentions by absence. This is the
opposite of the trend in most other Latin American
countries, such as Colombia, Mexico and Argentina,
which are busy expanding access to abortions.
In addition in March, Guatemala celebrated its
national ‘Life and Family Day’. President
Alejandro Giammattei declared, ‘This event is an
invitation to unite as Guatemalans to protect life
from conception until natural death.’ It is
expected that he will soon sign the bill into law.
A
question. Does this new Guatemalan legislation
seem harsh? Why is that? Is it because
we live in a so-called progressive society and have
too easily adopted its pro-abortion patterns of
thought and mores? Drifting with the tide is
easier than swimming against it. Do we regard
abortion, perhaps not exactly as a woman’s right,
but often as the easiest way out of a sticky
situation? Is the unborn child not really one
of us? Are we against murder and infanticide,
but are persuaded that abortion, taking the life of
the unborn, is somehow different, perhaps because
the victim is unseen? These are testing
cross-examination questions.
Surrogacy and war
Ukraine has long been the second most popular
destination, after California, for commercial
surrogacy. It is estimated that there are
between 2,000 and 2,500 babies born each year to
Ukrainian surrogates, mostly for foreign
couples. There are at least 50 commercial
surrogacy agencies in Ukraine. BioTexCom, one
of the leading outfits in Kyiv, estimates that it
arranges at least a thousand births each year.
Ukraine’s popularity for surrogacy is due to its
favourable legal framework and its significantly
lower costs compared with California and elsewhere.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created many
victims, including hundreds of surrogate
mothers. Many have escaped, but many have
remained in dangerous situations, sheltering in
basements, unable to access medical assistance and
essential drugs.
Like most surrogacy industries, the Ukrainian is
dependent on cross-border travel and international
intended parents (IPs) have frequently been unable
to attend the birth of, or collect, their
commissioned babies. Under Ukrainian law, IPs
are regarded as the legal parents throughout the
transaction and surrogates have no legal rights with
respect to the baby when born. After the
birth, the IPs are named on the birth certificate as
the parents, whereas in the UK, it is the birth
mother’s, the surrogate’s, name that is registered.
Among the additional problems created by the war are
the practical and legal issues of who is now
responsible for the stranded children born to
Ukrainian surrogates. Meanwhile, the husbands
of Ukrainian surrogates are probably on the
frontlines fighting the Russian aggressors. It
is a parlous situation. War has added an
additional dilemma to the already troublesome issue
of surrogacy. Is surrogacy ever really a
sensible option?
IVF – good or bad?
We all like to choose – look at the following two
studies, and their conflicting outcomes, and decide
which you would choose. ART or natural?
Never let it be said that these Updates are
biased.
First, there is a recent study which concluded that
adults conceived through assisted reproductive
technology (ART), principally IVF, have a better
quality of life during their adulthood compared with
those who were naturally conceived. The work
was reported as ‘Does being conceived by assisted
reproductive technology influence adult quality of
life?’ by Karin Hammarberg et al., and
published online in Human Fertility (22
March, 2022).
The study looked at a group of 193 adults conceived
through IVF treatment and 86 naturally-conceived
adults at two separate time points – when they were
between 18 and 28 years old and then again between
the ages of 22 and 35. The methodology used
consisted of the volunteers completing
questionnaires.
The authors finally stated, ‘In conclusion, when
accounting for other factors present in young
adulthood, being ART conceived appears to confer
some advantages in quality of life, particularly in
the Social relationships and Environment
domains. In addition, and not surprisingly,
this study found that, independently of mode of
conception, a more positive relationship with
parents, less psychological distress, and a better
family financial situation contributed to better
quality of life.’
Second, there is another recent study entitled,
‘Conceived by Assisted Reproductive Technologies’ by
Penseé Wu et al., and published in the Journal
of the American Heart Association
(Vol. 11, Issue 5, 1 March 2022). It showed
that women who conceived using IVF are 2.5 times
more likely to experience kidney injury and incur
hospital costs on average of US$6,722 higher when
hospitalised, compared with women who conceived
naturally.
The authors concluded, ‘Pregnancies conceived by ART
have higher risks of adverse obstetric outcomes and
vascular complications compared with spontaneous
conception. Clinicians should have detailed
discussions on the associated complications of ART
in women during prepregnancy counseling.’
There are already numerous studies that have
demonstrated that IVF can have adverse physical and
biological effects on both the unborn and the born,
as well as their mothers.
So, is IVF good or bad? What to
conclude? Not much from these two
studies. They are interesting, but they are
apples and pears, about as diverse as possible – an
Australian sociological piece and a UK-US scientific
article. They were never designed to compare
and contrast – they just happened to be published in
journals during March 2022. To decide if IVF
is good or bad what is needed is a meta-analysis, a
systematic review of all the relevant literature,
which for IVF would run into thousands and thousands
of studies. And anyway what is meant by ‘good’
or ‘bad’? It is far easier, and far more
useful, to assess IVF from a bioethical
perspective. And a sensible and practical
conclusion can be found in my 2014 Bioethical
Issues book, page 99, which states, ‘All IVF
is best avoided.’
IVF in China
IVF in most of the world can be eye-wateringly
expensive. In the high-income UK, with the
exception of NHS-funded treatment, a typical IVF
cycle can cost £5,000 and usually much more.
So it is a little surprising that low-income China,
or at least Beijing, has begun offering to pay
towards its citizens’ fertility treatments.
Are there not too many people there already?
