Stem-cell research is pro-life

Boston Herald ^ | Monday, April 4, 2005 | John Kerry

[Radix]

 For everyone, the issue of stem-cell research is deeply personal and fundamentally moral. We each dread getting a call from a doctor with the results of a diagnosis that makes our heart sink, or the day we say goodbye to a loved one.
     I'll never forget a woman I met last fall at a town hall meeting on stem-cell research. She stood up, her frail body shaking, and pleaded for her government to embrace stem-cell research. It was the moral clarity of her message that will stay with me forever.
     ``It's too late for me,'' she said, ``but we need to do this for those who still have hope.''
     It's not too late for 13-year- old Garrett Burgess of Chelmsford, paralyzed at the age of 5, who traveled to all 50 states with his father to make the case for stem-cell research his doctors believe hold the promise that he can one day walk again.
     In Massachusetts, we need to think of this moral challenge as Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio] decides whether to sign or veto landmark legislation to allow research that holds out hope for millions. It's a question of our values as a state and a people, and these questions should never be answered lightly - but they must be answered.
     More than 100 million Americans suffer from illnesses that one day might be wiped away with stem-cell therapy. Stem cells could replace damaged heart cells or cells destroyed by cancer, offering a new lease on life to those with a diagnosis that once came with a death sentence. Stem cells have the power to slow the loss of a grandmother's memory, calm the hand of an uncle with Parkinson's, save a child from a lifetime of daily insulin shots or permanently lift a best friend from a wheelchair.
     Some of the most pioneering cures and treatments are now right at our fingertips, but because of politics they could remain beyond reach.
     Nationally, America has been losing its lead in science. Our share of industrial patents is down, our share of Nobel prizes is down, our published research is down and the number of doctorates in the sciences is down.
     This is not the way we do things in Massachusetts. We're a state of discovery - a place where innovators and optimists are free to dream and explore. Where government encourages creativity and entrepreneurship instead of stifling it. Where we're always pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
     This hasn't just been a story of scientific imagination, but of political imagination - from leaders at every step who recognized the hope and possibilities of science to save lives.
     And that's why this groundbreaking legislation on stem-cell research must become law. Every day that we wait, more than 3,000 Americans die from diseases that may someday be treatable because of stem-cell research.
     We must make funding for this research a priority. Above all, we must look to the future not with fear, but with the hope and the faith that advances in science will advance our highest ideals.
     Progress has always brought with it the worry that we have gone too far. Some questioned the morality of heart transplants. We heard the same kind of arguments against biotech research that now saves stroke victims and leukemia patients.
     The question is no different on stem-cell research. People of good will and good sense can resolve the ethical issues without stopping lifesaving research. There's already bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate to ban human cloning and allow therapeutic cloning to advance. This issue transcends political labels. That's why Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Nancy Reagan refuse to tie the hands of doctors and oppose restrictions on lifesaving research.
     It should be no different in our state. Massachusetts has long led the country in great discoveries, always upholding the highest standards, ensuring our breakthroughs and our beliefs go hand-in-hand. And when it comes to stem-cell research, policymakers have worked to find common ground and draw strict and appropriate ethical guidelines, and they've succeeded.
     I hope that Romney signs this bill and makes it clear that in Massachusetts, we say yes to knowledge, yes to discovery and yes to leading a new era of hope for all.

[Txsleuth]

Glad you caught that---I looked very specifically for the word "embryonic"---nope, none---

Therefore the whole article is bogus because Bush has put no restricitons on stem cell research and is the FIRST president to fund it---

Kerry is a LIAR, LIAR, LIAR,---and just keeps on doing it!!!

[Drew68]

So why doesn't someone do Stem Cell reseach? Just keep the ban on cash from the government.

We spend $6 billion a year on tax money trying to cure AIDS --a disease that is 100% preventable (excluding blood transfusion recipients and babies born to infected mothers). Most diseases are lucky to get $100 million a year in taxpayer funding for research.

Stem cell research has the potential to cure many horrible ailments. It is a far worthier investment than the billions spent trying to cure AIDS.

