The Godless cheer on the destruction of human life.
Posted on 03/09/2009 8:30:09 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Elect Obama, Get Embryonic Stem Cells March 8, 2009 — President Obama is about to fulfill one of his campaign promises: lifting restrictions on creating new embryonic stem cell lines (see Fox News). The question now is, are they really needed? They have yet to show any successes, while adult stem cells are enjoying an accelerating boom of amazing discoveries that could provide hope for some of mankind’s worst disorders.
Science Daily reported that embryonic stem cells are being studied to see if they can grow neurons. This may have application to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, the disorder that afflicts Stephen Hawking. The work appears to be very preliminary. Though they were able to tease ESC-derived products to mimic properties of diseased motor neurons, no cells have been transplanted into animals or humans. We don’t know yet if the treatment will make matters worse. His final paragraph warned,
(Note: ESC = embryonic stem cells, ASC = adult stem cells).
ESC is not completely without promise.
In a letter to Nature this week,1 however, a researcher at University of Basel urged caution on human trials with ESC-derived neurons. Injection will be difficult, and the results hard to assess, he said. Given the controversy over the use of human ES cells in some countries, it is to be hoped that the triumphant announcement of the approval of this clinical trial will not prove to be a prime-time setback. Regenerative medicine using human ES cells is an exciting prospect, but the field still needs time to mature. The primary concern of scientists involved in stem-cell research is not to satisfy the short-term expectations of analysts and investors, but to improve public health with the help of innovative, safe treatments.
Speaking of safety, a medical doctor had some horror stories to tell of cancerous tumors resulting from ESC treatments. In “Why Embryonic Stem Cells Are Obsolete,” in US News, Dr. Bernadine Healy said the setbacks using embryonic cells, and the successes of ASC and iPS render ESC research superfluous. She reminds readers that Bush did not create a new policy, but merely reaffirmed a decision Clinton had made preventing federal money for creation of new lines of human embryos for research purposes. “Reversing the executive orders of two prior presidents on embryo creation, which even the Congress has been unwilling to tackle, is a far bigger issue than lifting the ban on the use of IVF embryos slated for destruction,” she concluded. “Obama stands for transparency, and it’s important for him to make sure the public understands his decision, including that all stem cells are not the same or created equally.”
Why are scientists continuing to demand ESC when ASC appears to provide all the benefits for eliminating human suffering, without the ethical and moral problems? Why do they demand the government feed their lust with taxpayer dollars? There seems to be more than logic going on here. One plausible reason is that they want to assert authority over what constitutes science. They don’t want any government telling them what they can or cannot do. And since the pro-life and religious crowd has been standing in their way, their pride may be motivating them to give their old enemies another bullying shove.
President Bush was persistently criticized for “politicizing science” (which means, in their tortured logic, exercising his constitutional power over what taxpayer money can be spent on). Remember that scientists were never forbidden from working on ESC research; the only restriction was on federal funding for new stem cell lines. They had unlimited access to ESC lines from before 2001, and could use any private funds they wanted for cutting up human embryos (see NIH Stem Cell Policy document).
Start the violins playing; it was just too inconvenient for researchers to keep two separate accounts, one for their federal funds, and one for their private funds. They are clamoring like every other irresponsible business these days for a federal bailout.
Bush tried to explain why he did not feel it was appropriate to use taxpayer money to fund research that many found morally objectionable. For that, he endured scathing criticism from scientific elitists for “mixing politics with science.” Does the hideous unrighteousness of this begin to sink in? Of course federally-funded science is political. If taxpayer money is going to be spent on research, the people paying the bill have the right, through their elected representatives, to have a say about it. Big Science treats it like a divine right to dictate to the rest of us what they want to do with our money. That’s why Feyerabend saw science as a threat to democracy; you have these oligarchs telling the populace what to do, hiding their agenda behind incomprehensible jargon.
If ESC research were so promising of success, you can be sure corporate sponsors would be lined up to support it. Instead, Big Science politicized it by shmoozing political hacks to write initiatives wooing the voters in California and Michigan to cough up billions of dollars for ESC institutes. These were promoted with misleading ads suggesting that miracle cures were right around the corner. Commercials played on their heartstrings with disabled celebrities making it sound like cutting up human embryos was the epitome of compassion. After the damage was done (a $3 billion obligation on top of California’s economic meltdown), we are told that any treatments may be years, or decades away, if at all. Now that Obama is enthusiastically caving in to the scientific oligarchy, do California voters get their money back?
Citizens must be alert to what is going on. This issue is much bigger than promises about miracle cures. It bears on questions of the nature of human life and the nature of science. The public is rapidly losing a voice in these vital issues as politicians raid their pocketbooks.
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Works for me.
The Godless cheer on the destruction of human life.
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