After all, the population is reckoned to be about
1.4 billion. But demography tells a different
story. China is facing a serious falling birth
rate, despite the abandonment of its infamous
one-child policy and the new policy allowing couples
to have up to three children. In 2021, the
number of births per woman in China was only 1.15,
well below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable
population.
From last March, for couples subscribing to its
public medical insurance scheme, the Chinese
government has been contributing an estimated £3,000
towards the costs of 16 types of fertility
procedures, such as IVF and intrauterine
insemination (IUI). Moreover, there is no
limit to the number of IVF cycles couples can have
subsidised. A spokesman from the Beijing
Perfect Family Hospital has said, ‘Those who choose
assisted reproductive technologies have a strong
willingness to have a child. But the success
rate of the technologies is limited. The
services were previously not included under the
public medical insurance scheme because they are
costly.’
Donating doctors
Lots can, and does, go wrong with IVF
arrangements. Yet another Dutch doctor, the
third in recent months, has been found to have used
his own sperm to inseminate probably dozens of his
women clients.
Jan Beek, an IVF
doctor, who worked for 25 years at the
Elisabethziekenhuis Hospital in Leiderdorp, secretly
fathered at least 21 children. The hospital
cannot contact others of his potential children
because the relevant records have been
destroyed. Beek died in 2019, long before his
fertility deception was discovered. The
scandal came to light last year after a DNA
investigation found a match between Beek’s DNA and
21 children whose mothers had received treatment at
his clinic between 1973 and 1986. They had
expected to be inseminated by sperm from their
husbands or from anonymous donors, not their IVF
doctor.
What is wrong with Dutch IVF doctors who also happen
to be called Jan? Two others, Jan Wildschut
and Jan Karbaat, clandestinely fathered at least 60
children between them from the 1970s to the
1990s. In October 2020, DNA tests confirmed
that Jan Wildschut, a gynaecologist who worked in
Zwolle and who died in 2009, was the biological
father of 17 children. In 2019, it was
discovered that Jan Karbaat, a doctor from
Rotterdam, where he ran his private fertility
clinic, fathered at least 49 children using his own
sperm in IVF treatments unbeknown to his women
patients.
The numbers of children fathered by these doctors
varies depending on the sources quoted. But
here is the big question – will there be more IVF
doctors, Dutch or otherwise, who took part, or who
are even now taking part, in such wicked
deceptions? Of course there will.
Euthanasia
and Assisted Suicide
The campaign goes on
Fans of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the UK
are continuing to press for legalisation.
Their recent rallying point has been a private
member’s bill in the House of Lords tabled by
Baroness Meacher in May 2021. Her Assisted
Dying Bill, which would have enabled adults, who are
terminally-ill to end their own lives, did not make
the Queen’s Speech in May 2022 so it is unlikely to
appear before the House of Commons in the current
session. Nevertheless, Baroness Meacher now
believes that there is enough support among MPs for
it to pass into legislation there.
The leading campaign organisation on these issues,
Dying in Dignity, has been busy rallying its
supporters to sign the petition it has set up on the
UK Government and Parliament site to ‘legalise
assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally
competent adults.’ At the 10,000 signature
mark the government is obliged to reply. On 3
February, it responded, ‘The Government’s position
is that any change to the law in this area is a
matter for Parliament and an issue of conscience for
individual parliamentarians rather than one for
Government policy.’ Then, by mid-May, the
petition hit the required 100,000 signatures for
Parliament to consider it for a debate in the House
of Commons. And so it has been confirmed that
on the afternoon of Monday 4 July, there will be a
Westminster Hall debate relating to assisted
dying. It is in the name of Tonia Antoniazzi,
the Labour MP for Gower.
Similar legislation has also been introduced into
the Scottish Parliament by Liam McArthur MSP.
The Consultation on the draft proposal was closed on
22 December 2021. No further details have been
announced. Meanwhile during November 2021,
Jersey's States Assembly became the first parliament
in the British Isles ‘to decide “in principle” that
assisted dying should be allowed and make
arrangements for the provision of an assisted dying
service.’ During March and April 2022,
Islanders were asked to take part in the first phase
of public engagement on the assisted dying
proposals. The States Assembly debated more
detailed proposals in November 2022. Following
the preparation of the draft legislation, which will
be debated in the States Assembly in May 2023, and,
if the legislation is passed, then an assisted dying
service will be implemented in Jersey from May
2023. This is a grisly timetable.
The Health and Care Act
2022
Back in February 2022, you may have missed an
important government announcement that will almost
certainly benefit you and yours in times
ahead. The memo probably got buried in news
about Ukraine, Brexit and Covid-19. Anyway,
here it is – dying people, at least those in
England, will now have an explicit legal right to
healthcare, including specialist palliative
care. It is a powerful antidote to calls for
legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide.
It comes because the UK government has pledged to
back an amendment in the House of Lords tabled by
Baroness Finlay. Several end-of-life charities
have called this a 'milestone' moment that will help
to resolve the current patchy postcode lottery of
palliative care provision. Currently, it is
estimated that around 215,000 people in the UK miss
out on proper end-of-life care each year.
Baroness Ilora Finlay of Llandaff has been a
long-term and tireless champion of palliative care,
after all, among her many other duties, she is a
professor of palliative medicine at the Cardiff
University School of Medicine and vice president of
Hospice UK. Concerning the government’s
announcement, she said, ‘This change is incredibly
important. For the first time the NHS will be
required to make sure that there are services to
meet the palliative care needs of everyone for whom
they have responsibility in an area. People
need help early, when they need it, seven days a
week – disease does not respect the clock or the
calendar.’
