c. 2007 Religion News Service
Bush Vetoes Stem Cell Bill, Urges Alternate Research
WASHINGTON (RNS) President Bush pulled out his veto pen Wednesday (June 20) for just the third time in his presidency, rejecting a bill that would have eased restraints on government-funded embryonic stem cell research.
“Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical, and it is not the only option before us,” he said in remarks at the White House.
Embryonic stem cell research has been a source of heated ethical debate because it offers hope for curing numerous chronic diseases, but also involves killing live embryos. Wednesday’s veto was the president’s second on stem cell research legislation.
As an alternative, Bush issued an executive order directing the Health and Human Services Department to explore stem cell research of a different sort _ the kind that involves “pluripotent” cells, which can develop into a wide range of human tissues. The executive order will also rename the “Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry” the “Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry.”
“I invite policymakers and scientists to come together to solve medical problems without compromising either the high aims of science or the sanctity of human life,” he wrote in a message to the Senate when he vetoed the bill.
The president’s veto dealt primarily with who pays for the research, not its legality. States and private organizations can conduct their own research on embryonic stem cells, but federal funding is limited to cells that existed as of August 9, 2001.
“American taxpayers should not be forced to fund unethical research, just as we should not be forced to fund abortion,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, noting that alternative forms of stem cell research are producing promising results for patients. “Science is catching up to ethics, proving that human beings should not be destroyed for science or to benefit another.”
But opponents slammed the move as a step backwards. Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, expressed “profound disappointment” over a measure they say hurts millions of Americans with chronic diseases.
“It is immoral to place limits on potentially life-saving scientific research in order to safeguard `potential life,”’ said June Walker, president of Hadassah.
_ Michelle C. Rindels
Study Suggests Religious People Have Better Body Image
(RNS) Religion teaches faith, hope, charity _ maybe even a good body image.
According to a new Cornell University study, highly religious people were the least likely to think of themselves as fat. In fact, they often thought they were thinner than they actually were.
Researcher Karen Kim speculates that religion “encourages self-worth beyond the body” and protects people from the ideal body imagery that pervades popular culture.
The idea resonates with Heather Lawless of Mechanicsburg, Pa., who teaches a weight loss class at Christian Life Assembly of God in Lower Allen Township, Pa.
“I tried to stress that it’s not about having a perfect body. It’s about having a healthy body,” Lawless said. “Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. So we want to honor our bodies.”
The study looked at more than 3,000 men and women in six categories _ conservative Protestant, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, other religions and no religion.
Participants were asked whether they were very or somewhat overweight, very or somewhat underweight or about right. The accuracy of their perceptions was measured against medical standards.
The one exception to the correlation between strong religious commitment and good body image: Jewish women. They tended to overestimate their weight.
Kim, now an assistant professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, grew up Southern Baptist. She says she has no idea why Jewish women would be more likely to feel overweight.
Rabbi Hava Pell of Camp Hill, Pa., who is working on her certification as a food addiction counselor, suspects Kim’s sample probably missed the more traditional segments of Judaism _ and therefore compared apples to oranges.
“The bottom line is most of our society is pretty obsessed with what’s wrong with their bodies,” Pell says. “It sounds American cultural to me as opposed to Jewishly cultural.”
_ Mary Warner
Calif. Muslim Woman Wins Sermon Contest
(RNS) What started as a prank sermon contest has ended up as a $1,000 prize for Dr. Lena Al-Sarraf of Glendale, Calif., a leader of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Women’s League.
Laury Silvers, an Islamic studies professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., first saw the announcement for the “Ingrid Mattson and Sherman Jackson Awards for Sermonic Excellence” in January on an electronic mailing list for Muslim academics. She sent it on to another list run by a fledgling group called Muslims for Progressive Values.
The contest, named for the current president of the Islamic Society of North America and a well-known Islamic scholar at the University of Michigan, invited male and female preachers to write a sermon, or khutba in Arabic, about Muslim ideals in America.
