[neverdem]

SC Ping

[Former Fetus]

DNA from the patient is inserted into an unfertilized egg, an embryo is produced and stem cells are harvested

Two major problems with this.

First, if an embryo is produced and stem cells harvested, the fact of the matter is that A HUMAN EMBRYO IS KILLED. Period. It doesn't matter if the embryo is a leftover from IVF or "produced" for the sole purpose of isolating stem cells. Either way a human being is killed and that is plain WRONG.

Second, I get very upset with these reports of "new" ways of producing embryos. I have a PhD in molecular biology and teach college biology, so I know what I'm talking about. There isn't anything new with introducing a somatic cell's DNA into an unfertilized egg and then stimulating it to begin dividing. It's the same old story, repackaged to make it more acceptable to the sheeple.

[hocndoc]

"It's a new type of embryonic stem cell line from a different kind of embryo," he said. "We just don't know whether these cells will be as good as embryonic stem cells from naturally fertilized embryos."

How gullible do these people think we are and how short do they think our memory is?????

Well, first, it's not "new." It's called parthenogenesis and Wu Suk Hwang reportedly achieved the same - as a matter of fact, the only stem cells that any other observers saw from Hwang's lab were those parthenogenetic stem cells.

Secondly, there's just no reason to believe that an abnormal embryo, created by one more "new" way doesn't change the fact that these are Human embryos, intact, integrated, organisms from a human parent, with all the human genetic heritage that you and I have.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

This sounds as ghoulish as deliberately maiming embryos in a perverted attempt to lessen the moral culpability of their subsequent murder for science. The benefits of some areas of research, like this one, simply are not worth the costs.