Posted on 11/24/2007 10:59:45 AM PST by wagglebee
The scientist who helped ignite cultural and political controversy with the use of embryos in stem-cell research believes his new discovery using ordinary adult skin cells means the war is virtually over.
"A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote," James A. Thomson told the New York Times in an interview.
Thomson's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that announced Tuesday a new way to turn ordinary human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without using a human embryo.
The technique involves adding four genes to ordinary adult skin cells.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
It would have still been discovered but it takes need to make most good discoveries. Glad Bush stood his ground on federal funding for killing embryos to cure us of our ills.
(Remember that some good inventions for picking crops come from places where there is no “slave class” to do it. One for picking grapes came from Australia. We’d up our crop-picking technology and get a lot of human feces out of the orchards if we’d let up a little on our overuse of underpaid illegal aliens.)
But yes, G-d ALWAYS gives us, in every dilemma, at least one GOOD CHOICE to make. He would never leave us with ONLY the choice of killing a baby to cure a sick adult. NEVER. He taught us to always CHOOSE LIFE.
MY BAD!! /sac
My sympathies for those who have trouble conceiving. However, I believe the bad does outweigh the good.
As to your "not taking sides", it seems pretty clear to me what side you're on.
Actually, my personal tendency (not having been infertile - would that change one's view?) would be that if you're infertile, perhaps God (or biology, in the form of defective genes) has a good reason for you to be, and maybe you should try to find the blessing in your trial rather than going to extraordinary means to become pregnant...
If more people took that view, we wouldn't have all these extra embryos in the first place, and we also wouldn't have the people taking fertility pills and having "litters" of children born prematurely.
As a science teacher, however, I do try to stay abreast of the latest research. The thing I have trouble getting out of my mind are those millions of embryos frozen indefinitely.
I also hope it will be a footnote. Thank you President Bush for taking a stand on this issue. I believe it made the scientific community more carefilly explore non-life threatening means.
OK, points well taken. We are more like minded than I thought.
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
I agree with EVERYTHING you’ve said. I am opposed to IVF specifically because of the “discarded” embryos.
Yes, science often follows the path of least resistance because that is the starting point for assumptions.
**********************************************************
Like the recent news about the twin baby that refused to be killed in utero. They wanted him dead so his brother would survive (path of least resistence). Little did they know, the suppose to be dead twin by the grace of God and His providence would not die. The procedure that was suppose to kill him might now end up being the procedure that will save babies in utero that suffer from twin to twin transfusion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=491443&in_page_id=1770
On the other hand, there are those who've spend thousands of dollars for the treatment, but haven't come up with any viable embryos (much less left-over ones) or else none of their embryos implanted.
I'm guessing some of the unused embryos will be used for research to try to understand why that happens, and many others will be allowed to just thaw out.
Lots of weird possibilities, though. If 2 embryos are fertilized at the same time, are they twins even if they are implanted and born several years apart?
In short, Dems - Evil.
I'm talking about the average "soccer mom", Oprah watcher, or daytime radio talkshow callin who wants stem cell research so badly and hates mean old Bush for not allowing it (or something - few of these people seem to actually know what exactly Bush did vis-a-vis stem cell research. I think most think he banned it.)
Trust me, such people wouldn't know a stem cell from a Duracell.
And, I doubt anyone has taken a really good survey of what these guys are up to anyway.
Did you realize that anytime an embryonic stemcell researcher wants some embryos all he has to do is find a partner and whip some up.
Yup, they can do it themselves, and I would suppose that most of them do that.
We had a fertility doctor in Northern Virginia who ended up impregnating 75 women with his own sperm. The nurse testifying in his trial said he'd make an appointment and right before the subject (woman) arrived at the office he'd produce some of what he called "fresh sperm". Then, bingo!!!
I suppose that particular fertility doctor was not ethically different from the others of his kind, or the ones who dabble in playing with embryos.
The fact that someone can do something, e.g. get access to fertility clinic embryos, doesn't mean they do so. Nor, does the fact something might seem farfetched, e.g. whip up your own embryos to destroy, mean that no one is doing it.
I think it is always safe to assume the worst of folks in the embryonic business. Glad to see them being denied a market. Their idea was stupid anyway ~ none of the "organs" they ultimately thought they could manufacture were going to be compatible with the folks needing new organs. You have to start with someone's OWN stemcells to get to that stage.
Dems must be considered "evil" and "dangerous" first, and only after long term familiarity where they've demonstrated they are not totally commited to Dem ideology can we trust them in other areas.
For instance the hereditary allergy against birch trees, apples and pears (not to be confused with the allergies to apple and pear pollen), protects folks in the far North from eating tiny birch trees. There those trees grow 2 or 3 inches high and are full of cyanide, so you don't wish to eat them. The same protein that triggers rejecting of the tiny birch trees also appears in apples and birches.
I suppose this would be considered a "genetic disease" to folks in the Temperate latitudes.
We really wouldn't want you to be undertaking abortions of kids with those genes because our descendants are going to need them to survive the next Ice Age.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.