Stem cell debate to be reopened

The Times ^ | June 9, 2004 | Roland Watson

[MadIvan]

RONALD REAGAN’S decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease could help to persuade President Bush to change his mind about stem cell research, senators from both parties hope.

Fifty-eight senators, including 14 Republicans, have written to Mr Bush suggesting that he is standing in the way of a potential cure by limiting stem cell research.

Nancy Reagan, the former First Lady, is expected to take a more public role backing research after she has bid farewell to her husband of 52 years on Friday.

Mr Bush set strict limits for stem cell research in 2001. Under pressure from the Religious Right he confined the use of federal money to existing research to discourage the production of human embryos purely for scientific research.

Stem cells are typically taken from human embryos and grown in a laboratory. They can multiply into almost any type of tissue when transplanted into the body. But because the embryos are destroyed when the cells are extracted, the process is opposed by some conservatives, who link it to abortion. Scientists say that the cells hold the key to discovering treatments for degenerative neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson ’s disease.

White House officials played down the chances that Mr Bush will change his mind. But Republican supporters are hopeful that, as more becomes known of Mr Reagan’s final years, the suffering of an American icon will change the debate.

Mrs Reagan fiercely protected her husband from the spotlight for the last decade of his life. But she surprised many last month by saying that Alzheimer’s “has taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him. I just don’t see how we can turn our backs on this.”

Orrin Hatch, Republican senator from Utah and a supporter of extended research, said: “Maybe one of the small blessings that will come from [Mr Reagan’s] passing will be a greater opportunity for Nancy to work on this issue. I believe that it’s going to be pretty tough for anybody not to have empathy for her feelings.”

[King Prout]

I agree with you, but there are some who would argue that cells taken from one adult human and coaxed into a pseudo-fetal state of development constitute a human embryo...

[lainde]

bttt

[Judith Anne]

An excellent post, number 14. Thank you.

[wita]

Unfortunately you are not dealing entirely from a position of truth. Truth says, not you or anyone else on the face of this earth, is able to say with any degree of surety, when life as God understands it, begins, and so you anger those who for protection sake, have to become pro-choice, or death if you will to be an active counter to what they see as a hard-over Christian conservative issue meant to pound their ideas into the ground, ideas, which IMHO stand on equally sandy ground.

The abortion problem will never be dealt with correctly, until both sides of the issue agree on a few things, and start dealing from a position of known truth. Calling those who support abortion, murderers, is not how to win friends and influence people. They are not murderers as defined by law, and I can certainly understand their position, when they are labeled as such by, let us say, well meaning supporters of the pro-life position.

You will get no argument from me, that abortion is wrong, wrong wrong, but pro-life Christians need to remember they are not perfect either, and stop casting stones so a real dialog can begin. There are difficulties with being so against something that you cannot entertain the thought that many are pro-life because of the attitude of hard-over Christians against something that even Christians need to admit they do not fully understand.

I am saying it flat out, well meaning Christians with the no compromise attitude on abortion, are the direct cause of many folks being in the pro-choice camp, because there is no avenue for dialog and they feel they then have no voice unless they hold the opposite view. I maintain, that many many people in this country are much closer in ideas than it seems, merely because of the closed doors, closed minds of well meaning Christians.

Just my humble thoughts on the subject.

[OldFriend]

Debate reopened by the media as a way to bash President Bush.

[MadIvan]

It will be highly interesting to see how much Valium consumption among members of the media increases once Bush is re-elected.

Regards, Ivan

[MHGinTN]

As in perthenogenesis?... How is a severely handicapped human embryo less an human embryo except in your utility for that human embryo?

[MHGinTN]

You asserted (quite deviously), Unfortunately you are not dealing entirely from a position of truth. Truth says, not you or anyone else on the face of this earth, is able to say with any degree of surety, when life as God understands it, begins ... How about when science says the lifetime of an individual begins? Could you sit still for that definition? If you want to play bait and switch, addressing first the soul of life, of individual organismal life, then switch in mid-argument to address the spirit of a human being, well, dishonesty garners no truth, and you did start your assertion with 'truth' as your assumed goal.

