Adult Cells, Please

ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 20 — State Rep. Jim Lembke, R-St. Louis, is pushing a measure that would spend $3 million in Missouri state funds on adult stem-cell research, partly to contradict the depiction of pro-life advocates as anti-science.

Lembke’s bill is designed to check a statewide referendum this November that would mandate state spending on embryonic stem-cell research.

He said Missouri residents need to know that they don’t need to vote for the proposal in November to advance ethical forms of stem cell research and provide hope for patients.

Not in Our Africa

NIGERIA DAILY SUN, April 11 — The government of Nigeria has defied European and American religious and political leaders by pressing ahead with its proposal to make homosexual “marriage” illegal and to ban homosexual advocacy organizations.

Justice Minister Bayo Ojo called homosexual unions “unnatural and un-African.”

“While the proposed law sounds harsh to American ears, the penalty for homosexual activities in those parts of Africa under shari’a (Islamic law) is death,” said U.S. Episcopalian Bishop Robert Duncan.

Bishop Duncan criticized Westerners “who claim to champion the primacy of local understanding and culture, demanding that foreign sister churches give up their local understanding and culture and be judged by an American understanding of individual rights.”

He concluded: “There is a word for the one-way imposition of values — colonialism.”

‘Real Child’ Recognized

BREAKFAST TELEVISION, April 11 — The local morning shown on Toronto’s City TV channel has unintentionally provided fodder for the pro-life position by broadcasting a series of reports featuring the ultrasonic imaging of a baby in the womb of the show’s host.

“By showing the expecting baby growing larger every day, we are seeing a ‘humanization’ of the fetus as we have never seen before,” said one viewer on a blog site.

Another observed that “public videos of a living child in the womb sucking its thumb and grabbing its own feet, effectively end the ‘it’s not a real child’ argument.”

Green Mountain Havens

THE BOSTON GLOBE, April 7 — Vermont Gov. James Douglas is expected to sign a bill permitting new mothers to leave their newborn babies with health care or emergency workers without facing criminal penalties.

The law is designed to enable distressed new mothers to leave their babies in a safe location rather than abandoning them.

Under the bill, “baby safe havens” include healthcare facilities, fire stations, police stations and places of worship.