Monday, January 29, 2007

I don't understand

I don't pretend to be a scientist. Hell, I got a C- in college meteorology and that was that the extent of anything I could call science.

However I know that stem cells could promise some amazing results and possibly even cures for people suffering from serious diseases.

Reading a story like this just makes me want to go visit every pro-life, anti-stem cell person and ask... WHY!?!? Why would you doom this human life to death and extinguish any hope for cure? Why would you take away the possibility for that family to keep their mother? How would you feel if this was the mother of your children or your father? Would you want them to have the chance then? Ask Nancy Reagan about that.

While I think it's noble that these people talk about all human life having value, I just don't really buy it. How can you say that, really?

Mr. Bush promises to veto anything to do with stem cell research because "human life has value." Yet he wants to send so many of our living, breathing American citizens to fight and die. If human life has enough value that we protect it, even at a one-cell stage, you'd think we'd avoid war at any cost. No matter what, we'd have to go a pacifist route to keep the sanctity of human life.

I guess Bush could spout something about "sacrifice for the greater good." Yes, we have to send our finest to fight for the security of all Americans. Okay fine.

Well then let me talk a little bit about sacrifice.

How about the sacrifice to save people from suffering, disease and death? If some cells need to be sacrificed for the common good of all Americans and really-- people everywhere, I think we should do it right?

I'm only using the Bushman's logic here....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't know if you understand that Bush is only promising to veto government funding of embryonic stem cell research or not. Stem cell research is not going to be illegal just not funded by the federal government.

The reason for that is simple, Bush got votes for his stand on embryonic stem cells and he is carrying through with his promise. He learned the "read my lips" lesson from his father. The Democrats pushed George senior on taxes then crucified him for going back on his word. Politics are nasty.

As far as embryonic stem cell research goes there has never been a single person cured of anything from embryonic stem cells while adult stem cells have cured thousands.
There are serious hurdles to overcome using embryonic stem cells as they won't have the same dna as the person who would be cured or have an organ replaced. This is like the problem with organ donors having different blood types.

There is no problem with doing embryonic stem cell research on animals and that is the kind of research that should be done first to show if it is a valuable treatment. The best way to sway the voter is to start growing replacement hearts for rabbits or whatever and showing the world that there is real value.

Right now it seems as if the scientists are just poking the administration to get people to vote the way they want. That really is the tragedy of the whole controversy. If they were to show some actual results in animals there would be a whole different debate.