[Txsleuth]

My granddaughter 5, has juvenile diabetes---I would love to find a cure for it so she doesn't have to take insulin all of her life--(her uncle dies of diabetes when he was 23)-- and I would take a bullet to save her life, BUT

there is no way that we should make killing babies a way to help the already alive but ill---

[armymarinemom]

Kerry. Shut up.

[infidel29]

Kerry, you dork, no one is banning stem cell research. The Bush administration merely put a cap on the Government's funding of stem cell research. If you want to pry open your wallet and give a little go ahead, no one is stopping you. If Michael J. Fox wants to give all his money to fund stem cell research,, he's allowed. So is Christopher Reeve's family and anyone else's for that matter.

The current administration is opposed to embryonic stem cell research, i.e the harvesting of stem cells from aborted fetuses or from lab grown embryos. These are the moral issues concerning stem cells, man's ability and willingness to play God. To either sacrifice a life or genetically engineer a life for the sole purpose of using it as a resource instead of as a gift.

How can Captian Longface support using human life as a resource yet oppose drilling into the dirt to locate a resource? That's why you lost, mor... Mr. Kerry and that's why your party continues to lose elections. You have lost your moral core and are out of touch with the rest of America.

[infidel29]

Oh, yeah, and it's not pro life, embryonic stem cell research merely exchanges one life for another. Theoretically.

[Maigrey]

Destruction of life to sustain life is wrong.

Placental cells work much better. But m. sKerry would't like that one bit.

[Unam Sanctam]

This senator is like the Communists -- words mean whatever he wants them to mean -- there is no objective reality. According to him, supporting abortion is pro-life. This guy needs to get a clue.

[Cicero]

Translation: "I'm John Kerry, and I believe that chopping up babies is pro-life. This announcement paid for by NOW and NARAL."

[floridavoter2]

This is the same drivel they use to spew out about 10 years ago when they insisted that taking the tissue from aborted fetus' would cure all the worlds ailments...
Hmmmmm...still waiting for those cures!!

[Soaring Feather]

bump

[GraceCoolidge]

We're a state of discovery - a place where innovators and optimists are free to dream....

I think he's dreaming if he believes he has any shot in 2008.

[lyndi]

Re: Juvenile Diabetes and Stem Cell Research:

You should know that a Harvard scientist has developed a treatment for juvenile diabetes using stem cells from the pancreas, I believe. She has tested her treatment on mice and not only has the treatment stopped the diabetes, the stem cells have regenerated on their own. Fabulous news! So she has gotten some funding from the Iaccoca Foundation, but when she went to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation for help, they turned her down flat. Guess why? Because they're focusing solely on embryonic stem cells. So, an organization suuposedly dedicated to eliminating juvenile diabetes would rather hang its hat on embryonic stem cell research, which if it even went through would be 10 years down the road, instead of funding treatment testing that could be implemented next year.

On behalf of your granddaughter, I would contact the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and ask them why they won't help her.

[Txsleuth]

Oh, my gosh, thanks---I did not know that and that is way too bad because when my Mom died, she had written in her will that in lieu of flowers, she wanted donations to the Juvenile Diabetes Assoc....hmmm

Well, I guess that gives me the right to ask them what those funds are for and tell them that I am against embryonic stem cell research---like the care, but at least I will ask them about the other study of pancreatic stem cells..

Thanks again for the information!

[netmilsmom]

I refer you to post 14. A wise person wrote it.

[speekinout]

Stem cell research has the potential to cure many horrible ailments.

Yes, but all of the promising stem cell research projects use either adult stem cells or ones from umbilical cords. We're so tied up in the "politically correct " push for embryonic stem cells that we can't focus on where the successful experiments really are.
There have been successes with umbilical cord cells and adult cells from bone marrow, fat, and nose cells. Not from embryos.

If I had to choose, I'd say let's invest most of our money in stem cells from adult fat tissue. We have a never ending supply of that. A lot of people would be willing donors, for sure.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

A vampire drains his victim of blood in order to live. I guess that's "pro-life."

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Wonder Warthog]

"How can Captian Longface support using human life as a resource yet oppose drilling into the dirt to locate a resource?"

Easily-----he's a DEMOCRAT (widely known outside the borders of the US as SOCIALISTS). Illogical, illegal, and immoral notions are what they do.