Commentary by Mary Beliveau

Why Are the Media Silent on Embryonic Stem Cell Researcher Hwang’s Indictment?
By Mary Beliveau, Legislative/PAC Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
June 1, 2006

Did you know that Hwang Woo-suk -- embryonic stem cell researcher-- and some of his top colleagues have been indicted by South Korean prosecutors and charged with fraud, embezzlement and violating bioethics rules? It’s not surprising if you don’t know, since it didn’t hit the headlines of newspapers across the country like his initial claims did.

Small articles hidden in the recesses of newspapers quietly reported that Hwang Woo-suk and some of his top colleagues involved in embryonic stem cell research have been indicted by South Korean prosecutors and charged with fraud. A short editorial in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review did question the University of Pittsburgh’s lack of disclosure concerning one of its researchers connected with Hwang-–namely Professor Gerald Schatten. But the public at large is left ignorant of the facts surrounding the indictment. Since the media played a prominent role in advancing the cause of embryonic stem cell research--in spite of evidence that it has not helped one person suffering with a disability after 25 years of research-–they have an obligation to expose the fraud.

The public has a right to know the truth. Hwang was charged with accepting $2 million in donations after he knowingly falsified the embryonic stem cell research by claiming his team had produced a cloned human embryo and cloned patient-specific embryonic stem cells.

Prosecutor Lee In-kyu also said Hwang embezzled $900,000 in private and government donations to the research. After getting more than $35 billion in research funds from the government and private donors, South Korean prosecutors say Hwang misused much of the money by laundering it through 63 bank accounts set up under false names.

In addition, Lee indicated that Hwang’s team paid for human eggs for research, which is a violation of the nation’s bioethics laws.

Lee reconfirmed the results of a Seoul National University study that indicated all of Hwang’s team’s claims about human cloning and embryonic stem cell research successes were false.

Initially, Hwang’s so called “breakthrough” created a media frenzy. News articles and editorials accused President Bush of allowing America to fall behind South Korea in “stem-cell” science by refusing to use federal tax dollars for therapeutic cloning research. These editorials proposed lavishing large amounts of federal and state dollars on embryonic stem cell research, even though all the advances to help those with disabilities have been with adult stem cell research.

At the same time, the media didn’t let the public know about the advances being made with adult stem cell research and didn’t let them know that “embryonic” stem cell research requires the destruction of a human embryo and has not helped one human condition.

The implications of the Hwang story are far reaching and leave many unanswered questions about the effect of the media on public opinion. Soon, we will again hear the drum beat of the media for Congress to fund embryonic stem cell research, since several pro-embryonic stem cell research senators are pushing for a vote in the Senate on HR 810.

The bill that passed the House would require federal funding of research that depends on the killing of human embryos in order to harvest their stem cells and would overturn President Bush’s pro-life policy announced on August 9, 2001, under which federal funds do not support research that requires the killing of human embryos. The House-passed measure was 50 votes short to withstand a presidential veto. Yet some senators are pushing for a vote anyhow to drum up public support for using federal tax dollars to fund the ghoulish research.

It is important for informed citizens to do their homework and write letters to the editor to counteract misinformation proliferated in the media and by the biotech industry. See the Pennsylvania Pro-life Federation website at www.paprolife.org for stem cell fact sheets that can be downloaded to give to friends and family and see www.stemcellresearch.org for more information on the stem cell issue. The truth must be told.

New Harris Poll Shows Roe v. Wade At All Time Low, In Spite of Skewed Question
By Mary Beliveau, Legislative/PAC Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
May 15, 2006

It is a known fact that the Harris polls have consistently had a pro-abortion bias throughout the years. So people sit up and take notice when they see the headline from a recent Harris poll – “Support for Roe v. Wade Declines to Lowest Level Ever.” Harris has been measuring public opinion on the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision since the decision was handed down and found that Americans are now split on the decision.

The aspect that makes it most interesting is that the poll is skewed. The question asked was: “In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that state laws which made it illegal for a woman to have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy were unconstitutional, and that the decision on whether a woman should have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy should be left to the woman and her doctor to decide. In general, do you favor or oppose this part of the U.S. Supreme Court decision making abortions up to three months of pregnancy legal?”

