Beyond the embryo fight

Los Angeles Times ^ | November 22, 2007 | Richard Hayes

[neverdem]

A recent stem-cell breakthrough negates the need for research using human embryos.

The debate over cloning embryos for stem cell research has been one of the most divisive and unpleasant public controversies of the last decade. Partisans on both sides have sought to polarize the issue for political advantage rather than look for middle-ground positions that a majority of Americans would welcome.

In general, Republicans have equated medical research using single-celled clonal embryos with murder, while Democrats have promoted state ballot initiatives enshrining human embryo cloning as a constitutional right. They have committed billions of taxpayer dollars to a procedure that could open the door to socially pernicious applications, threaten women's health and exacerbate healthcare inequities.

Now we have a chance to put the cloning debate behind us.

Scientists in Japan and the United States announced Tuesday that they have successfully reprogrammed human skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. The new techniques bypass the need to create and destroy human embryos. Research using these techniques would be fully fundable under current U.S. federal government policy. It can be supported by liberal, pro-choice Democrats and socially conservative, pro-life Republicans alike.

Response from all sides has been swift. President Bush's science advisors are enthusiastic about the new procedures. British scientist Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, is abandoning attempts to use cloning for medical research and will henceforth work with the new techniques. Human embryo cloning, he said, is both technically inefficient and socially less acceptable than the new methods.

For the last decade, scientists in favor...

--snip--

Many have noted the immense technical hurdles that would have to be overcome before cloning could ever be used therapeutically. Others are concerned about access and affordability, given that cloning-based stem cell therapies would likely cost upward of $100,000 a treatment...

[betty boop]

Thank you so much, MHGinTN, for the highly informative link!

[MHGinTN]

Something Pastors need to be ‘up on’, ping.

[arthurus]

It will NOT be behind us because cures for diseases and ailments is not the driving force behind the drive to legalize cloning embryos. The enshrining of the principle that some humans may be killed for the benefit of other humans is the principle behind this. The right to define particular groups of human beings as not worthy of life is at stake.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hooray, Bishops are applauding this here: USCCB Statement

[WileyPink]

Thanks for the Ping. Good info and links too. I heard Barns too last night of Fox and his comments that the libs still wouldn't accept this as a breakthrough because of its relationship to abortion. Krauthammer pretty much said that this the the "Big Boy" of stem cell research.

Thanks again,

Wiley

[neverdem]

Thanks for the link.

[PGalt]

BTTT

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for all the information!

[tantiboh]

It is great news, for everybody.

Bush does deserve a great deal of credit for holding the line on this issue - it was his policies that caused the NIH to help fund this research. As disenchanted as many conservatives are with the President, he gets a big, fat tick mark for this one.

Thanks for the ping.

[tantiboh]

~”It will NOT be behind us because cures for diseases and ailments is not the driving force behind the drive to legalize cloning embryos.”~

That is true; there is a lot of money behond embryonic stem cell research, and that money will not lay down and take this news quietly.

Still, this gives us a strategic weapon in the war against that agenda - one that, if this technique pans out, will ultimately prove decisive.