I will be driving to South Dakota all day Thursday for my friends’ wedding on Friday and then driving back home Saturday. I’m not sure if I will have (free) internet access while I am away and/or if I will have any time to post – we shall see. The news of the day: President Bush vetoes stem cell funding … Read More
Adult Stem Cells Revert to Embryonic Stem Cells!
From the Washington Post (H/T: LifeEthics.org): Research reported this week by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice. The race is now on to apply the surprisingly straightforward procedure to human cells. If researchers succeed, it will make it relatively easy to produce cells that seem indistinguishable from embryonic stem … Read More
House Vote Coming Up
This week the House is supposed to vote on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, S. 5. This is the bill to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and is expected to pass, though the President is still expected to veto it when it makes it to his desk. In an interview with Life News, Family Research Council’s … Read More
The Battle of the Ballot Initiatives
Sometimes I wish we would have done this in Missouri last year. Language has been approved in Florida for competing constitutional amendments regarding stem cell research. One amendment, sponsored by Floridians for Stem Cell Research and Cures, Inc., would require the state Legislature to appropriate $20 million a year for 10 years on grants for embryonic stem cell research. There … Read More
Do it for the Children
The American College of Pediatrics calls for support of adult stem cell research and an end to embryonic stem cell research. This is my favorite quote from the news release from a fellow from the ACP: Not only does embryonic research require taking the life of human embryos, it also prolongs needless suffering by delaying the development of more promising … Read More
Standing Up For the Most Vulnerable
I love this editorial by a student from the University of Minnesota. He writes in the University newspaper against the practice of embryonic stem cell research at the University’s Stem Cell Institute and against a measure in his state’s legislature to protect the cloning and destruction of human embryos while pretending to ban cloning. Morally, embryo-destructive research turns justice on … Read More
Parents of Former Frozen Embryo Speak Out Against ESCR
This is why IVF gives me the willies. Erin is a former frozen embryo who was adopted by Tim and Dawn Smith after being conceived in a petri dish and left frozen on a shelf for 11 years because her biological parents didn’t want her. Now her adoptive parents are speaking out against embryonic stem cell research in their state. … Read More
Cures Should Not Devalue Human Life
From and op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal: Harvesting embryonic stem cells destroys (kills) the embryo–so there is an ethical problem: at which stage or stages in life is it acceptable to take a life? Ethicist Levin writes (NY Times) that “[m]any advocates of federal financing for embryo-destructive research…argue that the human embryo is just too small, too unlike us … Read More
How the Presidential Candidates Voted on Wednesday
LifeNews tallied up the votes of the presidential candidates in the Senate and the results are no big surprise. Democrat candidates Clinton, Obama and Biden voted for S. 5 – the ESC research funding bill – while Sen. Chris Dodd was absent. The only Republican candidates were Sens. John McCain and Sam Brownback – the results: McCain:yes, Brownback: no. Brownback … Read More
God Love Sen. Bob Casey
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who is a Democrat, was heavily pressured as the “swing vote” on S. 5 when it came to getting enough votes for a veto override. I forgot to report that he did vote against it. Good for him! It’s always nice to see pro-life Democrats who are willing to take such an unpopular stand against … Read More