The Social Conservative Review: August 28, 2014

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Dear Friends,

Baseball great Lou Gehrig is one of my heroes. His photo is on the wall of my office and I recall vividly seeing his uniform at baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Gehrig probably was, in the words of his biographer, the greatest first baseman ever to play the game. His record as a hitter and player generally remains, more than 70 years after his death, the stuff of legend.

Just about everyone is familiar now with the "Ice Bucket Challenge," in which ice water is poured over one's head in the hope of generating gifts to the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association. ALS, commonly called "Lou Gehrig's Disease," tragically cut short the Iron Horse's life, and remains a debilitating disease for which there is no cure.

Sadly, as my colleague Dr. David Prentice notes, the ALSA has admitted that it gives some of its money to embryonic stem cell research."

So, Dr. Prentice, one of America's most distinguished stem cell biologists, has suggested that instead of sending money to the ALSA, you send it to alternative groups that are performing leading-edge ALS research without using human embryos. Instead, they use adult stem cells, the ethics and effectiveness of which are unquestioned. Here's a link to access groups like the Mayo Clinic and the Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center that are working to conquer ALS without sacrificing nascent human lives.

I have been challenged by my sons and one of my nephews to stand beneath an ice bucket, as they have done. I'm thinking about it. But one thing none of us has to think about: Adult stem cells save lives, ethically, and that's something to celebrate during baseball season and always.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice President
Family Research Council

P.S. Join us in Washington, D.C. for our annual Values Voter Summit from Sept. 26-28! For more details, click here.

Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life
Abortion

• "From Pro-Choice to Pro-Abortion," First Things
• "Abortion Advocacy Gets Ugly," Aleteia
• "Rescuing Children Marked for Selective Termination," Christianity.com
• "And Who is a Person?," Mere Orthodoxy
• "The Abortion War's Special Ops," Newsweek
• "Iowa Court Confirms Prohibition of Dangerous Webcam Abortions," Thomas More Society

Euthanasia/End of Life Issues

• "MaterCare: One Doctor's Courageous but Lonely Battle to Reduce Maternal Mortality," Aleteia
• "Palliative care and euthanasia can co-exist, argues oncologist Molly Williams," The Sydney Morning Herald
• "Euthanasia Activists Aggressively Pushing UK to Legalize Assisted Suicide," LifeNews.com
• "A deadly conflict of interest: why euthanasia in Belgium is so out of control," National Right to Life News

Stem Cells and Biotechnology

• "Why Some Pro-Lifers Go Cold on ALS Ice Bucket Challenge," The Daily Signal
• "Medical dilemma of 'three-parent babies': Fertility clinic investigates health of teenagers it helped to be conceived through controversial IVF technique," The Independent
• "Stem Cells Can Help Rebuild Joints," The Huffington Post
• "Stem cell breakthrough for 'Cinderella cells'," Medical News Today

Marriage & Family
Education

• "Don't Turn Kindergarteners Into Test-Taking Minions," Truth in American Education
• "2 thoughts on US school performance," AEIdeas.org
• "Unschooling: the Future of Education?," The American Conservative
• "How Charter Schools Spend Less than Public Schools, But Achieve Better Results," The Daily Signal
• "Why Top Catholic Education Organization Says Common Core Could Threaten Religious Liberty," The Blaze

Family Life

• "New Ways to Predict Which Marriages Will Succeed," The Wall Street Journal
• "The good news/bad news story about nonmarital births," AEIdeas.org
• "Tall men get married earlier, but short men stay married," QZ.com
• "Married parents vs cohabiting parents," MercatorNet
• "Is Having Children Too Expensive? (Wrong Question!)," The Acton Institute

Human Sexuality

• "California Sex Ed Gone Mad," Accuracy in Academia
• "Women Are Dying, But Where Are The Feminists?," The Acton Institute
• "Five Principles of the New Sexual Morality," The Gospel Coalition
• "Thou Shalt Now Covet," Touchstone Magazine

Homosexuality and Same-Sex "Marriage"

• "Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is 'Mental Disorder;' Sex Change 'Biologically Impossible'," CNSNews.com
• "A third way between gays and bigots," MercatorNet
• "Transgenderism: A Theological Perspective," Canon and Culture
• "Why you should fight for marriage," Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
• "Back to School: When Mr. Reuter Becomes 'Ms. Reuter'," The Federalist

Pornography

• "More than half of Christian men admit to watching pornography," The Washington Times
• "I Didn't Expect to Find Pornography in My 9-Year-Old's Web History," The Atlantic
• "Most Teenagers Believe Porn Is Damaging. Could Sex Ed Be The Answer?," Time

Human trafficking

• "Unlikely Mercenaries In The Fight Against Human Trafficking," The Acton Institute
• "Study: Soliciting sex from minor results in little prison time," The Arizona Republic
• "5 Reasons Why Demand Enforcement Matters," Demanding Justice
• "5 Things You Didn't Know About Human Trafficking," Rolling Stone

Religious Liberty

• "New HHS Rules Still Problematic for Religious Liberty," Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
• "Obama Administration's Eighth Try on HHS Mandate and Religious Liberty Still Fails," The Daily Signal
• "Back to School: 10 Religious Liberties Students Need to Know," Liberty Institute
• "New Birth Control Mandate Rule Still Infringes Upon Religious Freedom, Critics Say," The Christian Post
• "Catholic bishops, Becket Fund slam newest HHS contraception mandate rules," The Christian Century

Religion in Public Life

• "3 Barriers to the Church's Ability to Love Others," Relevant Magazine
• "Customers More Forgiving of Businesses with Religious Affiliation," The Acton Institute
• "How to Shrink Your Church in One Easy Step," Juicy Ecumenism
• "Debate Worth Having: How Singlehanded is God's Grace," The Gospel Coalition
• "Tangled Up in Blue: Depression and the Christian Life," Reformation21

International Religious Liberty

• "Would Christian Militias Help In Iraq and Syria?," The Acton Institute
• "Who Will Stand Up for the Christians?," The New York Times
• "Who Is Speaking For The Persecuted Christians In Iraq?," The Federalist
• "What I've Learned Through My Husband's Persecution," TrueWoman
• "Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue Slams Islamists," Crisis Magazine

Other important articles

• "Wisdom of Death," First Things
• "A Flawed E-Cigarette Regulation," The American
• "Feds Creating Database to Track 'Hate Speech' on Twitter," The Federalist
• "The Persistence of Ideology," City Journal

Book Reviews

• ""The Giver": Freedom Is Worth the Pain," Values and Capitalism
• "Bellow on the Freedom and Nature of the Soul," The Acton Institute
• "When the Instructors Need Instructing," City Journal
• "EverPresent," The Gospel Coalition
• "The Power of Habit," Challies.com