[lapdog]

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.

[Gerfang]

There are a lot here who will never condone the use of embryonic stem cells. It’s tragic that they are stifling avenues of research that could help people like you. I wish I could do more to help but it’s difficult to overcome the self-righteous surety of the willfully ignorant. Letting real people die so that we can save single celled embryos is insane.

[marsh_of_mists]

Today, we have safeguards in place to ensure ethical practices are followed in a wide range of medical procedures.

Just because there are "safeguards" in place somewhere doesn't make them ideal or satisfactory.

If the only choices were to use an embryo in stem cell research or discard it...

Why are those the only choices? Why are there all these embryos waiting to be discarded? This is why I am also against IVF and wish more people would come out against and make it an issue. Unfortunately, to do so is, somehow, considered too radical, because IVF has been around for such a long time with few complaints. But there shouldn't be any embryos "just lying around" waiting to be "used or discarded".

I'm not advocating farms where embryos are grown and harvested for testing.

And what do you think will happen if demand for embryonic stem cells grows so high that leftover IVF embryonic lines can't satisfy it? Indeed, people are already advocating it. Haven't you heard of "therepeutic cloning".

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.

I am sorry, but I must stand on my principle that human life begins at conception and that all human life must be protected equally.

[skr]

Private companies can do all the embryonic stem cell research they're willing to pay for. The only ban is on using taxpayer funding. Thus far, adult stem cell is far more productive, without moral or ethical controversy as to the origin of the stem cells.

[maryz]

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.

Um, "magic" is right. In view of the fact that embryonic stem cells so far have a track record of zero cures -- though an impressive track record of growing into teratomas instead of the hoped-for cure, it's unclear why you think they offer you hope.

This site lists some of the clinical trials now ongoing for adult stem cell therapies. I'd include a list for ESC therapies, but there are none -- none of the experiments come close to justifying a clinical trial.

Unless you feel your condition could be helped by a teratoma, your "faith" is touching indeed.