News, 2 February 2006

In a parliamentary motion entitled 'Bill of Rights for Elderly People', British MPs Anne Main and Daniel Kawczynski called on the Government, in the light of proposals in the Animal Welfare Bill on a Bill of Rights for animals, to 'ensure an equal duty of care to the elderly', including 'protection from pain, suffering, injury, abuse or disease.' [UK Parliament website, 31 January]

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Bush spoke of the need to protect the 'matchless value of every life', and called upon Congress to pass legislation prohibiting practices including 'human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos' [Whitehouse.Gov 31 January]

A significant number of Canadian pharmacists and pharmacies do not sell the abortifacient morning-after pill, according to a newspaper survey. Cristina Alarcon of Pharmacists for Life believes there are several hundred pharmacists in Canada who will not dispense the drug. Canadian law allows pharmacists to refuse to sell the morning-after pill provided they refer customers to an alternative supplier. [Today's Family News, 1 February]

Transplanting stem cells from a patient's own bone marrow can help to fight the life-threatening autoimmune disease lupus, according to a study carried out at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital. 50% of patients treated with the stem-cell transplants and chemotherapy were still free of the disease after five years, Medical News Today reports. [Medical News Today, 2 February]

The American Center for Law and Justice has filed a lawsuit against Walgreen on behalf of four pharmacists who were suspended last November for refusing to distribute the abortifacient morning-after pill. The ACLJ argues that the pharmacists' actions are protected by the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which allows pharmacists to refuse to perform procedures that conflict with their beliefs. [Medical News Today, 2 February]. Meanwhile, three Massachusetts women backed by pro-abortion groups have sued supermarket chain Wal-Mart for not stocking the morning-after pill in Massachusetts, but only in Illinois where state law requires it. [The Guardian, 2 February]

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