Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
One of the more interesting stories regarding stem cell research is one that has been woefully under-reported. Even though scientists have been performing embryo-destructive stem cell research for a decade, there are no clinically available treatments that have resulted from the research. In the past two years, however, scientists have discovered ways of inducing pluripotent stem cells that many see as more promising.
The National Institutes of Health posted their draft guidelines for the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research last Friday. When President Barack Obama announced his new embryonic stem cell funding policy in March, he said guidelines would be set by the NIH. The new draft guidelines can definitely be changed in response to responses received during the comment period or through promised legislative action, but here’s how they stand now:
One must really think through this article from the San Francisco Chronicle about some students, disciplined for praying in a college faculty’s office, being permitted to sue the college for violating their free speech rights. The story’s problem, and this may not be the newspaper’s fault, is that there seems to be little to no explanation for why the college attempted to punish the students in the first place.
Can you believe it was seven years ago that Attorney General John Ashcroft was outed for covering up the statues of the naked ladies in the Department of Justice building? He apparently didn’t like being photographed in front of the statues (representing “The Spirit of Justice”) when he gave speeches and press conferences. It was major news and, as a result, fodder for weeks of late night talk show jokes.
Please allow me to jump into tmatt’s file of guilt for a moment of confession about a recent news item from Fort Worth, Texas.
Many of you know that Newsweek editor Jon Meacham has written books on topics as diverse as the friendship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the faith of the founding Fathers, and the nation’s seventh President, Andrew Jackson. In the YouTube clip above, he’s discoursing in a Gettsburg College lecture about faith and President Abraham Lincoln.
Here’s a hard-news story that I have been interested in, ever since some of the details of President Barack Obama’s stimulus and tax plan began to surface. Thus, I have been watching for mainstream coverage of the topic.
Death and dying are intricately tied to the subjects of God, religion and faith. The Los Angeles Times made this clear earlier this week in its detailed look at why some statistics show that cancer patients deemed terminally ill requested intensive, but useless medical treatment, such as breathing machines, at a much higher rate if their faith was a significant factor in the their medical decision.
