jfuh

It's no surprise. Many politicians like to use science as a wedge issue to drive their elections.
ID theory, stem cell research; ect.
Excellent find btw.

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Hatuey

I support stem cell research. Honestly I don't give a sh!t if we decide to use an organism with 5-6 cells to save the lives of walking, breathing, talking human beings and who I wouldn't mistake for atoms if I saw them on a poster. I support ya Jeffo!

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jfuh

To the crowd of those who say adult stem cells work but not embryonic hot off the press.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/he...hp&oref=slogin

DarkWizard12

No one said Embryonic Stem Cells don't work. Hell, they're stem cells, they always work. I just rather have them use adult stem cells because, you do need to get in the way of nature and biology and kill a fetus to get them, AND they are still stem cells, so they are just as good.

jfuh

Actually that is not true at all. If killing is the problem then IVF facilities should be your greatest target of all.
You can't be against one form of cellular destruction and then in the next breath be for it.

Zyphlin

Its generally that. Or more, its more the principle that creation of something that, if allowed to fully gestate, would become a human being and the subsiquent killing of it for any reason basically devalues human life and opens up the slippery slope for other things such as human cloning.

As well, in some, there is the fear that if the government finds that creating effectively a fetus from left over eggs or other sources, only to have it be killed, to harvest the stem cells is perfectly okay then that can be used as a basis to say that abortion itself is fine, as its been established through stem cells by the government that a fetus is not a living person.

Those are your two main hangup's on "embreyonic stem cell" research.

I'm never a huge fan of slippery slope arguements that both sides like to make (and funnily enough both sides like to say the other sides slippery slopes are invalid). While I can see it going that way, I don't think that should be heavily factored into the matter.

However, the fetus = human or not thing is a delicate answer that is not really able to have a definitive "pure" answer as there's no true singular way to define it. Therefore its something you're not going to really get an over all belief on in this country.

I am of the old school type of conservative menality...that being that the government should not endorse things that may be morally reprehensable to the majority of its countries citizens or that could damage the sociatal and cultural traditions of the country...but at the same time in no way shape or form should interfere with private enterprise or citizens in their lives.

As such...

I am not in favor of the government subsidizing Embreyonic Stem Cell research. This would be an act of condoning it and would have far reaching ramifications.

however

I am also not in favor of the government banning this kind of experimentation and research, as this would be interfering with private enterprise and the rights of the citizenry.

You have the right to try and get private enterprise to continue this research so that it may save your vision. The government shouldn't interfere with that.

Likewise, those that believe that a fetus of any kind is a living human being and killing it is equivilent to murder have a right not to have their tax money be funnelled off to companies to specifically do that which they are so fully and completely morally opposed to.

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DarkWizard12

Yes, you can.

You see, if you take embryonic stem cells away from embryos, the embryo, well... has to die for those SC's to be harvested(Unless of course, you use a special method that no one can remember that lets embryos live, then, the argument IMO is moot and having to kill embryos to harvest SC's would be the "out of date" method.). However, if you take a few ASC's from a person, that person is still a person. All the organs still functions. It's still living. The most it could be is an "injury without pain".

rathi

No they aren't. Adult stem cells do not have the same kind of flexibility. Embryonic cells have more potential to heal damaged tissue or create new organs.

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jfuh

You missed the point all together.
in vitro fertilization destroys embryos by sacrificing far more than those that succeed. Hence again, you can't say you're against embryonic stem cells because it destroys embryos yet in the next say you support and are ok with IVF.

An embryo "dies" so what? If it was never implanted what's so special about it? It was never going to progress past the cellular stage anyway and would've "died" just as well.

DarkWizard12

Oh, sorry, couldn't remember what IVF stood for :P