Legislators take crash course in stem cell research (semi-barf-alert)

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry won't support embryonic stem cell research. His potential Republican rival for the office, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, says Texas can't be left behind by other states that will.

On Wednesday, the Legislature hosted a forum on the politically polarizing issue, getting a crash course in the science and ethics behind stem cell research, its potential for treating disease and the moral debate that rages with it.

"It's a timely, controversial and complex issue," said Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, one of the event coordinators. "This is not to espouse positions, but simply to educate."

Supporters say research on stem cells, which can come from adults and donated embryos, could open the door for fantastic new medical breakthroughs. While other sources are available, many scientists believe embryonic stem cells may hold the most promise.

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research call it an immoral cousin to abortion.

"It requires the destruction of human embryos. That for us is the bottom line," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life.

Debate has raged since 2001 when President Bush restricted use of federal money on embryonic stem cell research to existing lines. While privately funded research is ongoing, researchers say publicly-funded research is critical to keeping up with research going on in other countries.

Last year, voters in California approved a massive $3 billion fund for embryonic stem cell research and Democrats in New York recently proposed an $1 billion initiative in that state.

While Perry opposes embryonic stem cell research, Hutchison has said Texas needs a "responsible, ethical policy regarding stem-cell research," to "stay in the forefront of scientific discoveries."

Medical officials in Texas are worried scientists will leave for California. Dr. William Brinkley, Baylor College of Medicine's vice president for graduate sciences, noted stem cell research in Asia, Europe and Israel.

"The train has left the station," Brinkley said. "I think our state and our country are a little behind the times."

The Texas Medical Association, the country's largest state physician organization with more than 39,000 members, last year adopted a resolution supporting embryonic and adult stem cell research.

James Willerson, president of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, has said he'll work to find state funding for stem cell research, particularly for noncontroversial sources such as umbilical cord blood and adult bone marrow.

He told lawmakers about joint research on heart patients in Brazil which showed dramatic results in improving the subject's quality of life.

"To fail to take advantage, we'll just watch the rest of the world do it," Willerson.

In his State of the State address Wednesday, Perry also called for a ban on human cloning in Texas.

While the scientists attending the forum said doctors would not support human cloning, they cautioned that such a bill could be broad enough that it effectively bans embryonic stem cell research.

In a process called "therapeutic cloning," the nucleus is removed from a donor egg and replaced with the nucleus from a donor cell to help create stem cells.

"We don't want to clone human beings," Brinkley said. "(But) a bill outlawing therapeutic cloning would be disastrous to us."

This conference was stacked against any view except the one in favor of embryonic stem cell research. (I can't imagine that the poor design was an accident. It was too consistent and none of the prolife groups were invited until several of the legislators started making inquiries and there was a fuss about the original panel, which was without a prolife panelist at all. How could Texas Right to Life and similar groups, such as Texas Alliance for Life not receive the same sort of registration infor that The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation got??)

There were 2 (count 'em 2) out of the 12 or so panelists who explicitly held to the truth that embryos are members of our species, that all of us are human beings and should be protected from being intentionally killed, and there are much more viable options for stem cell research in adult and umbilical cord stem cells.

From the very beginning, the panelists pushed embryonic stem cell research as the only way to cure all disease. It was horrifying to watch and listen as adult stem cells were dismissed as "relatively" difficult to obtain, and all those "surplus" embryos were claimed for the greater goood, and Texas business was declared dead if the State doesn't fund the destruction of human lives.

The moments of sanity were provided by some of the State Senators and Representatives who spoke up and 2 of the 3 invited panelists on the ethics of stem cell research, William Hurlbut, MD, and Eric Cohen. Dr. Hurlbut impressed me with his discussion of altered nucleus stem cell production. His idea involves using animal models to experiment for a way to create masses of stem cells without ever having created a human embryo to begin with or at any stage of the game. (Don't believe what you readin the media about what he means - they will mislead you). Mr. Cohen is the editor of the journal "The New Atlantis" and displayed incredible tact and logic while joining Dr. Hurlbut in declaring that life begins at fertilization, that human cloned embryos are indeed human beings, and that there is no difference between "human cloning" and SCNT or "Therapeutic cloning."

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/

This is the link to the "New Atlantis," a great read!

From an article by Robert P. George and Patrick Lee:

But personhood is not an accidental characteristic, that is, a characteristic which one acquires at some point after he exists and may lose at another point. One is a human person by being a living member of the human community, a member of the human species.

BTW, Dr. Hurlbut is a member of the President's Bioethics Council, and very pro-life. He explained his theory about how to develop ethical stem cells as being done on animal models in order to avoid any step that could possibly be considered destructive of human beings. His design would take a somatic cell and manipulate the DNA so that when it is used in SCNT, there would never be an embryo. Instead there would be a group of self-replicating cells that are never organized into an organism. Think (really!) a clump of cells.

The democraps have taught the scientific community well ... lying has become a tool of their trade now: In a process called "therapeutic cloning," the nucleus is removed from a donor egg and replaced with the nucleus from a donor cell to help create stem cells. Actually, to create a new embryo being from whom the body parts will be ripped. Of course, what the new stem cells shall be taken from is left out, certainly a gross, calculating lie of omission! Sadly, the media whores know what is truth and what is not, and they choose to promote the lies. ... But God will not be mocked.
"We don't want to clone human beings," Brinkley said. So since we're going to do exactly that, we'll conveniently call any children we conceive but don't allow to live to full 40 week term 'tissue sources' not human beings. "(But) a bill outlawing therapeutic cloning would be disastrous to us." So we'll lie and dissemble and parse common language, to confuse the doltish public and obfuscate the truth of what we want and intend to do.

The panelists in the first session were all evidently predjudiced in favor of going straight to embryonic stem cell research, and very dismissive of the potential of adult stem cells. Even Dr. James Willerson, who has pioneered the use of the patient's own bone marrow stem cells to repair heart muscle in patients with heart failure, was ambiguous in his statements about whether the focus should be on adult or embryonic stem cells.

One thing I did learn, yesterday: the scientists are calling the cells from placentas "fetal stem cells." This will make conversation more difficult. We'll have to make sure what source is actually being discussed since the placental cells or cells from a miscarriage are ethical, but cells from an aborted fetus wouldn't be.

There was fraudulent information in the paper handouts containing diagrams of the SCNT process. The pathway of the resultant embryos forked off into 2 pathways. One was labeled "human cloning" (implantation to produce a live birth) and the other labeled "organ." They deliberately and repeatedly refused to call the process human cloning. Dr. Hurlbut, Mr. Cohen, each pointed out that the process is one way to produce human clones - that the results are human cloning. But Dr. Zoloff and even the moderator of the ethics session, Dr. Carson, denied that human cloning was process that did not implant the child into a womb.

***That would mean that they would have to - once again - redefine "human" when the artificial womb is perfected. And, as Dr. Hurlbut said, the production of usuable tissues will eventually result in the longer and longer gestation of the cloned humans - he is certain that the embryos *will* be implanted.

The lies and deception were most evident when speaking about using existing embryos. As Eric Cohen pointed out, though, these embryos are not "like oil in the ground" to be mined at the will of who ever has the money and the power. Parents are paying money to keep the embryos frozen, because those parents can't bear to destroy them!!

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