THE DEVIL’S MIRACLES: Excerpts:

…For they come in search of one of the most pioneering–and controversial–medical procedures on the planet: the injection of cells from aborted foetuses into the brains and spines of the sick. And the object of their faith is a Chinese surgeon who spent many of his university years labouring as a peasant and is now conducting trial-and-error experiments on live subjects despite his research being rejected by the western medical establishment. …

Among them is Van Golden, a Christian, anti-abortion Texan who has sold his house so that he can travel to communist, atheist China and have Huang inject a million cells from the nasal area of a foetus into his spine. According to Golden’s doctors, his spine was damaged beyond repair in a car crash last Christmas. The damage to his nervous system was so bad that he has been in a wheelchair and racked by spasms ever since. But Golden refused to give up, even if it meant having to compromise his values. “This is the only place that offered us any hope,” he says. “Everyone else offered only to help make me sufficient in that chair. But the chair is not my destiny. It is not ordained.” …

The boast that China leads the world in this area of medical science would have been unbelievable a few years ago, but lower ethical barriers have allowed doctors here to conduct experiments not permitted elsewhere. “Chinese doctors have mixed many kinds of cells,” says Huang. “Some things are legal in China that are not legal in the US.” …

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Via Amy Welborn.

A society that believes suffering is the greatest evil will commit atrocities in the name of compassion.