2008 Woodie Awards
Cell-Fulfilling Prophecy
It isn't test tube murder: New research methods can help find cures.
Nora Harrop
Issue date: 10/27/04 Section: Opinion
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Some pro-life groups such as Lutherans for Life are asking that Christopher Reeve's untimely death not be used as a way to promote embryonic stem cell research.
Good idea. Let's instead use his life to promote it.
The quality of life for a paraplegic, or lack thereof, could be improved for future generations if funding for more research is provided.
Proposition 71, if passed, would provide that funding.
Some who oppose the proposition are screaming about human rights for the embryos.
Think of looking at a tiny dot on this page, one the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Now imagine telling a sick child that there is no cure for his diabetes because that small black speck was ruled just as important, if not more important than he is in the scope of human life.
Referring to potentially life-saving stem cell research as abortion or destruction of human life is inane.
Many people who oppose embryonic stem cell research support adult stem cell research. They will tell you that nothing can be learned from embryonic stem cells and that no diseases will ever be cured from it.
The truth is that embryonic stem cell research has more potential than adult stem cell research because the cells are not developed. The embryos can be manipulated into nerve tissue or organs with just a few cells from a donor.
This eliminates one of the major dangers in organ transplants: rejection of the transplanted organ by the body's immune system.
Some conservatives argue that excess embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics are, and ought to be, saved for adoption by infertile couples as an alternative to research use.
What will those adoptive parents tell their children when they want to know who the birth parents are? These will be children who do not need to be born.
They will come with the burden of having life but no family history - merely to satisfy somebody else's uneasy sense of moral self-righteousness.
A human embryo should certainly be respected as the seed of life, but the idea that people are killing fetuses for research is abhorrently misleading. A fertilized embryo has the potential to become a fetus first, then a baby and ultimately a person, but only within a womb.
It's time for embryonic stem cell research opponents to stop hiding an anti-abortion agenda behind a weak veil of medical disgust.
Medical researchers aren't in the business of farming a crop of babies for infertile couples or anybody else.
Besides, millions of children conceived worldwide without the help of a petri dish need loving homes.
Good idea. Let's instead use his life to promote it.
The quality of life for a paraplegic, or lack thereof, could be improved for future generations if funding for more research is provided.
Proposition 71, if passed, would provide that funding.
Some who oppose the proposition are screaming about human rights for the embryos.
Think of looking at a tiny dot on this page, one the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Now imagine telling a sick child that there is no cure for his diabetes because that small black speck was ruled just as important, if not more important than he is in the scope of human life.
Referring to potentially life-saving stem cell research as abortion or destruction of human life is inane.
Many people who oppose embryonic stem cell research support adult stem cell research. They will tell you that nothing can be learned from embryonic stem cells and that no diseases will ever be cured from it.
The truth is that embryonic stem cell research has more potential than adult stem cell research because the cells are not developed. The embryos can be manipulated into nerve tissue or organs with just a few cells from a donor.
This eliminates one of the major dangers in organ transplants: rejection of the transplanted organ by the body's immune system.
Some conservatives argue that excess embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics are, and ought to be, saved for adoption by infertile couples as an alternative to research use.
What will those adoptive parents tell their children when they want to know who the birth parents are? These will be children who do not need to be born.
They will come with the burden of having life but no family history - merely to satisfy somebody else's uneasy sense of moral self-righteousness.
A human embryo should certainly be respected as the seed of life, but the idea that people are killing fetuses for research is abhorrently misleading. A fertilized embryo has the potential to become a fetus first, then a baby and ultimately a person, but only within a womb.
It's time for embryonic stem cell research opponents to stop hiding an anti-abortion agenda behind a weak veil of medical disgust.
Medical researchers aren't in the business of farming a crop of babies for infertile couples or anybody else.
Besides, millions of children conceived worldwide without the help of a petri dish need loving homes.
