The 1st test tube baby, Louise Brown, will turn 30 in a week, on July 25. The July 17 issue of Nature takes a look at the next 30 years of IVF:

Already, modern societies are entering an era of personalized genetics....

True... no embryo will have the perfect genetic future. But these techniques could allow parents to create a top-5 wish-list of the characteristics they most want for their child - avoiding, for example, the Parkinson's disease that plagues the family - and choose the embryo most likely to meet those criteria.

Or the parents may focus on non-health-related aspects such as intelligence and ambition....

The magazine asked several researchers to speculate on the next 3 decades.

Davor Solter, developmental biologist at the Institute of Medical Biology, Singapore...

Next I expect... sperm and eggs will be successfully derived from induced pluripotent stem cells....

It means every person regardless of age will be able to have children: newborn children could have children and 100-year olds could have children. It could easily happen in the next 30 years....

Another thing I predict for this brave new world is the use of artificial placentas....

Alan Trounson, director of the CA Institute for Regenerative Medicine :

I think it will be possible... to extend the fertile period for women....There will be concerns raised over whether the fertile period should be extended beyond its natural point. I think people should be given the choice....

We might see... "genetic cassettes" that can be inserted at the embryonic stage to correct particular diseases, such as Huntington's. These might be inducible cassettes that can correct for an abnormality that occurs late in life and switched on at that time....

Susannah Baruch, director of reproductive genetics at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University, DC:

There's speculation that people will have designer babies, but I don't think the data are there to support that. The spectre of people wanting the perfect child is based on a false premise. No single gene predicts blondness or thinness or height or whatever the 'perfect baby' looks like....

More likely is that you'll have a set of embryos and you'll know every single thing about every gene in every embryo. For example, 1 embryo will have 3 genes associated with tallness, 2 for weakness, 3 for poor vision and some for disease; and the 2nd embryo will have some other set.....

I think you'll end up with a lot of information available to parents....

Scott Gelfand, director of the Ethics Center at OK State University:

There is some research aiming to increase embryo survival and the likelihood that IVF will work. There are also people who are working on the other end - at the moment babies can only survive from around 22 weeks, but in future fetuses this could be extended to those that are 12 weeks. Someone could join these two advances together and we could have complete ectogenesis [in which the fetus develops outside the body in an artificial uterus]. I find it interesting and scary.

Those who work on artificial-womb technology aren't talking openly about it anymore. My guess is it's a potential lightning rod in our culture.There are some very interesting moral and ethical implications associated with artificial wombs....

If an artificial womb were developed, the government could pass a law that requires people who have a termination of pregnancy to put the fetus into one of these wombs. That's the fear of many pro-choice theorists. There are around 1 million abortions per year in the United States and there would have to be labs throughout the country, but if we put all these in artificial wombs and then put them up for adoption we would have one million more babies. It would be a nightmare. When I talk to some anti-abortionists about that, they really shudder.

Miodrag Stojkovic, stem-cell biologist at the Prince Philip Centre of Investigation, Spain:

Will we see a cloned baby? It could happen any day because of a lack of regulation [in some countries]. To my knowledge people are already trying to do reproductive cloning. Technically it is possible....

The field is developing so fast that some people can't follow what happens and are scared....

Humans are getting more and more lazy when it comes to reproduction. Male fertility is declining and parents are deciding to have their first child at 40....

There is plenty we don't understand about embryo-mother communication. I don't think 30 years will be enough to answer those questions.

Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, NY:

I see the technology going towards possible eradication of infertility altogether. With nuclear-transfer technology or cell modification, I think we'll be able to generate sperm and eggs for anybody.

I think we've potentially reached the limit of biology in terms of the female's eggs, so artificial gametes might overcome that....

Regine Sitruk-Ware, reproductive endocrinologist and executive director of research and development at the Population Council, NY:

If we look at centres in reproductive sciences funded by the NIH, there are more than 20 on IVF and only a handful on contraceptive research. It's more politically correct to help people get babies than the reverse, but it's important to have a balance.

Many current contraceptive methods have side effects or they're not effective. We can do better. We're hoping it might be possible for men and women to alternate taking contraceptives and that we can develop non-hormonal methods with fewer side effects that are very specific in targeting an enzyme or protein in the reproductive process, such as one that stops the ovum from maturing, or sperm from entering the egg.

