New Hope for Stem Cell Research

ExE122 writes "A new scientific breakthrough allows scientists to harvest stem cells without harming the embryo. From the article: ''We have shown that we can not only generate stem cells without destroying the embryo, but that the remaining embryo also has the potential to go to on create a healthy blastocyst' said Dr Lanza, whose team's research is published in Nature. Asked if he expected the advance to satisfy President Bush, Dr Lanza said: 'Well, as you know, the President objects to the fact that you would be sacrificing one life to save another, and in this instance there is no harm to the embryo.''"

Re:Yay! (Sort of)

[distilledprodigy]

I'll have you know that I plan on, and know many "right wing right-to-life zealot's" that plan on, or already have, adopted. We are well aware that if we say adoption is the best option we have to step up and make it possible. You insensitive clod.

Re:Well, what now, Karl?

[wiggles]

And here's some FAA guidelines to prevent people from bringing liquids onto planes, which will prevent[2] terrorists from hijacking or destroying a plane in flight!

The funny thing is that Ann Coulter actually agrees with you [anncoulter.com].

Re:Yay! (Sort of)

[dan828]

Nice rhetoric, but the truth is, most of the people that are anti-abortion do support groups (with their $$$ and time) that aide young unwed mothers, providing health care and adoption services if needed. They get almost no press for it because, surprise surprise, the good that people do almost never gets covered-- the press prefers mean and nasty to helpful and compasionet.
I'm agnostic and pro-choice, but I have friends that are christian and pro-life, and they, more than anyone else I've seen in the issue, put their money where there mouth is and actually try to help people. And adopting unwanted children that would otherwise grow up in foster care, is far from a small thing. And tell me, have you done anything as selfless as that?

Re:Raises a new problem

[Surt]

It's actually straightforward. It's the same as when parents negotiate for a baby to be in a shampoo commercial. Do you get to renegotiate the shampoo commercial contract when you turn 18 and demand all of the shampoo company's profits for the last 18 years?

The short answer is no.

The parents (probably even just the mother) of the embryo gets to negotiate away the rights to those cells, and the grown up embryo will have no rights involving those cells excepting those negotiated by the parents.

Re:Adopt an Embryo

[Chris Burke]

I understand the philosophy, but it doesn't hold up. It's a rationalization of the belief that anything done purely for pleasure is sinful. That experiencing pleasure can only be justified if it satisfies some other survival need. I don't buy it. And I certainly don't buy that this is something that has only resulted from technology and is a recent phenomenon.

Human societies have had non-essential-nourishment foods in the form of desserts for millenia. Sure there's a huge range of nutritional value among desserts, but many are not very nutritional at all (long before the invention of sugar substitutes) and were certainly not eaten for their nutritional value. Yet apparently the first time an ancient human hunter-gatherer, having already taken in their daily requirement of calories and proteins and looking at a surplus of food, decided to eat a handfull of berries because it tasted good we became sinners.

Similarly, the 1930s were hardly the beginning of the separation of sex and procreation. Animal skin condoms and other forms of birth control existed for hundreds if not thousands of years before. I'd wager that the desire to separate sex from procreation has existed for as long as humans were aware that one can lead to the other, even if methods to do so didn't exist. Before that, our sex drive was driving us have sex without caring about procreation, so if having sex without intent of reproduction is a sin, then we have always been sinners.

Similarly, the attempt to repeat the pleasure of sex beyond the needs of procreation (birth control, gay lifestyle, etc) has generally bad results - physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Which I don't see as supported at all -- for starters, what physical harm comes from . It has been shown that couples with more active sex lives have healthier relationships. Yet a couple with more children than they can afford is going to be miserable. What is healthier? A couple having sex without producing a child, or a couple having sex producing a child they don't want, and neglecting, abandoning, or just killing it (and don't think for a second that abortion is a modern phenomenon either)?

Is there such a thing as too much sex, as sex that is in fact damaging physically, emotionally, and spiritually? Yes! Same with desserts -- there is such a thing as gluttony! But the mere act of engaging in eating or physical pleasure without survival of the species being the underlying goal is not necessarily in the same category. In fact, I'd say that in every instance in which sex could be considered harmful physically, emotionally, or spiritually, the use or non use of a prophylactic has zero impact whatsoever on that harm -- no, wait, check that, in reality using a prophylactic can prevent physical harm (STDs) and emotional harm (resulting from an unwanted pregnancy). The idea that a committed married couple making love suddenly becomes harmful through use of a condom makes no sense at all.

There's a rational idea in there -- that eating too much of the wrong things is harmful, that entering into sexual relationships irresponsibly can be harmful -- but the extreme thinking that says that any non-nutritional food or sex without making a baby is immoral is actually more detrimental than it is helpful. Like most extreme thinking, it causes the very problems it claims to abhor.

Okay, but I'll be perfectly honest, I just can't believe that God sees blowjobs as a sin.

Re:off topic, but still...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pro-Life is a conservative political term meant to divide people. It is not a liberal political term and it does not apply to liberals, except those that buy into conservative rhetoric. Since everyone is pro-life (save for a very small minority of mentally ill individuals, such as president bush, other warmongers, and serial killers), the term really is meaningless. The appropriate term is the liberal term: anti-choice. People who want to save and protect embryos from abortion and use in scientific research, such as stem cell research, and identify themselves as pro-life are really just against others deciding on their own what to do with their own bodies (such as have sex and, if necessary, then have a medical procedure to remove the embryo from the woman's body well before birth can occur). As is very well known, and is why the Republicans have lost on the stem cell research front, is that hundreds of thousands of embryos are thrown away every year by fertility clinics. The so-called pro-life movement does nothing about this. But the pro-life movement complains loud as a banshee when scientists want to use these embryos that are going to be thrown away for stem cell research. You see (as you very well know conservative mouthpiece Travoltus) the movement is anti-choice, it is not pro-life (not in the sense of saving these embryos marked for disposal or saving the people who have terminal illnesses that could benefit from stem cell research).

America is moving left because they have seen what the right has to offer and it ain't pretty. It is pretty damn ugly. Stopping stem cell research and claiming they are "pro"-life is but one element of the Republican collapse.

There are also..

[Anonymous Coward]

..those who could not, in good conscience, follow the Democratic Party with the strong pro-choice platform, and have been Republicans in great part due to this stance (even though ideals of the Democratic Party may be more relevant in most other areas). Defections of those would come in great amounts were a viable pro-life platform available in the Democratic Party (in all areas - the Democratic Party is very pro-life beyond the gestational period).