On 24 March 2022, following agreement by both Houses
of Parliament on the text of the Bill, it received
Royal Assent on 28 April. The Bill is now an
Act of Parliament, the Health and Care Act 2022.
There is much to do. There are about 450,000
deaths in England each year. And there are
about 600 specialist palliative medicine consultants
working there with a population of 55 million.
That is about one consultant for every 100,000
people. Not a lot. It is also one
consultant for every 1,000 deaths. Not a lot
either. In addition, there are around 5,000
specialist palliative care nurses working for both
the NHS and end-of-life charities. Still not a
lot. And what about the palliative care needs
of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Truly,
there is much to do, but the Health and Care Act
2022 is a great start. We should be thankful.
Death in Canada
What is wrong with Canadians? Why are they so
bent on becoming the most permissive euthanasia
jurisdiction in the world? Next year, from
March 2023, Canada will become one of the few
countries in the world to allow its citizens, whose
sole underlying condition is a mental illness, such
as depression, bipolar disorder, personality
disorders, schizophrenia, PTSD or any other mental
affliction, to be eligible for death by its
so-called medical aid in dying (MAiD) scheme.
How has it come to this? Back in 2015,
Canada’s high court ruled that an absolute
prohibition on doctor assisted dying violated the
country’s Charter. Moreover, a competent adult
who suffered a ‘grievous and irremediable’ medical
condition causing intolerable physical or
psychological suffering had a constitutional right
to a medically hastened death. That ruling
lead to Canada’s MAiD law, Bill C-14, which allowed
for assisted dying in cases where natural death was
‘reasonably foreseeable’. Then in 2019, a
Quebec Superior Court justice ruled the ‘reasonably
foreseeable’ death restriction was unconstitutional
and that people who were intolerably suffering, but
not imminently dying, still had a constitutional
right to be eligible for euthanasia.
In March 2021, Bill C-7 was passed that made changes
to the eligibility criteria. The ‘reasonably
foreseeable’ criterion was deleted. And on 17
March 2023, a two-year sunset clause will expire and
MAiD will be expanded to competent adults whose sole
underlying condition is a mental illness. Can
you detect a slippery slope here?
Assessing the eligibility of candidates for
euthanasia must be a gruesome occupation. At
least for those patients with cancers, a diagnosis
involves something that can be physically seen and
touched. But how can a ‘grievous and
irremediable’ mental illness be verified? Is
not the truth plain that Canada will, in the near
future, open up euthanasia for everyone? In a
country where ‘euthanasia’ and ‘assisted suicide’
are euphemistically referred to as ‘medical
assistance in dying’ (MAiD), surely anything dubious
seems possible. What could be next? Why
of course, MAiD for the poor, those who cannot
afford much-needed therapy, medications and
care. Wait for those floodgates to open.
Why bother with robust legal boundaries when the
criteria can be expanded year after year?
Genetic
Technologies
Parthenogenic mice
A team of Chinese scientists have created a fertile
mouse from an unfertilised ovum. It’s a
parthenote! It’s a virgin birth! The
work was described in an article entitled, ‘Viable
offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian
oocytes’ by Yanchang Wei et al., and
published in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (22 March, 2022).
In mammals, a new, genetically-unique life begins
with the fusion of an ovum and a sperm to create a
single cell called a zygote, a zygotic embryo.
Parthenogenesis is the development of an embryo from
a single unfertilized ovum. The offspring are
clones, genetically identical to their
mothers. The process occurs naturally in
several species of aphids, fish, reptiles, mites and
some bees. But never in mammals – until now –
because of problems arising from genomic
imprinting. What is this? The US
National Human Genome Research Institute defines
genomic imprinting as ‘the process by which only one
copy of a gene in an individual (either from their
mother or their father) is expressed, while the
other copy is suppressed.’ Suffice to say it
is like a spanner in the works if parthenogenesis is
your goal.
Yanchang Wei and colleagues from the School of
Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai,
overcame these hurdles and achieved parthenogenesis
in mice by the targeted use of DNA methylation or
demethylation to rewrite seven imprinting control
regions so silencing genetic contributions from
either the mother or the father, but not both.
I know this is mind-stretchingly complex – hang in
there! Using CRISPR technologies they were
able to mimic the genes a male would have
contributed during normal fertilisation. These
modified parthenogenetic embryos were transferred
into a surrogate mother resulting in the birth of
viable full-term offspring. The research team
began with 220 unfertilised ova but only one
survived to adulthood yet was able to produce
offspring.
This is a significant step in the development of
mammalian research. It is preliminary and
therefore demands much more work if it is to have
any applications in real-world agriculture or
medicine. As the scientists concluded, ‘These
data demonstrate that parthenogenesis can be
achieved by targeted epigenetic rewriting of
multiple critical imprinting control regions.’
Does it spell the end of men in human
procreation? No, of course not! NB, so
far it has been achieved in mice, not in humans.
He is out
In November 2018, He Jiankui, the Chinese
biophysicist, announced that he had created the
world’s first genetically-engineered human
babies. It lead to serious uproar among the
scientific community and the general public.
He had broken just about every rule in the genetic
technologist’s unwritten handbook. He was
hauled before the Chinese authorities, sacked from
his university employment and handed a three-year
prison sentence and a hefty fine. There are
now calls that He be made financially, morally and
legally responsible for the health and wellbeing of
the three children he genome-edited.
