CNN reports that stem cells from bone marrow have shown promise for treating a rare congenital disease called epidermolysis bullosa.

The transplanted bone marrow contains stem cells that can turn into skin cells. These new skin cells could produce the missing collagen 7 to stitch the skin layers, gradually healing the blisters and improving the patient’s condition.

Unfortunately, any treatment will be too late for the children in the Netherlands with this condition who have been euthanized.

The UK Daily Mail has an astounding story about a man trapped in a supposed vegetative state for twenty-three years until the advent of new technology and the intervention of neurologist Dr. Steven Laureys.  Student Rom Hubens was left paralyzed in an apparent coma after a car accident, but remained in the hellish state of perfect comprehension and total paralysis.  His consciousness, based on current standards, was pronounced ‘extinct.’

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

Mr Houben describes the moment as ‘my second birth.’

Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

Mr Houben said: ‘All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.’

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who ‘saved’ him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

My mother, in an odd trick of fate, was one of Terri Schiavo’s hospice nurses.  We talked very carefully about her case, aware of the profound difference in our views.  She was certain that what was being done was the best, most compassionate thing.

What this story reminds us is to never, ever bet against life.

HT Steyn in The Corner

Whenever freedom is lost, wherever tyranny is found, there are three accompanying factors: religious oppression, economic depression, and a culture of death.

Orwell’s 1984 provides a vivid example of this principle. Religion in Oceania has been wholly abolished, the people live in government-induced squalor, and the state routinely comes between children and their parents, and is working on preventing marriage altogether.

But there are ample historical examples as well. (more…)

Peter Lawler has written a must-read account at The Weekly Standard of The Chosen One’s termination of the Bioethics Council.  Bush’s creation of the Council was the greatest indication of the President’s real thinking on science and the public good.  Far from ‘politicizing science,’ Bush brought together a group of broadly trained, highly intelligent people to debate the implications of various policy proposals under the leadership of Leon Kass of the University of Chicago.

For Obama, a valuable Council does nothing but offer advice to the administration. The Bush Council was actually given the additional mandate of public education, of developing a national dialogue on controversial bioethical issues. It’s with that Socratic second mandate in mind that President Bush chose for his first chairman a man trained in medicine, natural science, and the wisdom about being human embodied in the Great Books from Plato through Shakespeare to Genesis–Leon Kass. For Obama, it would appear, there’s no need for such moral and political discussion or such “humanistic” guidance because the experts know the nonideological and objective answer to the key questions that face us in our high-tech and increasingly biotech world. Personal opinion is trumped by what the “studies show,” and public opinion should be guided toward a consensus based on those studies.

(more…)

This week, a British court ordered life sustaining treatment withdrawn from a baby – against the wishes of his parents. The writeup indicates that it was uncertain whether this was done for the best interest of the baby or the best interest of the hospital. Does this distinction make any difference? (more…)

John Bivers at Champion News has an excellent piece on the relationship between ethics in government and opposition to abortion.

For those of y’all around here who have a fondness for NR’s Derbyshire (I don’t), just a reminder regarding his unalloyed support of all things surrounding the culture of death.  Ponnuru responds to Derbyshire’s characteristically unreasoned fit here.