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Any appeal to utilitarian aspects of the debate is dangerour because it moves the terms of the debate onto their ground, rather than ours, which is the principle that killing for spare parts is intrinsically and universally unaccepable. So long as the argument is pragmatic, the pro-death side will always be able to argue the need for more research and better technique.

"Any appeal to utilitarian aspects of the debate is dangerour because it moves the terms of the debate onto their ground, rather than ours, which is the principle that killing for spare parts is intrinsically and universally unaccepable."

Oh, I agree that ESC work is bad on moral grounds, and that such is the basic reason it should not be done.

I'm simply pointing out that the article has a succinct, precise, and accurate statement on the current state of the technology.

You are right.

But OTOH, one reaches reflexively for the pragmatic argument against ESC to counter the hype.

The pro-abortion media, in cahoots with the amoral 'research' industry, are successfully misleading the public into believing that enormous therapeutic successes using ESC are 'just around the corner' -- if only that mean evil Bush would lift his narrow-minded restrictions.

Some of us believe the public needs that facts on ESC -- namely that not only have implantations to date had disastrous and irreversible results, but that contrary to the loud claims being made, ESC will probably never hold promise for curing or ameliorating Alaheimer's, Parkinson's, etc.

The false assertions that can be raised by the pro-dehumanization people must be dealt with in public forums. [The particular one raised here also applies to the abortion rhetoric, and the answer has weight based on the same lack of education of the people.] The assertion oft used that the embryo is an 'undifferentiated glob of cells' must be dealt with, to expose the false nature of the assertion (not that our FR friend meant to assert such). That's why I offer the manuscript linked in post #6 ... Americans will continue to talk past each other, unless the biological facts are understood. Citing one's faith in rejecting ESC research is admirable, but until those of faith can refute the false biological assertions, too many Americans will pass on the debate and the evil of cannibalizing fetal aged beings at their earliest manifestation will become an at first tacitly accepted methodology, then be embraced for the utilitarian applications ... and it does appear that cloning will be an integral part of future fetal stem cell applications. [I would really like it if we pro-life folks would use 'fetal stem cells' when referring to embryonic stem cell research, since it is precisely the stem cells tasked with builduing the fetal self that are the target of the research cannibals. BTW, I use the term 'cannibalism' because it is first, factual, and second, hopefully, behavior the American people will still reject, if we've not descended too far down the slippery funnel already!]