When congress was holding hearings about stem cell research in 2001, I remember reading about families who had used artificial birth stuff that testified against stem cell research saying it would be like killing one of their childern. I cannot follow the logic of, we'll use science to have childern but for no other purposes. Fuck that. There are real childern with real medical problems that can be aliviated by stem cell research. Are they going to start ticketing me for every time I ovulate? I guess I'm throwing away a dozen lives a year. How wasteful.

This article is stupid and glaringly incomplete.

Whether you oppose embryonic stem-cell research or not, the facts about adult stem-cell research should be explored in this essay. Does anyone know why that discussion is skipped? Because including the fact that ALL of the research in question can be conducted with adult stem cells makes the easy "ignorance" label that much harder to slap on opponents. Plus, it's alot more convenient to kill the embryos than it is to harvest the adult cells needed. I would encourage you to do an internet search using the words "adult stem cells" and you will be amazed at what the main and alternative media would like to keep from you. I am certainly in favor of helping as many people as possible, born and pre-born. In this case, we can do both.

Their argument (that Tomo sort of echos - even using the word "condemn" regarding these "clumps of human cells") that it won't save a single embryo betrays your position, because #1 it tacitly acknowledges that this embryo is a life worthy of respect(or the need would not be felt to mention this fact in defense) and #2 it leaves out the fact that future embryos WILL be saved by limiting this type of research.

How did we get to the point where we as a society get to arbitrarily decide what lives are actual LIVES and what lives are not? Of course...since there is no God from which our rights are derived, then WE as humans must decide who is worthy of respect and who is not, correct? Maybe we should have a congressional committee decide who among us are people and who are not...hasn't this happened before?

By the way, the Bush decision did not seriously limit embryonic stem cell reseach...just the federal funding of it, and it also left the door open for wider expansion of the research in the future. The devil was in the details of this political decision designed to appease both sides, which completely did not work as usual.

No, Dude, you are wrong. If adult stem cells were exactly the same, then it wouldn't matter. There's no conspiracy in the mass media to hide the 'fact' that adult stem cells are just as good as embryonic. The general consensus, while some may disagree, is that adult stem cells just aren't as versatile.

Btw, Bush's decision DID severely limit the amount of research that would be conducted with stem cells as a direct result of limiting what federal funds could and could not be used for.

I'm gonna go look at porn and condemn some potential future humans to the wastebin.

Fine, so there is some disagreement on how versatile they are...big deal. There is still no mention of the adult option in the article, and the fact that it even exists diminishes the doomsday arguments abouit all the people that will die without the research...and is therefore worth considering.

Have fun with that giz-fest. Just don't fertilize any eggs and you can squirt all you want guilt-free.

This article is interesting, especially the part about the things AS cells can do that ES cells cannott (last three paragraphs, first page)!