Jenny Stokes

Published in Salt Shakers Journal, March 2007.

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”

With all the media coverage on climate change and global warming recently, you might expect that this is a recent statement.

No, this was the opening sentence of an article in Newsweek on 28 April 1975 for an article called ‘The Cooling World’! 1

Bill Muehlenberg
February 2005

A raft of new legislation is being passed throughout the Western world. These laws are called by various names, such as vilification or tolerance or discrimination laws. Sometimes they are referred to as hate-crime legislation. Whatever their title, these laws are problematic for a number of reasons. While the intentions behind them may have been good (to reduce hatred and vilification, etc.) the outcomes have been far from ideal.

It was because the original version of the Bill drew an unprecedented storm of protest (some 5500 submissions, almost all of them opposed to the Bill), that it was redrafted and re-introduced. The new version is no better than the previous one, and it should have been rejected altogether as an exercise in social engineering.

Our community must determine appropriate standards for medical research involving human subjects. We ask our political leaders to have regard for the sacredness of all human beings, of whatever level of maturity, dependency or ability. We ask them to support adult stem cell research and to reject a policy of destroying some to treat others.