Survey: Keep Religion Out of Politics

Declan and I are still looking for a place to sleep (on Thursday night we returned to the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate; and on Friday night the gate was locked). Still, a part of me welcomes leaving the porch behind. It shouldn't be difficult: I have been assaulted there three times; and as recently as 2 August I was urinated on. Also, the City of London police have woken us on numerous occasions mainly to put us under pressure to go into a homeless hostel, meaning Declan would have to 'sign on' for benefits, and consequently withdraw his application to the European Court of Human Rights (see blog "A trellis gate is installed in the porch" for Declan's most recent letter to the Registrar of the Court). And when these police visits didn't have the desired effect, a City of London Police 'No sleeping' went up on the back wall of the porch (see blog of 25 June "Police ‘No sleeping’ sign in the porch").

Today, a year ago, Declan submitted his application to the European Court with a request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court: in a letter of 22 November the Court stated that it was not necessary to consider Declan's first request for priority because it would be examining his application "shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008"; seven months later, in a letter dated 16 June (see here), it is "as soon as practicable" – coincidentally, two days before Declan received this letter from the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre, his main bag, containing all our money and documents, was robbed in the centre (see here). On 4 July, he submitted a second request for priority, drawing to the attention of the Court a violation of Article 34 and requesting that the Court take this matter up with the Government – Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.



On Thursday, LiveScience reported under the headline "Survey: Keep Religion Out of Politics" that, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, for the first time in more than a decade a majority of Americans think religious organisations should stay out of politics. In addition, an increasing number are uncomfortable when politicians talk about how religious they are. Overall, 52 percent thought that churches and other religious institutions should stay out of politics, an increase of eight percentage points since 2004, when the last US presidential election was held. A huge shift came from voters who described themselves as conservative, with 50 percent saying churches should stay out of politics compared to 30 percent in 2004. Among Republicans, 51 percent held this view, up from 37 percent in August of 2004. And among Democratic voters, the percentage who wanted churches out of politics was almost unchanged since 2004 at 52 percent. Commenting on the results, the Pew Research Center said: "Where there was once a substantial partisan and ideological gap on this question, there is now far less of a divide."

Perhaps there are parallels between this development and the emerging anticorporate attitude among many young activists that prompted journalist Naomi Klein to write the book titled “No Logo”. Klein explains in the introduction to the book that as she was doing some research on university campuses in the mid-90s, she began to notice that many of the students she was meeting were preoccupied with the inroads private corporations were making in their public schools. They were angry that ads were creeping into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms; that their schools were diving into exclusive distribution deals with soft-drink companies and computer manufactures, and that academic studies were starting to look more and more like market research. They worried that their education was suffering, as institutional priority shifted to those programs most conducive to private-sector partnership.

“Successful multinational corporations are increasingly finding themselves under attack,” Klein writes. But what are the forces pushing more and more people to become suspicious of or even downright enraged at multinational corporations, the very engines of our global growth? Perhaps more pertinently, what is liberating so many people – particularly young people – to act on their rage and suspicion? Klein provides some answers to these questions. “That corporations have grown so big they have superseded government. That unlike governments, they are accountable only to their shareholders; that we lack the mechanisms to make them answer to a broader public,” she writes.

Consider, for example, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown turning up in the US on a three-day visit from 15 to 18 April, only to be upstaged by Pope Benedict XVI (MacAskill, Guardian, 15/4); or the Pope’s rejection in July of an invitation to address the European parliament, prompting Mary Honeyball MEP, a labour spokesperson in the European Parliament Women's Rights Committee, to write in the Guardian that the pontiff was “effectively holding the EU to ransom” (Honeyball, Guardian, 25/7). As for accountability, there is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: despite recent statements by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the National Academies and the International Society for Stem Cell Research emphasising that studies of all types of stem cells should continue in parallel, the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website continues to display their two recently released print ads describing embryonic stem research as “obsolete” (the ads were distributed at the Democratic Convention in Denver and at the Republican Convention in Minneapolis/St Paul by pro-life groups, according to LifeSiteNews.com).

