Embryonic stem-cell researchers keep looking for ways to appease pro-lifers while continuing to use cells harvested from dead babies, rather than admit their error. At least the fact that they are trying to come up with excuses means they acknowledge a problem.
The latest attempt involves a claim that if the baby is dead first, then harvesting the stem cells should be morally acceptable. The technique involves taking the stem cells from embryos that stopped for 24 or 48 hours after reaching various stages of development. Yet we still have a problem (or two).
For one thing, the only reason we know these embryonic unborn children have stopped growing is because they were conceived in a petri dish for in vitro fertilization and put in frozen storage. Yeah, see, that’s where we have a problem.
And then there’s the second problem:
There is no way to prove that an arrested embryo would have stopped growing if it had been put into a woman’s womb rather than a lab dish, said Robin Lovell-Badge of the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research in London. So that leaves open the possibility that it was the lab conditions that halted their growth, he said.
These stem-cell researchers are leaping through hoops trying to get us to agree to treating children as disposable commodities when there is the whole field of adult and cord-blood stem-cell research that is already providing viable and amazing treatments with the potential for so much more. But that isn’t “sexy” and doesn’t provide the celebrity status that embryonic stem cell research does. After all, that’s where all the private money is flowing and where politicians are trying to shunt all the public money as well.
Technorati Tags:bioethics, pro-life, stem cells