Various media outlets have reported that He was
released from prison sometime in April. So
far, he has refused to give press interviews – his
future plans are therefore unknown. But what
differences, three years on, will he notice in the
world of genetic engineering? Certainly his
controversial foray has not stopped basic research
on genetically engineering human embryos. But
little research has been reported on the sort of
research that He conducted, namely heritable human
genome-editing. Of course, no publications
does not necessarily mean no experimentation.
Moreover, pledged oversight has stalled. There
was promised a global registry of such work – none
has appeared. Global surveillance and
restrictive measures were promised – none has
appeared.
Yet there are reported experiments that are pushing
the boundaries. For instance, in March, a
biotech research team in New Jersey, USA, using
surplus human embryos obtained from IVF clinics,
demonstrated how CRISPR could delete an extra copy
of a chromosome from a newly-fertilized ovum – a
technique that might lead to treating or preventing
chromosomal medical conditions such as Down’s
syndrome. This was reported as ‘DNA Double
Strand Breaks cause chromosome loss through sister
chromatid tethering in human embryos’ by Jenna
Turocy et al., and published in bioRxiv
on 22 March 2022. Other groups are exploring
how to introduce heritable genetic changes via human
sperm or ova. Even so, the consensus is that
all of these methods are too risky and none is ready
for human clinical trials.
CRISPR cats
Cats can cause allergic reactions in about 15% of
people. Tough if you visit friends with feline
friends. Help is maybe at hand. All cats
produce a protein known as Fel d 1, which is the
apparent cause of the adverse reaction. Fel d
1 consists of two different subunits, and there are
two genes – called CH1 and CH2 that
encode each subunit.
InBio, or Indoor Biotechnologies, is a US company
that has used CRISPR technology to delete the two
genes of the Fel d 1 protein. The work used
only in vitro cultures of cat cells.
Nevertheless, InBio says it is the first step to
creating hypoallergenic cats. However, it may
take several years before allergen-free moggies are
available from your local pet store.
Stem-cell
Technologies
James Thomson retires
This is not an obituary notice, but a retirement
notice. James Alexander Thomson is retiring
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison this
July. He is 63 years old. So what?
Well, he is the man who first isolated and cultured
human embryonic stem cells. He is therefore
the man who ignited one of the most vehement
bioethical debates – should scientists be allowed to
create and use embryonic stem cells, rather than
‘adult’ stem cells?
His landmark study appeared on 6 November
1998. It was entitled ‘Embryonic Stem Cell
Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts’ by James
Thomson et al., and published in Science
(1998, 282: 1145-1147).
The crux of the matter was simple – the harvesting
of embryonic stem cells results in the unavoidable
destruction of human embryos. On the other
hand, ‘adult’ stem cells are available from several
bioethically-neutral sources, such as bone marrow,
umbilical cord blood, milk teeth, eyes, adipose
tissue and so on and they are relatively plentiful
and easily collected.
Accordingly, Thomson’s 1998 paper sparked off a
bioethical battle, a stem-cell war – embryonic v.
‘adult’. Thomson astutely recognized the
existence of this bioethical conflict zone when he
declared, ‘If human embryonic stem cell research
does not make you at least a little bit
uncomfortable, you have not thought about it
enough.’ In the meantime, stem-cell science
was marching on and successful medical treatments
using ‘adult’ stem cells were multiplying whereas
embryonic stem-cell remedies were few and far
between.
Then in 2006, a biological bombshell exploded.
Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University discovered how
to induce ordinary, ‘adult’ somatic cells (not
‘adult’ stem cells) to revert to an embryo-like
state. He cultured skin cells from adult mice
and, using transcription factors, was able to
‘undifferentiate’ these somatic cells.
Yamanaka called these new entities ‘induced
pluripotent stem cells’ (iPS cells). This
‘reprogramming’ or ‘deprogramming’ has been likened
to winding back the clock, taking adult cells back
to their embryonic precursors from which they
originated – the very reverse of the process of cell
differentiation. Previously, this was thought
to be an irreversible pathway, that is, the
biological traffic went only one way from embryo to
adult – we now know differently.
And so a new race was triggered and the bandwagon
was rolling – could the same reprogramming occur
with human somatic cells? The answer was,
yes. In November 2007, two research groups,
led separately by Thomson and Yamanaka,
simultaneously reported the generation of iPS cells
from human adult fibroblasts, that is, human skin
cells. This was revolutionary science.
Thomson’s contribution was entitled, ‘Induced
pluripotent stem cell lines derived from human
somatic cells’ by Junying Yu et al., and
published in Science (2007, 318:
1917-1920).
It is hard to overstate the medical and bioethical
implications of such reprogramming. In a
nutshell, iPS cells are stem cells that can be made
from an individual’s own somatic cells without the
need for ova, cloning, or the subsequent destruction
of an embryo. What is more, they appear to
have most, if not all, of the biological properties
of embryonic stem cells. And because iPS cells
are ‘patient-specific’, they are genetically matched
to, and therefore would not be rejected by, the
patient, who would therefore not need any
immunosuppressive drugs if these cells were used in
regenerative treatments.
Yamanaka’s revolutionary work was rightly recognized
and rewarded by his winning the 2012 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine. The production of iPS
cells was – and still is – a game-changing
breakthrough that was destined to become the future
of stem-cell research. James Thomson,
commenting on the stem-cell bioethical war, stated
that, ‘Human ES [embryonic stem] cells created this
remarkable controversy, and iPS cells, while it’s
not completely over, are sort of the beginning of
the end for that controversy.’ In 2007, he
further claimed that, ‘A decade from now, this [the
adult v. embryonic stem-cell controversy] will be
just a funny historical footnote.’