The trellis gate is locked

As I stated in the previous blog, on Thursday night we returned to the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate (the blog also contains Declan's letter to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights). Last night the gate was locked, leaving us on a Friday night with nowhere to sleep; it turned out that the local train station closes from 12.00pm to 6.00am on a Friday, so that ruled it out. Our morale was high but nonetheless by 11.00pm we were still walking, having found nothing – oh, and it was raining. In the end we got five hours sleep: we were quite happy really considering we were supposed to get none. Until we find something that is relatively safe and conveniently situated, we will just sleep here and there.

There was a main reason why my morale was high. I kept thinking about a recent commentary from Professor of philosophy AC Grayling (see previous blog): that despite appearances, the world is not seeing a resurgence of religion, only a big turning-up of the volume of religious voices; that this is itself a response to increasing secularism among people tired of the disruptions, obstructions and conflicts religion so often causes; and that the public acknowledgement of atheism by a senior politician who might soon lead Britain is just one indicator of the fact that the tide is actually running in the opposite direction: and that is a welcome and hopeful sign.

US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ad on stem cell research

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s announcement that if elected president he will lift the current administration's ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after 9 August 2001 through executive order (see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”) has received a ringing endorsement from the National Academies, advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. Yesterday, the National Academies released amended guidelines for research involving human embryonic stem cells, revising those that were issued in 2005 and updated in 2007 (see press release here). "It is far from clear at this point which cell types will prove to be the most useful for regenerative medicine, and it is likely that each will have some utility," the panel, chaired by Richard Hynes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and an early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells) wrote.

The report was sponsored by the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Opponents of embryo research include the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has released two new print ads addressing stem cell research. The ads were distributed at the Democratic Convention in Denver and at the Republican Convention in Minneapolis/St Paul by pro-life groups, reported LifeSiteNews.com. One highlights scientific advances that are making the use of human embryonic stem cells obsolete and calls attention to the development of "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells" (iPSCs). Picturing a commuter running for a train, the ad asks: "Science is moving on. Isn't it time for public policy to get on board?" The second ad features advances already being made to treat patients with adult stem cells and directs readers to www.stemcellresearch.org for more information. Its tagline is: "Adult Stem Cell Research. Let's Find Cures We Can All Live With." Clearly, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops doesn’t agree that “it is far from clear at this point which cell types will prove to be the most useful for regenerative medicine,” nor that “it is likely that each will have some utility".

2008 GOP platform calls for total ban on embryonic stem cell research

Although I spend most of my time trying to keep Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells going, the fact is that I believe that most of the emails I am sending to scientists and academics inviting them to sign the petition are still ending up in spam – it would explain the low number of out-of-office autoreplies I continue to receive. (Our local council's Idea Store Whitechapel library has imposed on both our membership cards a maximum of 3 hours of PC access per day since 29 January, despite that for several months previous we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability in accordance with "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy".) On Wednesday I emailed 105 scientists from the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and got six autoreplies (from 2nd, 15th, 22nd, 42nd, 70th and 83rd emails); on Thursday it was 95 emails to the American Association of Anatomists which yielded five autoreplies (from 21st, 22nd, 30th, 47th and 74th emails). On Friday I sent 175 emails for five autoreplies: 14 to the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in the UK, one autoreply (1st email); and 161 to the Association of Medical School Microbiology and Immunology Chairs, four autoreplies (none before the 78th email). It doesn't surprise me then that on Wednesday night I woke up to a London corporation worker hosing me as well as the pavement (I sleep on the outside; Declan on the inside with our well-tied bags) – a first since we started sleeping in the two-step porch back in November 2006. He looked at me impassively when I sat up – I was quite visible in light which shone through the glass porch door – and continued his hosing. He won't have an excuse next time though: since Friday night, down-light from two overhead bulbs makes the porch feel like an operating theatre – another first.

St Paul, host to the Republican National Convention

The 2008 Republican (GOP) Platform Committee has voted to ban embryonic stem-cell research, including privately funded research using frozen embryos from in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics, reports the National Review on Wednesday under the title "Going Out With a Bang". The GOP platform, which states "We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes", was passed by state delegates on Wednesday and will be adopted at this week's Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minneapolis.

Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state who served as a vice chairman of the committee, said he took particular interest in the subcommittee working on values, which addressed the issue of embryonic stem-cell research. "I think science and history have bridged the different perspectives on that," The Blade reported him as saying. "It's clear to me that breakthroughs in adult stem-cell research make the issue over embryonic stem cells less controversial. This was a discussion driven by the exploration of facts." He said presidential nominee Sen John McCain's advisers and staff were represented throughout the platform-drafting process and that the differences between his beliefs and those of the committee are not indicative of a party divided.

As a senator, McCain has voted in favour of allowing research on human embryos left over from fertility treatments. Nonetheless, advocates of greater federal funding of embryonic stem cell research are worried he will do "an about-face" on the issue if he wins the presidency, says The Hill in an article dated 12 August titled "Stem cell backers doubt McCain's support". McCain's presidential campaign has sought to win over religious conservatives and other factions, including activists who oppose stem cell research. Rep Mike Castle (Del), the chief Republican sponsor of the 2006 and 2007 stem cell bills vetoed by President Bush, told The Hill he wasn't sure whether a President McCain would sign stem cell research legislation. "The question becomes: Will the pro-life movement be able to persuade him otherwise between now and the election?" said Castle.

National Right to Life Committee Executive Director David O’Steen said anti-abortion rights activists think they can turn McCain to their way of thinking on stem cells. "We’d be hopeful that he’d leave [President George W Bush’s] policy in place," O’Steen said. What McCain might actually do, he cautioned, is "an open question". McCain’s campaign did not respond to The Hill’s questions or numerous attempts to obtain a comment for their article. In February, the campaign issued a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal standing behind his record but containing the language O’Steen quoted as evidence of McCain’s flexibility on the issue. "John McCain does support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research," the February statement says in part. "[H]e believes that recent scientific breakthroughs may render this debate academic," according to the statement. "I don’t think he’s ideologically committed to embryonic stem cell research," O’Steen said of McCain. "While Barack Obama is ideologically committed to it, John McCain has indicated that [embryonic] stem cell research is, in his words, 'academic'," he said.

Scientists at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, which is funded by the government, announced on 22 August that they had successfully made stem cells from wisdom teeth that had been frozen for three years after being removed from a 10 year old girl. The Baptist Press commented on 26 August: "The developments seem to provide further evidence that advances in such therapies can be accomplished without the unethical step of extracting stem cells from a five- or six-day-old embryo, an action that results in the destruction of the tiny human being." (The BP was formed in 1946 by the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest evangelical denomination with about 16 million members in America, making it the second largest Christian denomination in the United States after the Catholic Church.)

Meanwhile, research published on 27 August in Nature by a team lead by Doug Melton at Harvard Stem Cell Institute that showed it is possible to take a type of adult pancreas cell that doesn't normally produce insulin and reprogram them to produce insulin, prompted Richard Dorflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat of the pro-life activities of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, to argue that the discovery was the latest evidence that research involving human embryos is no longer necessary. "This adds to the large and growing list of studies helping to make embryonic stem cells irrelevant to medical progress," Doerflinger told the Washington Post. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state stem cell agency, stated the following regarding the research (the full statement, titled "CIRM Applauds the Reprogramming of Pancreas Cells to Produce Insulin Saying It Points to the Value in Pursuing All Research Paths in Regenerative Medicine", can be read here):

CIRM applauds the creativity and value in the research reported and shares the excitement in the promise it might hold. However, it emphatically refutes assertions by opponents of embryonic stem cell research that this new study proves embryonic stem cell research is not necessary. In fact, the Harvard study poignantly points out the value of embryonic stem cell research. Asked if his new findings eliminate the need for work with hESC and iPS cells, the lead Harvard researcher, Doug Melton, said: 'This is a point I want to stress: We are continuing to do research using human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells. We would not be where we are today without having worked with human embryonic stem cells. These unique cells provide a window into human development, and disease development, that is needed if we are to make further progress in understanding and treating chronic diseases. They remain the key to long-term progress in regenerative medicine.' The research reported in Nature is a major advance but it has significant limitations.