The science of embryology defines the beginning of an individual human lifetime as the event of conception and verifies this beginning of the individual via the evidence of cell division (mitosis) where the individual being is directing his or her own development of placenta, umbilicus, and blood and body for the air world. Every thing alive has a soul of life, a will to live, a self-directing developmental pattern. The human pattern of an individual ORGANISM begins at conception and is verified through cell division of the ORGANISM.

[GrandEagle]

no children are being created merely for the purposes of harvesting these cells
As I understand it, this is exactly how they get these "embryos".

[MadIvan]

As I understand it, this is exactly how they get these "embryos".

Then forget it. President Reagan would never sanction this.

If it can be done in such a way like, for example, skin cells can be taken from a person and then grown into new skin (used for burn treatments), then that's fine. But that's out of order.

Regards, Ivan

[GrandEagle]

Ronald Reagan, who was strongly pro-life, would not have approved of government sponsored fetal stem-cell research. In fact he wouldn't have approved of such research period.
You are ABSOLUTELY correct!
He would have never requested that someone else be killed so he could live.

[GrandEagle]

I seriously doubt death will be abolished
Interestingly enough the death rate has remained the same throughout time - 100%

[MHGinTN]

perthenogenesis = parthenogenesis ... fingers need more coffee!

[GrandEagle]

Then forget it. President Reagan would never sanction this.
I agree. I think that they also get the "extra embryos" from fertility clinics. The justification is that these would be destroyed anyway.
My beef with the whole thing is that once the egg is fertilized, ALL the information is there for the complete, unique human. It is a child that only needs to be cared for and nurtured, just like a child that has already been born. It is wrong to kill one human to harvest body parts for another.
Sounds like you and I are pretty close in view on this one.

freegards,
GE

[wita]

Devious I'm not, your assertions to the contrary. I am not an embryologist and do not subscribe to your or their definition of life, and you will note, I said life as God understands it not as man understands it, and that is the definition you have proposed. It is that definition that is the cause of much of the worlds difficulties vis-a-vis the subject of abortion.

Truth is eternal, truth comes from God and truth is absolute. Mans learned truth is subject to change and constantly evolving, and those on both sides of the abortion issue are not dealing in absolutes. Life as God understands it begins with the breath of life, and the entering of the eternal soul into the body, Not you, nor any scientist in this world are capable of knowing when that event if it is just one event or more than one takes place. It has not been revealed to man.

[MHGinTN]

"Life as God understands it begins with the breath of life ..." Care to cite the source of your assertion, or do you play bait and switch even with this notion?

[Cold Heat]

I am in total agreement with you Ivan. However, after arguing this subject recently, I ran into the "don't cross the line" crowd that likens this to abortion, even though the embryo, or blast will never be viable under any circumstances and the intent of creation was purely a fertility issue.

I do not see this issue coming to the forefront until after the election. I think that is the best timing.

Anything else would be too divisive. The fact that GWB will stand his ground on this issue is certain.

[MHGinTN]

"... even though the embryo, or blast will never be viable under any circumstances ..." Actually, the embryo, even in a lab dish prior to implantation, is completely viable for the environment in which she or he lives (yes, the sex of the individual is discernible even at this earliest age in their lifetime). That implantation conveys extended life support is why in vitro fert clinics exist, and also why these not used embryonic individuals are frozen, to avoid their death prior to a 'designed usage'.

[Van Jenerette]

...if you really support the use of human embryonic stem cell please follow these instructions:

#1) Go to a clinic with your 'better half' and create a fertilized child embryo.

#2) Use that particular embryo for your own research and your own cure or to help others.

OPTION: If you are past the production point ask one of your children or grandchildren to provide(or be) the raw materials for your miracle cure.

[King Prout]

IF the engineered ersatz embryo has neither a cerebral cortex nor the potential to ever develop a cerebral cortex, it is not a person so far as I am concerned and never shall be.