[neverdem]

ping

[Brilliant]

Where are they going to get the money to pay for it?

[mabelkitty]

Can tax increases be far behind?

[OldFriend]

To date embryonic stem cell research has NEVER shown any promise of curing any disease. On the contrary, several experimental tries on people have ended in the patient's death.

Other countries have used embryonic stem cell reseaerch with NO benefits.

This is nothing more than NARAL pushing this research in an unthinkable exploitation of desperately ill people.

[Peach]

Our Republican leadership has really let us down today.

I never thought I'd see the Republicans in the House do this.

This opens the way for the New Jersey embryo farm.

[hocndoc]

And this is why I voted for and worked so hard for this President.
Thank God (and, "Please, God!") that he is a good man in the right place at the right time.

[Coleus]

Looks like it's a non issue even for conservatives

Action Alert, U.S. House votes May 24th on embryo-killing research, H.R. 810
	Posted by Coleus On News/Activism 05/22/2005 5:07:40 PM EDT · 6 replies · 221+ views

 

President Discusses Embryo Adoption and Ethical Stem Cell Research (Remarks on Bioethics)

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMENTS ON U.S. HOUSE AND WHITE HOUSE ACTIONS

ON STEM CELL RESEARCH

 

WASHINGTON (May 24, 2005) --  The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a bill to provide federal funds for stem cell research that would require killing human embryos -- but if the bill survives its uncertain future in the Senate, the President's promised veto will be sustained, according to the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), which opposes the bill.

 

"Under this bill, human embryos would be killed by the very act of harvesting their stem cells for government-funded research," commented NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. 

 

The House passed the bill by a margin of 238 to 194, which was 50 votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be required to override a veto.

 

The White House today issued an official statement of Administration policy that said in part, "The bill would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the President's policy that supports research without promoting such ongoing destruction.  If H.R. 810 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."  To read the complete statement, click here.

 

In addition, at the White House, President Bush spoke to a group that included many children who were adopted when they were still embryos.  The President said:  "The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo. Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being.  And each of us started out our life this way.  These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts."  The complete remarks are here.

 

NRLC's Johnson commented:  "The biotechnology industry will not be satisfied with exploiting only embryos donated by parents -- in fact, they are already seeking to create human embryos by cloning, for the specific purpose of harvesting their parts for research.  Unless Congress acts promptly to ban human cloning, as many other nations have already done, biotech labs will establish what President Bush in the past has called 'human embryo farms.'"

 

Enactment of a ban on human cloning takes on new urgency in the wake of a May 19 report that researchers in South Korea had, in 11 cases, "successfully" created a clone of a person with a disease, killed the cloned embryo, harvested stem cells, and started a cell line of tissue genetically like that of the clone's parent-twin.

 

For additional information on H.R. 810, including links to important documents, click here.  For additional information on bills related to human cloning that are currently pending in Congress, click here.

 

By a vote of 431 to 1, the House today also approved the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act (H.R. 2520), sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), a bill to establish a new federal program to make stem cells extracted from umbilical cord blood available to patients who need them.  This bill was endorsed by President Bush and by NRLC.  In a statement of Administration policy released today, the White House said:  "Cord-blood stem cells, collected from the placenta and umbilical cord after birth without doing harm to mother or child, have been used in the treatment of thousands of patients suffering from more than 60 different diseases, including leukemia, Fanconi anemia, sickle cell disease, and thalassemia.  Researchers also believe cord-blood stem cells may have the capacity to be differentiated into other cell types, making them useful in the exploration of ethical stem cell therapies for regenerative medicine."

 

From this week's (May 30) edition of TIME magazine:  "Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Duke University Medical Center reported that infants born with a fatal nerve disorder have been helped -- and perhaps even saved -- by treatment with stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of healthy babies.  Of course, the stem cells used at Duke are not the kind that have caused so much anguish and debate in the U.S.  Because these cells are taken not from embryos but from cord or placenta blood, they are both more developed and less versatile than embryonic stem cells.  But they are also less controversial because no potential human lives are lost if the cells are destroyed.  Yet they seem to have great potential for battling certain illnesses."
 

To return to the NRLC Human Embryos index page, click here.

[NYer]

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.
CRF Pontifical Council for the Family, Charter of the Rights of the Family

Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Catholic Ping
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[COEXERJ145]

At least it didn't come anywhere close to getting enough votes to override the President's veto.

[sinkspur]

There are idjits on this very forum who say that George W. Bush has never done anything to protect innocent human life.

