Switzerland Ethics Committee Calls for the Right to Life of Plants
Bern, Switzerland (LifeNews.com) -- A group of Swiss experts are arguing that plants deserve the right to life and that killing them is morally wrong except when it comes to saving humans. In a report on "the dignity of the creature in the plant world", the federal Ethics Committee on non-human Gene Technology condemned the decapitation of flowers without reason. In a new article published in this week's Weekly Standard, bioethicist Wesley Smith opines: "Switzerland's enshrining of 'plant dignity' is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people." Smith notes that once society began to diminish the view of the worth of human beings by abortion, euthanasia and other practices, it makes sense that scientists would push for the rights of plants. "Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights."

Planned Parenthood Claims 20,000 Volunteers, Challenge to Pro-Lifers
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Last week was National Volunteer Week and the nation's largest abortion business claimed it has 20,000 volunteers nationwide. The claim is a challenge to pro-life groups to get more people involved in the fight against abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. “Our volunteers are incredibly dedicated to the mission of keeping women, men, and teens healthy and safe,” Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained. “Five million people worldwide rely on Planned Parenthood for reproductive health care, education, and information each year, and every day our volunteers play a role in providing and protecting those services.” Pro-life organizations run the gamut from groups that rely on paid professional employees who can spend the time needed to specialize in certain areas such as legislation, elections, education and outreach while others need a healthy dose of grassroots support. In total, the pro-life community likely has significantly more volunteers as the pro-abortion giant, but Planned Parenthood's claims are a good motivator to find more.

World's First Cloned Horse Gives Birth to Supposedly Healthy Foal
Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The world's first cloned horse has given birth to a supposedly healthy foal, which makes the process seem successful even though animal cloning requires the destruction of hundreds of embryos in order to give birth to a single successful clone. Prometea, cloned in 2003 by Italian professor Cesare Galli, gave birth to Pegasus six weeks ago, the London Daily Mail reported. Professor Galli said that both mare and foal were doing well and added that he planned to create other cloned horses for reproduction. Galli said he hoped the birth would ease concerns about the health of cloned animals, sparked by the short lifespan of Dolly the sheep, who had to be euthanized because of severe health problems at the age of six. "Since she was born five years ago, Prometea has turned out to be an absolutely normal animal in excellent health," he said. Dolly was finally created after 300 failed attempts, resulting in miscarriages and malformed offspring. Ultimately, the "successful" result, Dolly, aged too rapidly. South Korean researchers who cloned wolves also had issues. The wolf cloning wasn't entirely successful as scientists had to transfer 251 wolf embryos into 12 potential surrogate mothers before achieving the birth of a cloned wolf. That high failure rate was also seen in cloning dogs. To create the first cloned dog, Snuppy, the Seoul National University team killed a total of 1,095 reconstructed dog embryos and transferred them into 123 surrogates, yielding only Snuppy and another dog that died 22 days after birth. With the first cloned female dog, they killed 167 dog embryos and transferred them into 12 surrogate mothers to produce the three cloned dogs.

Delaware Pro-Life Advocate Will Take on Pro-Abortion Sen. Joe Biden
Dover, DE (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life advocate Christine O'Donnell was chosen Saturday as the Republican candidate to challenge long-time pro-abortion Sen. Joe Biden for Delaware's U.S. Senate seat. At the weekend Delaware Republican convention, O'Donnell won 60.7% of the vote of the convention delegates in a vigorous contest with businessman Tim Smith. Delaware rules provide for a Party endorsement in May but then also permit a primary contest in September. However, both O'Donnell and Smith agreed before the convention to abide by the GOP's vote as the final decision. O'Donnell thus becomes the Republican Party's nominee for United States Senate. O'Donnell contends that Delaware is suffering from "Biden Fatigue" after Biden's 35 years in the U.S. Senate, and that Senator Biden has lost interest in Delaware. He has announced plans to spend 2008 campaigning around the country against Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. O'Donnell hasn't been shy about her pro-life views. In March 2007, Delaware legislative panels held a hearing on two bills dealing with human cloning and embryonic stem cell research and wound up passing a bill to allow human cloning for research purposes. O'Donnell spoke against the bill and said it would create an underground market to exploit women and purchase their eggs and human embryos for study. She also said the state should not be promoting research that has never helped and human patients and has significant obstacles that prevent it from doing so. "How would you feel if a stockbroker took your money and invested it in a company that failed to produce any returns?" O'Donnell said.