Violence and economic strangulation

For two years we survived on the streets of London by selling The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered pitches throughout the UK. As I wrote in the blog of 17 November, our Big Issue pitches have been terminated (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”). Although we can still sell the magazine on the pitches we had for two years, we have no priority whatsoever: we have to leave if the vendors to whom the pitches have been allocated come along, and not stand in on the pitches at all if a vendor is already there – the former was experienced by Declan this evening (a first in three weeks). The fact that we don’t have pitches any more is particularly serious for me, because I am facing possible prosecution for begging.

With respect to our campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, I announced in Monday’s blog that the website is launched at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html - the same morning Declan was virtually attacked by a rough sleeper outside the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre (see blog of 6 November 2008 “Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor”; Declan has written on several occasions to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, in his capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, to which the Dellow Centre belongs). I am hoping to have finished uploading New York State within a few days, including a “Take action” in respect of payment for egg donation which the ethics committee of the Empire State Stem Cell Board is currently discussing. The Take action will make the case that donors should not be paid for their eggs, but rather they should be compensated for the burdens of egg retrieval (reference: Steinbock B. Payment for egg donation and surrogacy. Mt Sinai J Med 2004;71:255-265).