Fires continued to ravage Southern California this weekend, although the harsh winds that drove most of the bigger blazes died down on Sunday.
More than 700 homes have been destroyed, though, with nearly 40 people injured.
In a story of interest to American Catholics, Doug Kmiec, the law professor famously connected now with the “pro-Obama, pro-life” argument of this past election season, gave a lecture at a California seminary recently. According to an attendee, Kmiec said he still held to his support of Obama but that if Pope Benedict told him, “Doug, you’re wrong,” he would have stand with the Magisterium and change his position.
Abroad, Russia’s Medvedev called for talks with President-elect Obama as soon as possible after Jan. 20, coming across as less aggressive than his state of the nation address in the wake of America’s election night. Then, the Russian president threatened to deploy missiles within Europe in protest of the planned U.S.-Poland missile shield; this time around, Medvedev insisted that address was not to be taken as “blackmail” against Obama. Russia has likewise backed off on the missile deployment.
At home, this story is unlikely to see much attention, though for some its potential implications may seem troublesome: a 12-year-old boy, the son of Hasidic Jews, died over the weekend in a D.C. children’s hospital.
The boy, named Motl Brody, had severe brain cancer and had been pronounced brain dead by the hospital on Nov. 4. However, his parents’ religious beliefs dictate that a person is not dead until the heart and lungs stop functioning – and their son’s were still working, albeit with the help of drugs and artificial support.
The result was a court battle, with the hospital saying its “scarce resources are being used for the preservation of a deceased body,” and the Jewish parents insisting their son be kept on life support until his heart and lungs ceased to respond.
That finally happened on Saturday, and the boy was buried the next day, making the court action moot – but still, one wonders if it foreshadows more ethics and legal battles concerning religious freedom and hospitals’ takes on end-of-life situations.
And, last but not least, as opponents of embryonic stem cell research brace for an Obama-executive order to loosen restrictions on the practice, Pfizer – the world’s largest drugmaker – announced it will pour $100 million into research of both embryonic and adult stem cells.
The company seeks to research ways stem cells can slow or even reverse the body’s aging process – a seemingly classic case of seeking the Fountain of Youth by means of destroying life, perhaps? Incidentally, Pfizer has fallen 28 percent in the New York Stock Exchange this year.
While the Bloomberg article, at least, cites progress made with non-embryonic stem cells – such as the recent breakthrough of reprogramming adult cells into the equivalent of embryonic ones – the company’s decision to still pursue research that requires the destruction of days-old embryos, hand-in-hand with the near certainty of federal funds also promoting the practice, does not bode well with proponents of a culture of life.
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