For years, we’ve been told that only embryonic stem cell research had potential to save people’s lives, and that those who opposed such research were dismissing the lives of those with any number of illnesses.
It turns out that we were right all along, in saying that adult stem cells were the way to go.
At the University of Minnesota, researchers have now produced a new heart for a rat and transplanted it. This comes on the heels of the earlier work in which skin cells were used to produce adult stem cells. Meanwhile, what have we accomplished from embryonic stem cell research? Anything?
I’m not convinced that embryonic stem cell research was ever really about saving lives. It was about rationalizing abortion and devaluing human life. Those of us who have been against it all along have been accused of not caring about others. It turns out, though, that we were right all along. If we want to save lives, we should quit killing people in the name of “medical research.”
Embryonic stem cell research is and has been a red herring, but politically convenient for those who want to promote the abortion industry. The real science of saving lives was, and always has been, supported by pro-lifers. While the abortion industry and its supporters have put down adult stem cell research for years as ineffective, and one writer even referred to adult stem cells as mass-murderers.
Adult stem cells show promise. They show results. Embryonic stem cell research shows political convenience for those who want another reason to support the abortion industry. I would argue that that isn’t a reason to support medical research. It’s an astonishingly easy formula: If we want to save lives, we should stop destroying lives.
January 15, 2008 at 12:21 am
What they have done at the U of M is amazing! Thanks for sharing that.
I have basically stayed out of the stem cell debate (other then I am against federal funding for it and also against embryos being created and/or terminated or the express purpose of research and/or and cures).
I do have a question that I have often wanted to ask those against any embryonic research. What do you feel should be done with the embryos that would otherwise be destroyed (I am “unused” ones from fertility clinics especially)?
And I am trying to keep the terms completey scientific…
January 16, 2008 at 12:59 am
“Embryonic stem cell research is and has been a red herring, but politically convenient for those who want to promote the abortion industry.”
That is the ONLY reason most pro-abortion people support embryonic research. They see it as another front in their war against the unborn. The reason to respect an embryo is because it is a human being. Once that respect is established, the pro-abortion agenda collapses.
I recognize that some embyonic research supporters are genuinely motivated by sympathy for those who suffer (pro-life Democrat Rep. Jim Langevin comes to mind), but most of the movement’s leaders (i.e. Barbara Boxer) are hellbent on pushing abortion. That’s how they can ignore the scientific evidence that has been building for quite some time.
January 16, 2008 at 2:21 am
Tam – your question is a very interesting one, one which I typically avoid.
But since you asked … I don’t think that we should be freezing all of these people in cold storage, at all. I realize that that means I’d shut down much of the fertility industry, if the world actually converted to my way of thinking.
In my thinking, there are kids who need adoptive parents. We don’t need to be playing at godhood and trying to manufacture life, just to confuse ourselves with what to do about it afterward.
January 16, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Embryos can be given up for adoption! They are placed inside the adoptive mother to grow and be born. They are called “snowflake babies” because they started their lives as frozen embryos. I believe President Bush held a Sanctity of Life event once in which he invited children who were once snowflake babies.
January 16, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Thanks for the reply Wickle… your position makes a lot of sense with regards to your beliefs. The ones that annoy me are okay with the freezing and disposal, yet not research. You view instead is highly consistant.
Karen… very interesting information.
January 16, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Keep the Faith Wickle–found your site today after seeing your post on another blog–love it and I will certainly be back.
March 17, 2008 at 2:46 pm
https://support.brooklyn.cuny.edu/member.php?u=106
Edit (Wickle) – Not sure what this is supposed to be. I’m getting a message that this is invalid, but I’ll leave it in case it’s more meaningful to someone else …
June 1, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Stem cell research does not concern rationalizing abortion. Rather, those persons who do not oppose abortion and see the potential for stem cell therapy are more likely to favor embryonic stem cell research than those who oppose the destruction of embryos for any reason.
Not all embryos slated for destruction were aborted. Some are surgically removed and preserved for various medical reasons. They cannot be preserved indefinitely, however.
Adult stem cells are not as effective as embryonic stem cells.
We can disagree about the facts, but I wish to propose a system of political decision making to enable us to live our lives in parallel, with differing legal rights and obligations, depending on how we voted.
The system I propose is a system of bimodal politics. In this system, your vote on controversial issues would be recorded in a national database of voter issues designated as bimodal issues.
Consider the case of stem cell research. If you voted against stem cell research, your embryos would not be harvested for stem cells. You would not be taxed to support stem cell research or to support medical therapies based on stem cell research. However, if you developed an illness that required stem cell derived therapies, you would be prohibited from pursuing it.