James Thomson’s work may have played second fiddle
to that of Shinya Yamanaka, but the former undertook
world-beating science, even if it was bioethically
controversial and divisive. Looking back on
his career and his pending departure from work,
Thomson recently said, ‘I accomplished what I wanted
to accomplish. People hang on too long and
tend to kind of fade out. And I didn't care to
do that.’ Happy retirement, James.
Stem-cell treatments and
the elderly
Japan has the world’s oldest population. It is
therefore investing $970 million in ‘regenerative
medicine’, which includes the transplantation of
induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) to
replace non-functioning cells in its elderly
citizens. After all, iPS cell technology was
devised by their very own Shinya Yamanaka.
Numerous small-scale trials have already been
conducted in Japan for diseases like age-related
macular degeneration, Parkinson's disease and
arthritic disorders. For instance, in 2019, a
Japanese stem-cell transplant treatment was approved
for spinal-cord injuries. In 2020, a
six-day-old infant with a liver disorder received an
iPS treatment that enabled the child to survive
until he was old enough for a liver
transplant. iPS therapies also offer hope for
treating intractable diseases like motor neurone
disease (MND) and Alzheimer's.
An example of such sought-after success was reported
in April, when a team of researchers at Osaka
University announced the results of an experimental
treatment involving four practically-blind patients
suffering from corneal disease. The patients,
who ranged in age from their 30s to 70s, received
transplanted corneal epithelial cell sheets created
from iPS cells grown in the laboratory. Three
had their eyesight improved and all were free of
side effects one year later.
‘This could be a revolutionary treatment that could
overcome the challenges that existing treatment has
faced, such as a shortage of cornea donors or
transplant rejection’, so said Koji Nishida, an
Osaka University professor of ophthalmology, at a
news conference. Future plans at Osaka include
a large-scale clinical trial in collaboration with
biotech companies with the aim of making the novel
procedure a widespread treatment. However, the
required success and approval may be years
away. Yet the application of
bioethically-sound treatments is to be
welcomed. It is the way forward.
Stem cells and Parkinson’s
treatment
Parkinson's disease is that neurodegenerative
disorder characterised by the loss of neurons which
produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. When
these neurons die, patients experience a lack of
movement coordination due to loss of dopamine in
their brains. Drug treatments are available to
replace the dopamine, but their efficacy often wanes
with time. A recent study has created
dopamine-producing cells from induced pluripotent
stem cells (iPS cells). When transplanted into
rats with Parkinson's disease, they successfully
alleviated the disease symptoms.
The work, conducted at the Arizona State University,
has been reported as, ‘Optimizing maturity and dose
of iPSC-derived dopamine progenitor cell therapy for
Parkinson’s disease’ by Benjamin Hillier et al.,
and published in Nature Regenerative Medicine
(21 April 2022).
This was a proof-of-concept study. As the
paper states, ‘These data support the concept that
human iPSC-derived D17 mDA progenitors [17-day
differentiated, midbrain dopamine-producing cells]
are suitable for clinical development with the aim
of transplantation trials in patients with
Parkinson’s disease.’ Indeed, its findings
will soon be tested in a human clinical trial of
patients with a specific type of Parkinson's disease
caused by a mutation in the so-called Parkin
gene. For many, such treatment, if successful,
cannot come soon enough.
Stem cells and cancer
treatments
Glioblastoma are highly-malignant brain tumours that
account for more than 60% of all tumours found in
adult brains. Surgery can be effective in
eliminating the primary tumour but recurrence is
typically more than 90%. How could this rate
be reduced? Moreover, glioblastoma create
difficulties with normal treatments because most
drugs cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. A
new type of post-surgery stem-cell therapy has been
developed and tested in mice for the treatment of
glioblastoma.
This study, conducted by scientists at Brigham and
Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is
entitled, ‘Target receptor identification and
subsequent treatment of resected brain tumors with
encapsulated and engineered allogeneic stem cells’
by Deepak Bhere et al., and was published
online in Nature Communications (19 May,
2022).
The scientists collected circulating tumour cells
that entered the bloodstream from the primary
glioblastoma of patients and used these to identify
receptor molecules expressed specifically on these
glioblastoma cells, termed 'death receptors'.
Then the team used mesenchymal stem cells (MSC)
obtained from a healthy human donor, and engineered
them to express proteins that could bind to the
‘death receptors’ on glioblastoma cells. This
elicited a cascade of reactions in glioblastoma
cells, leading to their death. Finally, these
engineered stem cells were packaged into a
biodegradable hydrogel capsule, allowing them to
pass through the blood-brain barrier.
This is a clever approach that could lead to
personalised medicine based on the patient’s
specific tumour, but to ensure speedy treatment, it
also employed pre-made allogenic stem cells, a sort
of ‘off-the-shelf’ remedy. It may be possible
to create a bank of stem cells derived from healthy
donors that have been previously engineered to
tackle different cancers – a pre-made bio-bank of
fully-characterised stem cells.
Generally, with cell-based therapies, the patient's
own cells are harvested, reprogrammed to target
diseased cells or tissues, and then reintroduced
into the patient's body. In patients with
glioblastoma, however, the disease is so fast-moving
that surgery must be performed within the first week
after diagnosis, leaving little time to develop
therapies using the patient's own cells.
Hence, the need for pre-made stem cells, or this
sort of ‘off-the-shelf' remedy, developed using
cells from healthy donors.