[HT: reader Earl G.; photo of Brown courtesy of The Daily Mail

Right now my beloved friends at Pro-Life Action League are conducting their 9th annual Face the Truth Tour in the Chicago area. I always participate in this tour, but this year I can't since I'm in DC. But I really miss it.

Here is a 2-part excellent professional video presentation of the FTT Tours and their rationale. The 2nd video shows drivers complaining and answers questions re: children and malcontents (including some pro-lifers) being forced to see graphic images of aborted babies.

[HT: Nancy W.]

From today's Rapid City Journal:

South Dakota will begin as early as Friday to enforce a 2005 law that requires doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure ends a human life....

An order issued by a federal judge means that as of Friday, there will no longer be any court order preventing the state from enforcing the law....

Planned Parenthood, which operates SD's only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, will comply with the law....

"We will do what the law says, but clearly the law is extreme and flawed and wrong,"
[spokesperson Kathi] Di Nicola said.

PP believes the courts will eventually strike down the SD law....

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal last month overruled a lower court order that had temporarily prevented the state from enforcing the law. The appeals court said SD could begin enforcing the law passed by the 2005 SD Legislature....

The appeals court's decision sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier... for proceedings that will result in a decision on whether the law is constitutional....

The 2005 law requires doctors to tell women "that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Women also would have to be told they have a right to continue a pregnancy and that abortion may cause them psychological harm, including thoughts of suicide....

PP contends the measure would interfere in the relationship between doctors and patients and would require doctors to tell women untrue things....

"This law is unprecedented in the nation. It's an unprecedented, extreme law that's going to compel physicians to deliver state ideology," Di Nicola said....

Only ignoramuses or liars could possibly attempt to argue abortion doesn't end a human life. This is one point science, medicine, and religion all agree: the union of human sperm and human egg creates a separate, unique human life. This is Biology 101. Each species begats offspring from its own species.

[HT: reader Gary V.; photo is of a preborn at 12 weeks, the age most abortions are committed]

I'd heard conservative commentator Cal Thomas had led Democrat strategist Bob Beckel to the Lord and have even observed Beckel's commentating style become less abrasive on Fox over the past year.

In the July 26 issue of World magazine Marvin Olasky interviewed the pair, and my name came up in a discussion of Barack Obama. Read the World magazine piece in its entirety here. World has graciously enabled a link to the article for my readers. Following is the relevant excerpt:

Beckel: Let me be purely pragmatic about this: In politics the reason common ground will work is that polarization is bad politics in the voting booth and common ground is good politics.... Barack Obama took the message and it has been with him throughout the Democratic nomination. That'll tell you something.

World: But how will he actually pursue common ground? Let's look at one of the most difficult issues - abortion. Jill Stanek, the IL pediatric nurse, has written about appearing before Obama's committee (when he was in the IL senate) on infant born alive legislation: After a "failed" abortion when the baby is born alive, do you try to keep him alive or do you just let him die? Stanek has commented that, despite his public demeanor, Obama was heartless and callous. How is Obama going to find common ground on abortion when he doesn't even want to protect an infant already born alive?...

Beckel: I was pro-choice all my life until I came to faith and now I find it very difficult to reconcile that in biblical terms. I've had to remove myself from a number of pro-choice groups; I was on their boards. In politics you pick your fights. It is the most difficult example you put forward on Obama. I don't know where he would come down, but my guess is you probably wouldn't be able to find common ground with Obama on that issue.

Many people consider that the most pressing issue, and I understand that, but let's keep in mind here that the hard pro-life faction in this country who demand no abortions, versus the hard pro-choice faction who demand abortion at any time, are about 15% on either side. So you've got about 70% who look for some compromise. You can say, how do you compromise life? That's what we would say, but that's the reality of where the American people are. Part of common ground is approaching those issues that are doable.

[Photo courtesy of World magazine]

Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from MA who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they're not in a marathon they are in a triathlon - that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It's a remarkable record of exertion - all the more so when you consider that Rick can't walk or talk.

For the past 25 years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.

At Rick's birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child's development.

"It's been a story of exclusion ever since he was born," Dick told me....

Continue reading Team Hoyt's inspiring story at multi'merica.com.

And here's Team Hoyt in action:

[HT: friend Bruce T.; photo courtesy of Team Hoyt]