Embryonic stem cell research should not be held hostage to politics or religion, argues Nancy Falchuk, the national president of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, in a piece that appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward on Thursday titled "Support Stem-Cell Research". She writes: "Droves of members of both major political parties support the research, evidenced by the congressional passage in 2006 and 2007 of bipartisan bills that, had they not been vetoed by President Bush, would have lifted the federal restrictions. Similarly, support for stem-cell research is not defined by religion. Millions of Americans with strongly held religious beliefs support stem-cell research, a position backed by all major streams of Judaism."

Steven Pinker, world-renowned thinker and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University - and an honorary associate of NAC and early signatory of Declan’s petition – wrote in an article for The New Republic, titled "The Stupidity of Dignity", that "the [Catholic] Church's franchise to guide people in the most profound events of their lives - birth, death, and reproduction - is in danger of being undermined when biomedicine scrambles the rules". Well, it’s no wonder that for the Christian right "breakthroughs in adult stem-cell research make the issue over embryonic stem cells less controversial". This is a discussion hardly "driven by the exploration of facts". ("The Stupidity of Dignity" article can be read here; alternatively, see blog of 23 May "The Stupidity of Dignity".)

US bishops condemn embryonic stem cell research

This morning Declan paid another visit to Brick Lane police station to enquire if PC Van-Gelder (number unknown) has started the investigation into the robbery in the Catholic Dellow Centre of his main bag, which contained all our money and documents (see blog of 18 June “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”) – the robbery took place the same day Declan had intended sending by registered post his second request for priority to the European Court of Human Rights, which I posted to the blog that afternoon; and can be read here. (Two days after the robbery, the Dellow Centre presented Declan with a letter from the European Court, which is published in the previous blog).

No, there is no news at all, and Declan can’t speak with PC Van-Gelder because he is not in the station. Declan will try again tomorrow – the entire canteen area is covered by CCTV; although Declan was informed in Southwark police station the next day that homeless day centres generally don’t provide police with information on clients without a warrant (see blog of 19 June “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”).

Bishops' document blasts embryonic stem cell research

On 13 June, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a document titled "On Embryonic Stem Cell Research", the first formal statement issued by the organisation devoted exclusively to the issue. The bishops voted 191-1 to adopt the statement, without debate or discussion. Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, and part of the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was hopeful the document "would be taken seriously by all policymakers".

In a BBC article of 10 April Sir Martin Evans, who received the Nobel Prize for medicine last year, urged British MPs voting on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to "stop listening to the emotive arguments of religiously motivated pressure groups”, adding: “Please look at the evidence. Don't immediately go for the knee-jerk reaction mainly powered by the 'yuck' factor.” The US bishops’ statement finds room for plenty emotive arguments. We read that “harvesting embryonic stem cells involves the deliberate killing of innocent human beings”, that “some researchers, ethicists, and policy makers claim that we may directly kill innocent embryonic human beings as if they were mere objects of research”, and that “the same ethic that justifies taking some lives to help the patient with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease today can be used to sacrifice that very patient tomorrow”.

Sir Martin is also quoted in the article as saying: “I think the point of debate really is: are the embryos that are being used for research fully-formed humans? To me and to many other scientists - knowing that these are just a small bunch of cells - the answer is no.” Lisa Jardine, the new chair of the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, is one such scientist. She tells the New Statesman (see blog of 29 May “Stem cells and morality”) when asked about the beginning of life: "I think I need consciousness - I've a little bit of a philosophical temperament - and we're a hell of a way from consciousness at 14 days." She adds: "The moment of fertilisation is not a very helpful moment to begin talking about the sanctity of human life. As a woman who's had a long childbearing life, I know perfectly well that any number of embryos were swept away. Maybe [some] naturally, but some of them weren't. Sometimes I'd jumped up and down in the hope that I wasn't pregnant, you know?"

Also in the same issue of the New Statesman is philosopher Julian Baggini on deciding ethical issues. "When it comes to specific matters of morality, the idea that religious convictions need respect, not interrogation and defence, is absurd," he writes. "The world's major religious texts have nothing to say about stem cells, not least because those words do not appear in any of them. It may be a matter of faith that Christ rose from the dead, but Christians have to defend anything they say about the first stages of life." Clearly the bishops do not believe they have to defend anything they say about the first stages of life: they make their case with appeals like “the human embryo, from conception onward, is as much a living member of the human species as any of us” (and related expressions as “the embryo is a complete and distinct member of the species Homo sapiens” and “human beings at the embryonic stage of development”).