This stem-cell based therapy was tested in mice with
primary or recurrent glioblastoma. The tumours
were removed and the stem-cell based therapy
administered. Mice that received the treatment
were alive 90 days after surgery, whereas those that
only had the surgical removal of the tumour survived
for an average of only 55 days. Various doses
of the therapy were administered, but no adverse
effects of toxicity were detected in the mice.
This is exciting, but of course it is only ‘in
mice’, not men. Nevertheless, the authors
reckon that Phase I/II human clinical trials could
begin within the next two years. And they hope
that this stem-cell based therapy could be used to
treat other solid tumours. Don’t we all?
Stem-cell treatment failures
Many stem-cell treatments are wonderful – some are
diabolical. Some clinics produce amazing
therapies – others are fraudulent. Unproven
stem-cell treatments are everywhere. And the
USA is among the worst affected. Surprisingly,
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has
approved only blood stem-cell transplantations for
cancers and disorders of the blood and immune
systems. Yet hundreds of US clinics are
offering untested, undocumented stem-cell
therapies. Indeed, scores have been implicated
in deaths and injuries to their clients.
Of course, the USA population can be overeager for
both medical and litigious procedures. Hence,
stem-cell quacks and hungry attorneys make for an
explosive combination. Take for example the
long-running legal dispute between StemGenex, a US
stem-cell treatment provider, and a group of its
dissatisfied customers. The lawsuit started in
2016, when a group of its patients complained that
the StemGenex claim of ‘100 percent consumer
satisfaction’ was misleading.
These former patients had sought treatments for a
range of medical conditions including lupus,
diabetes, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord
injury. However, none had ‘received any
significant benefit’ from StemGenex procedures,
despite their costly treatments.
The StemGenex treatments involved removing adipose
tissue cells from patients and treating them to
concentrate the stem cells. These were then
tweaked according to the disease to be treated,
before being injecting back into the patient.
The clinic had claimed that the treatment was
effective against a variety of conditions, including
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Moreover, the
high patient satisfaction rate quoted by StemGenex
was based on interviews conducted shortly after fat
cell harvesting, namely, before the results of the
treatment would be apparent.
This disgraceful episode of quackery has at last
reached a settlement. A total of $3.65 million
will be paid by StemGenex to 1,063 of its former
patients. That may bring about some financial
satisfaction for the maltreated patients, but it
maligns authentic stem-cell technologies and their
dedicated medical practitioners.
And there is yet another distasteful aspect to this
sad saga. The lawyers were the real
winners. The financial settlement meant that
each plaintiff received just $1,936 from the
compensation fund despite having paid around $14,900
per treatment. The majority of the settlement
disappeared in legal fees and expenses.
The moral of this story – if you ever consider using
a stem-cell treatment be very, very cautious.
Better be sceptical than ripped off. Do not
believe a stem-cell company’s hype. Research
the scientific evidence. Ask a stem-cell
expert. Ask two or three. Beware – there
are stem-cell treatment fraudsters out there.
Miscellaneous
Mandy Allwood (1965 – 2021)
Mandy J Allwood was a rather ordinary girl.
She was born in Warwick in 1965, the daughter of
Brian Allwood, who owned an electrical company, and
his wife Marion. She left school at 16 and
worked for her father’s business. In 1983, she
met Simon Pugh, a plasterer from Solihull.
They married in 1986 and had a son, Charlie, but the
marriage was dissolved after she became involved
with another suitor, Paul Hudson.
By 1995, Allwood had begun a serious relationship
with Paul Hudson, who already had another family,
and in December of that year Allwood suffered a
miscarriage. She resolved to become pregnant
again. By the following April she had not
conceived and was referred for fertility
treatment. In August 1996, this rather
ordinary woman became the world-famous
Octomum. Mandy Allwood had managed to
superovulate and conceive octuplets. She went
against medical advice and had sexual intercourse
while being treated in a private clinic in
Birmingham with fertility drugs. Why a
previously fertile woman, with a 5-year-old child, a
previous abortion and a recent miscarriage, was
recommended such treatment, especially in the
absence of counselling with her partner, who
apparently lived with another woman, was a
mystery. Nevertheless, she insisted on keeping
all of them. She seemed adamantly, but perhaps
naively, prolife. ‘I know some people will
call us irresponsible but, as far as I’m concerned,
the more the merrier’, she claimed.
Enter Max Clifford, the now-discredited PR
consultant. If sex and money make the biggest
headlines then here was the near-perfect
story. Clifford sold the story of Octomum to
the sleazy News of the World for an alleged
six-figure sum. He also organised sponsorship
deals with car, baby food and baby supplies’
companies. He declared the more births the
better because of the greater media interest.
Around that time, I happened to be in London one day
when the three of them rushed out of a media office
and into a waiting taxi. They were, for a
little while, celebrities.
What followed was most instructive. Much of
the medical profession, rather than rise to the
challenge, spoke only in terms of gloom and
doom. Dr Thomas Stuttaford, a medical writer
for The Times, declared, ‘In medical eyes
this pregnancy is a catastrophe.’ The
universally offered treatment was the barbaric
selective reduction – ‘kill six to save two’.
Mandy Allwood refused. That is, she took
advantage of that well-known liberal slogan, ‘a
woman’s right to choose.’ And then what
happened? The pro-abortion press immediately
rounded on her, often with near-hysterical spite.
On Monday 30 September, Allwood went into labour at
24 weeks. She was taken to King’s College
Hospital, London, where she lost three of her
boys. The very next day one girl was stillborn
in the morning, and that afternoon the remaining
three boys and one girl all died. Seven were
registered as live births and subsequent deaths
while one was a miscarriage. ‘I cradled each
of them for two and a half hours as they died in my
arms,’ she recalled. ‘It was horrible.