If you voted in favor of stem cell research, your embryos might be harvested for stem cells, you would be taxed, and you would be eligible for appropriate stem cell therapies in case you develop an illness whose treatment required stem cell therapy.
June 1, 2009 at 2:27 pm
[...] requires stem cell derived therapy for its treatment, you will be eligible for it. If you voted against stem cell research, you will not be taxed to support it, your embryos will not be harvested for stem cells and if you [...]
June 1, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Xlp Thlplylp,
Sorry, but that parallelism idea is, frankly, absurd.
You see, I already don’t commit abortion, own slaves, rape people, or anything else of the kind. I don’t think that anyone else should do so, either.
June 1, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Abortion, slavery and rape are in their own moral categories. The controversy surrounding abortion arises because the question of which agents can be protected by common morality cannot be decided within common morality, and not all equally informed, impartial rational persons believe that common morality protects fetuses. Whether you think that no one else should have abortions does not imply that they should not, and it does not address the question of what to do about the controversy.
The cases of slavery and rape are not controversial: no equally informed, impartial rational person advocates slavery or rape. The comparison does not address the controversy.
If you believe that a system of bimodal politics would be absurd, you could provide an argument why it would be absurd. I could, for example, express the opinion that a belief in God implies nothing about morality, however, that would not be helpful, because one source of the controversy stems from beliefs that not all rational persons are required to hold.
My own opinion, based on my own spiritual experience, is that God does not exist, but if you look for God you will find something. Nevertheless, I could still hold that common morality protects the unborn fetus: such a view is independent of a belief in a supreme being, though it is commonly associated with it.
Your comments do not resolve the issue for me one way or the other, except that you would be opposed to a bimodal politics for reasons you do not articulate.
June 1, 2009 at 10:16 pm
“Your comments do not resolve the issue for me”
To be honest, that’s your problem, not mine.
June 1, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Then let me say that your comments fail to address the substantive issues.
June 1, 2009 at 10:54 pm
No … your idea fails to address the nature of fundamental human rights. I am unwilling to allow people to be subjugated just because they’re not being victimized on my dime.
You have your cute little idea, but I think that you’ll find a severe lack of people in the world who think it makes sense. It might sound good in a philosophical model, but fails to address the issues of real, live human beings.
June 2, 2009 at 1:08 am
Now we’re getting somewhere. We can thank the Enlightenment for the vocabulary of rights. It would be better to speak of common interests and mutual benefit rather than rights, but the habit of thinking in terms of inalienable rights is ingrained. This complicates discussion between Christians and feminists–although to be fair, all moral discussion is unnecessarily complicated by talk of rights, because there are many real-world situations where we believe it is justified to violate moral rules, such as: do not kill, do not cause pain, do not disable, do not limit freedom and do not limit pleasure.
For example, amputating a limb to save a life is morally justified and uncontroversial, even though this violates several of the moral rules. This is because virtually all equally informed, impartial rational persons agree that violating the rules in this case would be preferable to not violating them. If the moral rules were inalienable, then amputations to save lives would never be morally justified.
Abortion is not in this category, because of controversy over which beings are protected by common morality. Animal rights are another controversial issue, for similar reasons.
It is correct that I do not address fundamental human rights: I address moral rules and moral ideals. I believe that talk of human rights–whose existence is a matter of faith–is somewhat less beneficial than talk of mutual interests.
If I were cynical, I might say that there are no human rights except for the right to die a slow and painful death and the right to rot for eternity in Hell. However, I don’t believe in Hell–the point is that no one can produce empirical evidence for inalienable rights (which manage to be repeatedly violated despite being inalienable), though one can produce evidence for a moral instinct.
You say you are “I am unwilling to allow people to be subjugated just because they’re not being victimized on my dime.” This sentence is missing referents–I would not presume to second guess the intended meaning. To whom are you referring? Under what circumstances would they be subjugated? The term victimized presupposes your notion of victim–I suspect this is not a universally accepted definition. Are you saying that you would not allow embryos to be harvested for stem cells, even though under my system of bimodal politics, you would not be taxed?
You would not have the legal choice to prohibit others who agree with stem cell research from providing their embryos for stem cells under my system. And those people who support stem cell research would not have the legal right to use any embryos of yours for any purpose. You may have to pay a premium to benefit from stem cell related therapy, if, God forbid, that were the only recourse. I am willing to relax the prohibition against the use of stem cell related therapies by patients who opposed stem cell research, however, those who supported it and who were taxed would not face the same medical expenses for treatment.