Notice that the Harris poll question emphasizes three times the erroneous conclusion that Roe only legalized abortion up through three months of pregnancy, when in fact the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions legalized abortion on demand throughout pregnancy-–not just in the first three months of pregnancy.

Previous Harris polls found between 52 and 65 percent of all U.S. adults favoring Roe v. Wade. But the new Harris poll finds that Roe v. Wade is supported only by a slender 49 percent to 47 percent plurality.

There is no doubt that the Harris poll is encouraging. In spite of the fact that the poll had a misleading question, 41% of Democrats said they opposed the decision as did 61% of Republicans.

The reason that makes the Harris results so encouraging is that a polling firm, known to be pro-abortion, finds public opinion eroding in support of the horrendous Roe v. Wade decision.

Harris concluded in a statement, “The big picture, therefore, is that the public is now almost equally divided on Roe v. Wade.” As the truth gets out about the real scope of Roe, there will be a public outcry for an overturn.

New Poll Shows Americans Still In the Dark About Roe v. Wade
By Mary Beliveau, Legislative/PAC Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
May 1, 2006

Although Americans take a pro-life position on wanting to prohibit all or most abortions, they still don’t understand that Roe v. Wade allows for virtually unlimited abortions, according to a new poll. This shows that if Americans knew the sweeping, radical nature of Roe, they would cry out for an overturn of the decision.

The poll, conducted by the Polling Company research firm, found that while 65 percent of Americans say they are familiar with the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision, only 29 percent are able to select an accurate description of the ruling. The new poll surveyed 1,000 adults age 18 and over on April 13-14, 2006.

While 65 percent of respondents said they considered themselves familiar with the decision--23 percent very familiar and 42 percent somewhat familiar--31 percent said they were not familiar with the details of Roe v. Wade.

The fact that 65 percent said they were familiar with the decision to some extent and yet only 29 percent correctly said that Roe made abortion legal in essentially all circumstances, shows the need for the public to be educated on the 1973 Supreme Court decision.

When asked their views on when abortion should be legal, Americans took a pro-life position in opposition of what Roe did by a 54-41 percent margin.

The poll results showed that 54 percent took one of three pro-life positions--opposing either all abortions, all abortions except cases involving the life of the mother, rape or incest. Just 41 percent took one of three pro-abortion positions allowing all or most abortions.

In reality, Roe v. Wade took away the power of the people to regulate abortion. In the Roe decision, seven Supreme Court Justices struck down the laws of all 50 states that protected unborn human life and created a right to abortion for the entire nine months of pregnancy for virtually any reason, including personal convenience, economics, or lifestyle.

The 1973 decision said that states might prohibit abortions after viability “except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the patient.”

However, the decision is read along with its companion case, Doe v. Bolton that was handed down by the Supreme Court on the same day as Roe v. Wade. In Doe, the Court explicitly defined “health” as follows:

“…The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors-—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age--relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment.”

Doe allows the abortionist to make the final decision based on an unlimited, broad definition of “health”--even in the last three months of pregnancy, and in the form of infanticide called partial-birth abortions.

After the sweeping Roe v. Wade decision, legal scholars on both sides of the issue declared that it made no legal sense. Legal experts who supported the “right” of abortion, such as Harvard Law Professor John Hart Ely, immediately realized that there was nothing in the Constitution that gave the Court the authority to do what it did. In “The Wages of Crying Wolf” (Yale Law Journal, 1973), Ely stated:

“Roe is a very bad decision…It is bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”

The Roe v. Wade decision is an attack on the value of human life, causing more deaths than all other American wars combined.

In the words of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Roe v. Wade is on a “collision course with itself.” The advancement of medical technology and the awakening of the American people about the destruction cause by Roe--hurting women, partial-birth abortion and dismemberment-- will result in the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Once the American people learn the truth, they will cry out for an overturn of this exercise of “raw judicial power.”