Posted on 02/02/2009 4:21:19 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Any day now, as he promised, President Obama will likely lift funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research imposed by former President Bush. Bush had sought the council of leading scientists and ethicists before making his decision. Obama, by contrast, will be yielding to the opinions of the scientific societies who have clamored for years that they need and want access to these morally-questionable cells. It’s a good time to ask if the research to date has been promising.
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Rats given the adult stem cells recovered significant motor activity one week after injury, Live Science reported. But ES cell therapies have long been in future tense. Why the new President and the scientific communities have been so adamant that ES cell research is critically important is a question awaiting demonstration...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
I suppose you could get the same results if you bred a special group of humans who were "identical". Maybe that's what the woman is up to in California wth the 8 babies.
ping!
I once was a member of a merry band of libertarians and Ayn Rand objectivists who educated me quite a bit re: economics. But when it came to social issues, what they had to say literally took my breath away. The more extreme end of this merry bunch of libertines actually looked forward to the day when brainless human bodies could be grown on vast farms for organ harvesting. Needless to say, the welcome mat was quickly withdrawn once I started speaking my mind on the subject.
I guess if you believe babies can be left alone in the corner to die, it's certainly okay to harvest ES.
Can we oppose embryonic stem cell research on a moral basis without being called *anti-science*?
For all those who don’t have the moral compunction about killing babies, there’s also the fact that other stem cells provide promising results as well, not to mention the tumor growth reported with the embryonic cells.
Why people would still advocate for that in light of the complications even if they’re not pro-life, is beyond me.
ping
It is the “knowing” part that Obama says is above his pay grade. He has no qualms with erring on the side of implementation. Abortion, embryonic stem cells, global warming, the stimulus package...you name it.
See #9
I suppose that an equally valid argument could be made that the flesh of aborted fetuses could be a source of valuable protein for the starving children of Africa too...what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
I don’t understand why folks take Rand’s writing, novels, as scripture.
Thanks for the ping(s).
I have met people who do business in Red China who say babies are already unofficially on the menu just outside the main economic zones.
There is plenty of potential research that's nixed because of moral concerns. It is not "anti-science" to conduct research in a moral fashion. If morality doesn't matter in science, then why have we not embraced the findings of Dr. Josef Mengele? Why are the Tuskegee experiments considered a black eye on the PHS? Concern over ethics in research is very real. Every research institution has committees who review research proposals involving human and animal subjects, to make sure those proposals are ethical and, in the case of animals, as humane as possible, before they are given the green light to proceed.
The major proponents of embryonic stem cell research are those who are trying to use potential benefits as the carrot with which to encourage people to be more supportive of abortion. Does anyone remember in the 80s, when the big push was on fetal research--on the basis that the flesh of aborted babies had big potential for curing every kind of disease? When fetal material was actually implanted into people during clinical trials, it didn't produce the miracle cures that had been touted; in fact, it caused worse problems than what it was supposed to fix.
On a purely scientific basis, I would expect embryonic stem cells to cause a lot of problems. An intact embryo is swimming in growth hormones, which are tightly regulated and controlled so that development can occur normally. Remove cells from that tightly controlled context, I would expect trouble. We know too little about the various forms of growth regulation.
It’s a replacement religion for those who worship the God-given laws governing economics. It is very similar to worshiping nature, instead of worshipping nature’s God.
The use of embryonic stem cells is far more complicated both morally and scientifically. Adult stem cells are much better candidates for treating disease than embryonic cells.
The embryonic cells would have a different genetic makeup than the person who is being treated with them. This would mean that these cells would have the same problems being rejected, just like when someone receives an organ donation.
Adult stem cells could be harvested directly from the patient who needs them. This means that those cells would be genetically identical to the patient and would not be rejected by the patient’s immune system.
From a scientific standpoint, it makes more sense to focus on umbilical cord and adult stem cells. I also think that pandora’s box is an excellent description of the moral implications of developing any treatment that depends on the destruction of human life.
Who knows. These are people I know personally. So I give their stories a bit more credence than the rumor-mill. Still, there are press reports to the same effect. I can’t vouch for them, but you can bet I’m paying attention. And yes, I know the EpochTimes is Falun Gong, and yes I know they hate the Chinese communists.
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-3-29/53482.html
Apparently it is also taking place in N. Korea. I pinged TLR (who is very knowledgeable re: Asian communists) to see if he has any personal insights to add to the discussion:
Famine’s Toll
Tens of thousands starved in the latest famine, from 1995 to 1997. Lee, who asked that her given name not be used, was a clerk in a government office who notarized the deaths in her town. She is a pretty young woman, 29, with tumbling hair curling to her shoulders and smooth, flawless skin that belies the hardships she has faced and struggles to explain. “We started seeing cannibalism,” she recalled, pausing. “You probably won’t understand.”
She went on: “When one is very hungry, one can go crazy. One woman in my town killed her 7-month-old baby, and ate the baby with another woman. That woman’s son reported them both to the authorities.
“I can’t condemn cannibalism. Not that I wanted to eat human meat, but we were so hungry. It was common that people went to a fresh grave and dug up a body to eat meat. I witnessed a woman being questioned for cannibalism. She said it tasted good.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41966-2003Oct3?language=printer
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