Supposed stem cell advance calms no moral qualms

Everybody’s talking the supposed breakthrough in embryonic stem cell research that would allow you to extract stem cells from embryonic unborn children without killing. Advocates of ESCR are hailing it as a development that will overcome all the pro-life objections. Sorry, not even close.

Biologists have developed a technique for establishing colonies of human embryonic stem cells from an early human embryo without destroying it. This method, if confirmed in other laboratories, would seem to remove the principal objection to the research.

It could also redirect and intensify the emotional political debate over current limits on federal financing for research on human embryonic stem cells, which give rise to the cells and tissues of the body and which scientists and patient advocate groups see as a potential source for treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes.

But the new method, reported yesterday by researchers at Advanced Cell Technology on the Web site of the journal Nature, had little immediate effect on longstanding objections of the White House and some Congressional leaders yesterday. It also brought objections from critics who warned of possible risk to the embryo and the in vitro fertilization procedure itself, in which embryos are generated from a couple’s egg and sperm.

Well, yeah because we’re still manipulating unborn children, putting their lives at risk, undoubtedly causing the death of some, and interfering in the integrity of the marital act. This supposed advance does not answer the moral objections to research involving unborn children.

Apparently there’s also some question whether what the media is reporting is even what was described in the paper submitted to Nature.

I think this is just a blatant attempt to confuse pro-lifers’ objections to ESCR. I’m not buying it.

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