When I felt the last one coming, I said, ‘Please,
God, let at least one of them live. But it
wasn’t to be. I was inconsolable.’
Much of the medical profession was aching to say,
‘We told you so. You should have aborted
six.’ But the ends do not justify the
means and it is simply wrong for doctors to kill
their patients. Poor Mandy Allwood – she was
devastated. She was a mother, who wanted, but
suddenly lost, eight of her children.
Undoubtedly she grieved, but her one consolation was
that she did her best for them all and did not
consent to killing any of them – for that she needed
to experience no guilt.
She named the six boys Adam, Cassius, Donald,
Kypros, Martyn and Nelson, and the two girls Layne
and Kitali. They were buried in tiny white coffins
decorated with butterflies. ‘I have a treasure
box which I keep next to my bed with their scan
pictures and photos of them when they were born
along with their birth certificates and teddy
bears’, she told The Sun newspaper 19 years
later. After losing their octuplets Allwood
and Hudson had three daughters – Color, Kitali and
Rade.
Things then went downhill, again. In 2007,
Allwood separated from Hudson and was arrested for
drink-driving with her children in the back of the
car – she lost custody of them. Two years
later she was given an anti-social behaviour order
(ASBO) for playing loud music and upsetting her
neighbours in Warwick. The money from selling
her story had dried up. She admitted two
counts of fraud. She sued Clifford, accusing
him of deceit and in 2001 he was ordered to pay her
£15,200. She became estranged from her family,
spiralled into depression and alcoholism and had
suicidal thoughts. Her name lives on in
medical ethics books and she also appears in media
law textbooks. Small recompense for fleeting
fame.
She finally moved to Stratford-upon-Avon, where she
was a regular at the Yard of Ale public house.
In 2015, she told The Sun how she still felt
phantom movements from her doomed pregnancy.
‘Ever since I gave birth I have felt them kicking
and moving every day,’ she said.
Mandy Allwood started out as a rather ordinary girl,
who became a rather ordinary woman, who was suddenly
shot into global stardom and then ditched to fade
into near oblivion. Hers was a sad and
troubled life. Bioethically, it was a
disaster. She died of cancer on 8 December
2021, aged 56.
DNA, the final blueprint
It started in 1953 when James Watson and Francis
Crick first described the three-dimensional
structure of the double helix of deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA), the carrier of the genetic code.
Then in 1990, efforts began to sequence it. By
2000, a huge team of international scientists
working on the Human Genome Project ‘cracked’ this
human genetic code, that is, they sequenced the 3.3
billion chemical ‘letters’ of our DNA. It was
a first draft. A revised version was published
in 2003, but that was only about 92% complete.
Now, after a 32-year quest, the final version has
been delivered – the gaps have been filled.
Technically, this has been a mammoth scientific
achievement. It was only recently that the
required sequencing technology has been available to
decode that final, previously inaccessible,
8%. It allowed the scientists to move some
sequences, decipher some repetitive segments,
transfer other sections to their correct positions
and to add more than 200 million missing ‘letters’.
Evan Eichler, from the University of Washington
School of Medicine and co-chairman of the Telomere
to Telomere (T2T) consortium, which carried out the
work, said, ‘The complete blueprint is going to
revolutionise the way we think about human genomic
variation, disease and evolution.’ It is
reckoned that this ultimate version may help doctors
better understand medical conditions, such as
neuroblastoma, a cancer that mainly affects young
children, schizophrenia, lung cancer and some forms
of muscular dystrophy and immunodeficiency.
This research, this seminal, historical study is
published across six papers in Science
(2022, 376: 44-53) by Sergey Nurk et
al., under the title of ‘The complete
sequence of a human genome.’
So, have the sequencers finished their work?
No! The demand now is to get similarly
complete genome sequences from a greater diversity
of people – so far the sequencing has relied on DNA
from a very limited number of sources. The T2T
consortium has already made a start by deciphering
70 more human genomes, with a goal of 350 from
people of diverse ancestries. Eventually, it
is said, ‘We want every genome to be telomere to
telomere.’
Deaths among the young
What is the most common cause of death among
children, adolescents and young adults aged between
1 and 24 in the United States? Well, if you
are pro-life minded, you will say, and quite
rightly, abortion. After all there are
currently about 800,000 abortions performed every
year across the USA.
The alternative answer is death by injuries of a
physical nature. For more than 60 years, motor
vehicle crashes have been the leading cause of
injury-related deaths among these young
people. But from around 2017, firearm-related
injuries became the number one cause of death from
injury. Why this crossover?
Simple. Motor vehicle crashes have become
increasing safe – seat belts, speed restrictions,
better constructed cars, and so on.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), between 2000 and 2020, the number
of firearm-related deaths among children,
adolescents, and young adults increased from 6,998
to a colossal 10,186. In 2000, motor
vehicle-related injuries resulted in 13,049 deaths
among young people. By 2020, that number had
fallen to 8,234 motor vehicle traffic deaths –
equivalent to a 40% decrease.
These data demonstrate that concerted governmental
efforts to reduce road-traffic crashes, especially
those with fatal outcomes can be achieved. Now
USA, what about concerted effort with respect to
firearm fatalities? We are horrified by the
outcomes of your ‘right to bear arms’ and the
regularity of news headlines reporting mass murders
on your streets and in your schools and homes.