Is there any doubt he's going to veto this? I don't think so.

[Coleus]

Dear Colleague,

Today we report on a white paper from the President's Council on Bioethics that explores alternatives to stem cell research that would not require killing human embryos. The proposals are not all perfect and there is still much research to be done but we are encouraged to see this astute
group of scientists, ethicists and legal scholars embrace the idea that scientific research and ethical esponsibility can and should go hand in hand. Spread the word.

Yours sincerely,
Austin Ruse
President

Action Item: Read the report at the Council's website:
http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/white_paper/index.html
____________________________________________________________

CULTURE & COSMOS
May 17, 2005
Volume 2, Number 41

President's Council Reports On Alternatives to Embryo Destructive Research

The President's Council on Bioethics recently released a report that called for the exploration of alternatives to destroying human embryos for stem cells. The report outlines four possible means for obtaining embryonic-like stem cells that the authors say have the potential to be "morally uncontroversial." The report coincides with the release of a US Conference of Catholic Bishops poll that reveals that by a margin of 40 percentage points most Americans prefer that tax-dollars be spent on adult stem cells and other alternatives to embryo destructive research.

The Council's report suggests four ways for obtaining pluripotent cells, cells which are similar to embryonic stem cells, which do not require the willful destruction of human embryos. The report then examines each method to see if it is ethical, scientifically feasible and realistic to adopt from the perspective public policy and scientific research.

The first proposal calls on stem cells to be "derived from early IVF embryos . . . that have spontaneously died . . ." The report stresses that such an approach would require that "only those once-frozen embryos that are thawed and that die spontaneously during efforts to produce a child will be eligible for post mortem cell extraction." The report says that such a method would be acceptable for the same reasons that it acceptable for a fully developed human to donate his or her organs after death. The greatest ethical challenge to this proposal, according to the report, would be finding a way to make sure the embryo is really dead.

The second proposal says pluripotent stem cells could be obtained from a 6 to 8 cell embryo through a biopsy that would not harm the embryo. Both the feasibility and ethics of this method are highly questionable. It is unknown if the procedure can be undertaken without really harming the embryo and the long-term effect the procedure could have on humans that are born from such embryos is unknown. In a personal statement contained in the report's appendix by Council member and Culture of Life Foundation board member Robert George, this proposal is called the least promising of all four. "I do not hold out hope of obtaining pluripotent stem cells harmlessly via blastomere extraction from living human embryos," George says.

The third method is based on Dr. William Hurlbut's proposal in which stem cells would be obtained from a "biological artifact" that would be similar to an embryo but would not be human. This approach has been widely discussed but many are still unsure if the "biological artifact" would not in fact simply be a deformed human embryo.

The final method proposes reprogramming adult cells in such a way that restores to them the properties of a stem cell. There are no ethical objections to this proposal but it faces difficult technical obstacles that would require "new scientific advances and new technological innovation."

While the proposals are encouraging because they demonstrate that scientific advances may be used to develop morally acceptable approaches to stem cell research, George cautions against unrealistic expectation in the entire field of stem cell treatment. "[T]he effort in which I am happy to join to find morally legitimate means of obtaining embryonic or embryonic-type stem cells should not be interpreted as indicating any acceptance of the hyping of the therapeutic promise of embryonic stem cell research that has marred the debate over the past four years. This promotion of exaggerated expectations dishonors science and shames those responsible for it by cruelly elevating the hopes of suffering people and members of their families. It should be condemned."

Copyright 2005---Culture of Life Foundation. Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Culture of Life Foundation
1413 K Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 289-2500 Fax: (202) 289-2502
E-mail: clf@culture-of-life.org
Website: http://www.culture-of-life.org

[balch3]

Fifty more RINOS who need to be smacked down. Tom Delay, do your duty!

[mewzilla]

Gee, the NYT left the word embryonic out of the headline. Go figure.

[Paige]

If they truly believe this then why not set up a way to keep the umbilical cords after the birth of a child?

Thanks!

[Mr. Silverback]

Veto this sucker, Mr. President!

ProLife Ping!

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[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

[Rutles4Ever]

Unfortunately, it's just a matter of time. The people want it and politicians want votes. Maybe not during this administration, but somewhere down the line.

The "brain drain" will force a lot of hands down the line.

[Miss Behave]

Unethical and immoral. The means don't justify the ends of a life taken.

VETO TIME.

[Siobhan]

The President must veto this evil thing as soon as possible. If he doesn't, there will be hell to pay in more ways than anyone wants to imagine.