The US bishops’ statement has a problem not just with embryonic stem cell research but with therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer – it is “intrinsically evil,” they say, “because it reduces human procreation to a mere manufacturing process, producing new human beings in the laboratory to predetermined specifications as though they were commodities”. The NSW Minister for Science and Medical Research, Verity Firth, wouldn’t be impressed to hear therapeutic cloning described as “intrinsically evil”: on 19 June she announced at the BIO 2008 convention in San Diego that Sydney IVF and the Australian Stem Cell Centre (ASCC) in Melbourne have launched a project to characterise and compare induced pluripotent stem cells, human embryonic stem cells and stem cells derived from somatic cell nuclear transfer. "Both the NSW and Victorian governments are proud to be supporting this ground-breaking work, which we believe will offer new hope to people living with debilitating diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease,” Firth said. "The combination of the international quality talent and significant resources of these two collaborative partners gives this project the potential to provide world-first advancements in these new biological frontiers."

And what about hybrid embryos, which the US bishops are also troubled by because they “disturbingly blur the line between animal and human species”? Well, on 19 May British MPs voted in favour of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which allows for the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos (see blog of 20 May "UK parliament backs human-animal embryo research") – the hybrid approach is a tool for generating disease-specific embryonic stem cells without the need to use donated human eggs; the cells will not be used in patients, but be used to model diseases in the lab, test new therapies and study cloning processes. (In April, Lyle Armstrong of Newcastle University, a signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning, announced that he and his team had created human-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in Britain. The scientists merged human genetic material with cow egg cells that had most of their own genetic material removed, see blog of 5 April “Declan narrowly escapes being assaulted”.)

The bishops write that adult stem cells “have already demonstrated great medical promise” – but in an article that appeared on 11 June in the Minnesota Daily, Rep Phyllis Kahn, who has a PhD in biophysics from Yale, states: “We can't really maximize the potential of adult stem cells without the parallel embryonic stem cell science." The bishops further adduce: “Researchers have even developed new non-destructive methods for producing cells with the properties of embryonic stem cells – for example, by ‘reprogramming’ adult cells.” However, on 30 January the International Society for Stem Cell Research issued a statement on the stem cell initiatives announced in President Bush’s State of the Union Address, which says: “The breakthrough in iPS cell research was made possible by several years of prior embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cell research must continue if scientists are going to have the most modern and powerful research tools at their disposal”.

Despite these exclusions, the bishops write: “It now seems undeniable that once we cross the fundamental moral line that prevents us from treating any fellow human being as a mere object of research, there is no stopping point. The only moral stance that affirms the human dignity of all of us is to reject the first step down this path.” The concept of human dignity has been dealt with by Steven Pinker – world-renowned thinker and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University (and an honorary associate of NAC and early signatory of Declan’s petition) – in an article for The New Republic entitled “The Stupidity of Dignity” (see blog of 23 May “The Stupidity of Dignity”). Denouncing dignity, for one thing, as a “squishy” concept (ambiguous, slippery, and vague), Pinker writes:

The concept of dignity is natural ground on which to build an obstructionist bioethics. An alleged breach of dignity provides a way for third parties to pass judgment on actions that are knowingly and willingly chosen by the affected individuals. It thus offers a moralistic justification for expanded government regulation of science, medicine, and private life. And the Church's franchise to guide people in the most profound events of their lives--birth, death, and reproduction--is in danger of being undermined when biomedicine scrambles the rules. It's not surprising, then, that "dignity" is a recurring theme in Catholic doctrine: The word appears more than 100 times in the 1997 edition of the Catechism and is a leitmotif in the Vatican's recent pronouncements on biomedicine.

So, despite the best efforts of the US bishops, I can’t help but think about an article by professor of philosophy AC Grayling – and one of Britain’s foremost public intellectuals – published in The Guardian on 3 May 2006, which states that “it is the business of all religious doctrines to keep their votaries in a state of intellectual infancy (how else do they keep absurdities seeming credible?)”. Oh well, granted: I am not the most impartial person in the world.