The top five sermon writers would be awarded $8,000 each while the top winner would get to deliver his or her sermon to ISNA’s annual Labor Day convention in Chicago that draws 40,000 people.
Most Muslims on the lists agreed it was a good idea _ but it wasn’t real. Al-Husein N. Madhany, a doctoral student in Islamic studies at the University of Chicago and editor of Islamica Magazine, invented the contest as his “hopeful hoax” to inspire North American Muslims to write more inspiring sermons.
Indeed, many Muslim Americans often complain that the sermons they hear on Friday afternoons are either uninspired snoozers or angry rants.
But several Muslims on the Muslims for Progressive Values group thought Madhany had a good idea, and in February announced the first annual al-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) Award for Excellence in Islamic Sermons, and started collecting donations for what turned out to be a $1,000 prize.
Pamela Taylor, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School who co-chairs the Muslim progressive group, said she hoped the contest would encourage Muslim preachers to write sermons that are more relevant to life in North America.
“(Our group) is very concerned that some mosque pulpits are being used to spread radicalism,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail. “This is our way of trying to counter that, and promote moderate, liberal and progressive voices in the mosque.”
Al-Sarraf’s sermon, one of 12 entered, was called “Women’s Rights in Islam,” and was selected because it was “heartfelt” and well-supported with extensive references from Islamic scripture, Taylor wrote.
_ Omar Sacirbey
New Orleans Group Targets Liquor Sales in Stores
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) The large map perched on the sidewalk at the corner of Gov. Nicholls and North Johnson streets was dotted with colored pushpins: red for shootings and homicides, blue for “problem businesses.”
A powerful local faith-based organization, All Congregations Together, is seeking to connect those dots, calling for a ban on alcohol sales at all corner stores _ and most of them are located on corners _ in an effort to stem this city’s violent crime.
Across the street was Waad Discount Market, which was among those ACT singled out as a “a nuisance business that attracts criminal activity.”
From ACT’s perspective, alcohol sales lead to violence by defying “godly and family values,” said Angel Scott of the group, speaking at a podium set up at the intersection.
Waad Discount Market was the site of a homicide in April. But owner Naser Abdallah defended his business, which he described as a victim of the overall violence that plagues his neighborhood.
He said there was nothing he could have done to prevent the shooting.
“The two men had a problem with each other outside, and so one came inside and shot the other,” he said flatly.
The homicide was one of at least 19 shootings or killings since January in a 100 square-block area. Nearby residents said they support ACT’s condemnation of ongoing drug trafficking and gun violence, but were less supportive of ACT’s efforts to ban alcohol sales at all corner stores.
Instead, they traced the block’s drug crime, burglaries and violence to idle youth and to those who have moved into the area since Hurricane Katrina.
“But from my standpoint, no corner store should sell alcohol, because those stores become places where people can hang out and hide away,” said ACT member Alena Boucree. The resulting crime creates fear among neighborhood families and stops others from buying houses there, she said.
Store owner Abdallah estimated that he sells about $500 worth of liquor each day. Those sales are important for him, he said, because they lead to other business. “Because the man who wants to buy his beer will also buy his meat, his bread and his groceries here,” he said.
Louisiana State University School of Medicine researcher Richard Scribner found that New Orleans neighborhoods with a high density of liquor vendors also have high homicide rates, even after accounting for other possible contributing factors, such as unemployment, race, age and social structure.
_ Katy Reckdahl
Quote of the Day: Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of South Africa
(RNS) “The life of faith is first and foremost about our relationship with God. It is not about how good our behavior is. Nor does it hinge on how correct our theology is. Nor does it hinge on our stance on human sexuality. What God really cares about is whether we love him.”
_ Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of South Africa, preaching in London’s Westminster Abbey. He was quoted by Anglican Communion News Service. (June 20).
KRE/CM END RNS
