Finding Common Ground On Stem Cells
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, TechnologyGood news stem cell advocates. It looks like a growing number of Republicans are supporting federal funding of increased stem-cell research.
From Wired:
Conservative senators like Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) have supported efforts to federally fund embryonic stem-cell research in the past, going against their anti-abortion brethren. But a bill introduced June 30 by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) would put $15 million a year starting in 2006 toward developing scientific alternatives to destroying embryos.…
Bartlett’s bill,
HR3144, would grant funding to researchers pursuing methods for deriving pluripotent (meaning they can become almost every cell in the human body) cells without destroying human embryos. The President’s Council on Bioethics laid out several options in a white paper in May.
Arlen Specter, who is currently suffering from cancer, weighs into the debate with a bill of his own.
Specter has introduced a bill that would overthrow President Bush’s executive order, which limits federal funding to a small number of human embryonic stem-cell lines. Specter’s bill would open up funding to unused embryos donated by couples after in vitro fertilization. The House has already passed the bill, and the Senate was expected to do the same.But the president has promised to veto it. And now, the bill faces another challenge from Bartlett’s new bill. The Washington Post reported that several senators, including Hatch, Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), have hinted that they might transfer their vote to Bartlett’s bill.
What do you think?
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July 14th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
I may be biased (I suffer from a pain condition caused by a nervous system disfunction that might well yield to stem cell based treatment) but this is one of those issues where I land squarely in the Bush-is-wrong camp. I’ve yet to see a persuasive moral or practical argument against embryonic stem cell research. While I respect the fact that President Bush stands by his convictions, when those convictions are so misguided I’ll oppose them at every turn. And it saddens me that he wastes so much time and energy fighting this battle that could be so much better spent in other arenas.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
This is good news : ) My wife, who is only 29-years-old, suffers from stage IV cancer, so I am admittedly biased in this myself, but even if that were not the case, I find the current Administration’s ban on Federally-funded stem cell research to be seriously misplaced. For one, I’ve never heard a reasonable argument against it, though I’m ready to listen if someone can offer it. While quite sensationalist and certainly a good headline maker, the argument that we would be taking life away by using embryonic stem cells just doesn’t hold up to ANY amount of scrutiny…there are currently plenty of embryos that will never come to term, and they provide a precious resource to help those who ARE living, and suffering every day.
Just my 2 cents : )
July 14th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
I think it’s a democrat wedge issue. The progressives love it because it helps paint the religious as extremists (and themselves as holding up science). In order to do this, embryonic stem cells have been positioned as the end all be all means to cure everything… But I don’t think that is a fact. If it is, I’m not hearing it from nonpartisan sources. Also, we have non embryonic stem cells. Almost all the encouraging treatments, thus far, are with them (non embryonic cells). With spinal cord regeneration, we have a success with both embryonic and nonembryonic cells.
That aside, I think the issue can be put to rest soon. I understand researchers have discovered how to create / recreate embryonic stem cells lacking the DNA that would cause it to be a person. I imagine it would be hard for the religious to be worried about using cells like these.
July 14th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Wouldn’t it be easier to find a common ground by pushing non-embryonic research, e.g., placental stem cell work? From what I’ve seen – and it sounds like Thomas’ observations are similar – this route has produced extremely encouraging results for anemia, leukemia, lymphoma and numerous other diseases.
Is this another case where the far left has hijacked the debate in order to focus on abortion issues and make reverence for human life look like fanaticism?
July 16th, 2005 at 2:36 am
Well Goy, if reason were to find common ground with stupid, they would both end up kinda stupid.
Why do you and Thomas both value a clump of cells in a petri dish as much as your own mother or child?
Thomas! they already care more about an embryo in a petri dish than they care about your own mother or child, what makes you think DNA-less stem cells would matter? Up next: SPERM RIGHTS!