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Expectant Mother Care ( www.expectantmothercare.org ) is an abortion alternative clinic whose calling is to serve the distraught and disadvantaged through life-affirming education, counseling, on-site contracted medical care, and referrals. It was established more than 20 years ago and has survived attacks by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, as well as recently winning a cease-and-desist lawsuit against a major abortion provider that advertised itself as an abortion alternative clinic. Good Counsel Homes ( www.goodcounselhomes.org ) has saved thousands of babies from the scalpel and burning saline solutions. It operates homes for a mother to live throughout her pregnancy and for a year with her baby after delivery. It also provides parenting, health care, and career guidance taught by a caring staff and volunteers.

There is also the privately funded maternity and adoption program at the Archdiocese of New York, which provides all the material necessities for a healthy pregnancy and an excellent Cribs for Life program to outfit the newborn completely. No Web site is yet available, but one can call 212-371-1000 and ask for the maternity services office. Umbilical cord blood holds enormous promise for cures. Why isn't Congress working on funding research that works, instead of promoting junk science? But even if embryonic stem cells did provide a cure for my diabetes, the price of an innocent life is too much for me to pay.

Today, we have safeguards in place to ensure ethical practices are followed in a wide range of medical procedures. If the only choices were to use an embryo in stem cell research or discard it, why not give some meaning to this brief embryonic life and allow it to help end the suffering of other people? I'm not advocating farms where embryos are grown and harvested for testing. Without this barbaric proposition, there are still embryonic lines which might be of help. I'll be honest and admit that I'm a person who might be helped, but there are millions like me waiting for that magic cure.