Bob Perry & LTI in South Korea

Abortion is illegal in Korea -- yet the country has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. For that reason, friends of LTI have been working to provide some pro-life training to the good people of Korea for quite some time.

This Friday, my wife and I will be leaving for Seoul for a week of speaking engagements at churches, high schools and to the students and faculty at a university campus. All will be centered on the pro-life issues of abortion and/or stem cell research.

This is a huge undertaking for me -- "daunting" is the word that keeps coming to mind -- so I greatly appreciate the words of encouragement and support I have already received from many friends and family. And, for all those who have made it, I also appreciate the commitment to pray for a safe and effective trip -- that those who hear the information would be receptive to it, and that they would be the catalyst for change in their country.

Though it seems to be changing by the hour, this is the latest version of the schedule that has been planned for me. I don't know what kind of internet access I will have, but I will try to report as best I can as the week goes on.

Saturday, October 2
3:45 pm Arrive at Incheon International Airport
5:30 pm Arrive at KyungMin University

Sunday, October 3
1:10 pm Speaking at M S Church (English Service)

Monday, October 4
9:20 - 10:10 am: Uijongbu - International Christian High School
         :: Seoul City Tour in afternoon ::

Tuesday, October 5
2:30 - 3:30 pm: KyungMin University (Students)
3:30 - 4:30 pm: KyungMin University (Students)

Wednesday, October 6
11:00 am - 12:00 pm: Young Shin Girls High School
4:00 - 6:00 pm: KyungMin University (Faculty - Abortion and SCR)

Thursday, October 7
9:00 am - 12:00 pm: Daesung Boys High School (3 sessions)
7:00 - 9:00 pm: Speaking at Sam Nam Church

Friday, October 8
7:00 pm: Speaking at Docsuri Church for Army Soldiers

Saturday, October 9
10:40 am: Depart Incheon International Airport

Stem Shell Game Exposed [Bob]

On Monday August 23, 2010, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. issued an injunction on the use of federal funding for embryo-destructive stem cell research. The New York Times’ (for one example) reaction to the announcement was one of stunned indignation:

"The ruling came as a shock to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and at universities across the country, which had viewed the Obama administration’s new policy and the grants provided under it as settled law." 

What the Times failed to note in its story was that Judge Lamberth was not the first federal official to strike a legal blow against President Barack Obama's stem cell policy and thereby block federal funding of embryo destructive stem cell research. The first such move actually occurred on March 11, 2009. That move was made by ... President Barack Obama.

The fact is that Judge Lamberth's ruling is perfectly consistent with the law. While the administration, with great public fanfare, claimed to have "lifted the ban" on ESCR with his March 9, 2009 Executive Order (EO), Mr. Obama quietly overrode his own EO just two days later when he re-signed (as has every president since 1996) the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to a federal appropriations bill (as Scott noted in his post on the subject). The Dickey-Wicker Amendment bans public funding of research that destroys human embryos. Mr. Obama signed it. He didn't call a big press conference to herald the occasion because doing so would not fit the narrative he is trying to sell about his forward looking faith in science as opposed to the Luddite opponents of ESCR.

The dirty little secret here is that the stem cell research EO Mr. Obama and those who are carrying his water have called "policy" and referred to as "settled law" is a hollow document that carries no legal force. His signing of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment into law is binding and the unquestionable basis on which Judge Lamberth rendered his decision.

The reality of that fact is something pro-lifers need to soak in. Though it is becoming a fading memory, it serves to remind us of another EO Mr. Obama issued during the health care debate. In exchange for the votes of so-called "pro-life Democrats," Mr. Obama issued an EO proclaiming there would be no federal funding of abortion in the health care bill. They bought it. He signed it. And now we are left with an EO on abortion that contains the same amount of legal power we find in his EO on stem cell research.

None.

Fat Chance

One of the most promising scientific advancements of the last few years in any area of research has been the success of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (IPS). We have talked about it (here) before but, as a reminder, IPS harvests adult skin cells from the patient who requires therapy and induces those cells to return to pluripotency -- a state from which they can be coaxed into becoming almost any other kind of cell. The therapeutic value of pluripotent cells is enormously encouraging.

The beauty of this kind of research is that it honors the concerns of everyone involved in the debate on stem cell research. Not only does IPS show therapeutic promise but, more importantly, it does so without causing the morally troubling destruction of human embryos. For that reason IPS truly is the kind of win-win solution that anyone concerned about bioethical issues should be seeking.

And the future just got brighter.

In August, Stanford University surgeon Michael Longaker and cardiologist Joseph Wu teamed up to induce pluripotent stem cells from a quart of fat they had extracted from a liposuction patient. That’s right, these two researchers found a way to turn fat into a stem-cell therapy. Not only so, but transforming the fat cells into IPS cells took just 20 days -- as compared to the 8 weeks it took to do the same from skin cells -- and the process yielded 20 times the number of IPS cells.

Here’s what bothers me about this story: I read about it in the December issue of Popular Science magazine.

With the exception of a one-paragraph blurb in U.S. News and a short news release from Reuters, I could not find any mention of this breakthrough in the mainstream news media. I certainly did not hear or see any politician from either party tout it as a new way to seek common ground on the bioethical battlefield. There have been no news conferences called to announce federal funding for a program that will seek to promote this kind of therapy. I haven't even heard funding of this research offered as an amendment to the health care bill.

It is a mystery to me how anyone who is dedicated to promoting cures for disease, who cares at all about the destruction of human embryos, or who is truly seeking any kind of "common ground" where these issues are concerned, could fail to revel in a story like this one and shout about it from the mountaintops.