Warning Labels

CNSNEWS.COM, Sept. 18 — Australia has begun requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to label products that were developed or tested with stem cells from human embryos.

The requirement, which will enable physicians and consumers to boycott those drugs if they have ethical objections to embryonic stem cell research, has been welcomed by pro-lifers.

Do No Harm, a coalition supporting ethical medical research, was first to take up the issue of labeling drugs tested in this way.

The group's medical spokesman, Dr. David van Gend, said he thought “it was only proper that patients and doctors have some way of knowing so that, where possible, they can avoid and if need be boycott such medications.”

Agreeable Vaccines

LIFENEWS.COM, Sept. 14 — Parents around the nation can now ensure that their children are protected against mumps and measles without having to resort to vaccines developed from cell lines taken from aborted babies.

Children of God for Life, a group that monitors vaccines from the pro-life perspective, says that the pharmaceutical giant Merck has confirmed that single-dose Attenuvax (measles) and Mumpsvax (mumps) are now available to family physicians.

The vaccines represent a pro-life breakthrough: They do not contain tissues from aborted unborn children.

Fetal Poster Cleared

THISISLOCALLONDON.CO.UK, Sept. 10 — An English woman who was arrested and charged with public order offenses after showing a poster of an aborted fetus has been cleared of all charges.

Fiona Pinto, 23, from Osborne Gardens, Hertfordshire, was campaigning to be elected to the Welsh Assembly as a Pro-Life Alliance candidate in April when the offending poster caused outrage among passers-by in Newport city center.

She and fellow Pro-Life candidate Joseph Biddulph, 52, were arrested after shoppers surrounded the pair and demanded that the poster be taken down.

Magistrate Sally Ann Fleming Jones told Abergavenny Magistrates Court: “The poster could be seen as being in poor taste and we feel its display in a public shopping area during school holidays could be seen as unwise. However, taken in the light of modern-day images used daily in the media, and with regard to the laws of freedom of expression, we do not find the charge of causing insult proved.”