Firearms, however, are one of the few products whose
safety is not regulated by a designated US federal
agency. Perhaps it should be. Perhaps it
is now too late to retrofit such regulations.
Yet undeniably something needs to be done. How
cheap is human life?
USA and Elsewhere
Roe v.
Wade
Presently there is but one hot bioethical topic in
the US – the possible/likely overturning of Roe
v. Wade. Since its introduction into US
federal law in 1973, this case, which depended on a
dubious constitutional right to privacy, created a
sort of right of US women to abortion in the first
three months of pregnancy, and limited rights in the
second trimester. It has since been
contentious and the target of the pro-life
community. Now, almost 50 years on, there is
the real possibility that it will be overturned or
at least scaled back. If so, abortion in the
US will not cease, but it will become more
restricted and individual states will again be
allowed to pass legislation to protect their unborn
children.
Currently, the Supreme Court of the United States of
America (the SCOTUS), is adjudicating in a challenge
to Roe v. Wade under the legal aegis
emanating from the Mississippi case of Dobbs v.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization and its
ban on abortions after fifteen weeks. Dobbs
arrived before the SCOTUS on 1 December when oral
arguments were heard. Judgement has been
expected by the summer of 2022, perhaps in late June
or early July.
The latest move occurred on Monday 2 May, when a
draft opinion on the case, written by Justice Samuel
Alito, was leaked and published by the news outlet,
Politico. The document, which had been
circulated among the SCOTUS members on 10 February,
suggests that the Court is ready to overturn Roe.
Alito is quoted as writing, ‘Roe was
egregiously wrong from the start. Its
reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision
has had damaging consequences. And far from
bringing about a national settlement of the abortion
issue, [it has] enflamed debate and deepened
division.’ Is this the final opinion of the
SCOTUS? Is this the majority view of Roe?
It is reported that Alito and four other Justices
are in favour of an overturn, with Chief Justice
John Roberts as an unknown. Would that mean
the SCOTUS majority could be 6 to 3 in favour of
overturning?
Make no mistake – this is BIG law. If Roe
is overturned its implications will not only affect
America but they will ricochet around the
world. Abortion will never be the same
again. We await the decision of the nine
Justices of the SCOTUS. By the time you read
the next Update on Life Issues, in Novenber,
something significant will have happened to abortion
in the USA.
In the meantime, as well as the heated debates, a
rash of violence by radical abortion activists has
broken out. Offices of pro-life groups in
Wisconsin and Oregon have been firebombed.
Numerous churches and pregnancy care centres across
the country have been vandalised. In early
June, an abortion activist was arrested near the
home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after
he threatened to assassinate the conservative
justice. Then in mid-June, young women from
the Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights group demonstrated in
blood-soaked clothes right outside the home of US
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in Virginia.
After killing 63 million unborn children by abortion
– itself a typically violent and bloody procedure –
perhaps we should not be surprised that abortion
radicals have resorted to defend it by violence.
Elsewhere in America
Washington DC may be the hub of all this abortion
activity, but the action is nationwide. It may
be that the loudest chanting of the pro-life
activists and their ‘Roe v. Wade has got to
go’ and their pro-choice counterparts shouting
‘abortion is healthcare’ is most apparent in the
capital, but this is not only a Washington-centric
affair.
For a start the stretch of Roe v. Wade is
being determined against the backdrop of the
contentious 2021 Texas Heartbeat Act and its ban on
abortions after six weeks. Though challenged
in lower courts, eventually, in January 2022, the
SCOTUS intervened so that the Texas Heartbeat Act
remains and the lives of thousands of unborn
children have been spared.
Then there are numerous other states which are
gearing up for a post-Roe situation.
Already ‘trigger’ laws are on the books across the
US so that abortion would become illegal in at least
22 states if Roe is quashed. And there
are still states currently introducing anti-abortion
laws. For instance, in late May, Oklahoma
legislators passed a bill that would ban nearly all
abortions, from the moment of fertilisation, across
that state. The bill defines an unborn child
as ‘a human fetus or embryo in any stage of
gestation from fertilization until birth and
fertilization is defined as the ‘fusion of a human
spermatozoon with a human ovum’. Exceptions
would be to save the life of the woman or if the
pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. It
would be the nation’s strictest abortion law and
would save an estimated 4,000 unborn lives a
year. On 25 May, the Oklahoma governor, Kevin
Stitt, signed it into law. The new legislation
went into effect immediately and began protecting
the unborn from abortion. Even if Roe v.
Wade stands, this law would remain in force,
unless a court steps in to block it.
News from Hungary
In March 2022, Katalin Novak, a 44-year-old former
cabinet minister, was elected by the Hungarian
parliament as its first female president. She
is also both pro-life and pro-family. She has
spoken of the importance of children in a society
that promotes killing the unborn by abortion.
In her victory speech, Novak drew attention to the
importance of families – including her own – and
said, ‘Having children was one of the most important
decisions of our lives.’
In 2011, Hungary adopted a new Constitution.
It includes Article II that protects human life from
the moment of conception. It states, ‘Human
dignity shall be inviolable. Every human being
shall have the right to life and human dignity;
embryonic and foetal life shall be subject to
protection from the moment of conception.’
Katalin Novak faces a tough future attempting to
uphold and implement that aspect of the
Constitution. Hungary is a country where
abortion has been widely practised legally since
1953, though now in diminishing numbers – currently
about 20,000 per year – though such official
government figures can often be huge
underestimates. Come on Hungary, show the
world what it means to be pro-life and pro-family.