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Stem Cell Research Moves Forward In The US
maniacdavid writes "President George Bush has finally made a clear and final decision on stem cell research. He will allow the existing 60 cell lines to continue their development in the hopes of curing a disease. He said the choice was difficult because of his stand on against stem cell funding during his campaign. But he allowed the 60 to continue because the choice between life and death was already made. This is good for both sides and many people are pleased. " Granted, there's the issue of these 60 lines viability, but at least it's not a total federal funding ban, as was widely expected. As well, there's increased funding on stem cells obtained from adults, umbilical cords, placentas and animals - 250$US million this year, which is still a pittance when you consider the potentials of stem cells.
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are not based on texts written and maintained over thousands of years, with more existing manuscripts than the Iliad.
But there is the same amount of evidence for them as there is for your 'god'. Just because lots of people believe something, does not make it true. You might want to check out The Logic FAQ.
Evil Overlord X
Coming to a third world country near you
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
Or was that false?
Free Mac Mini
but I think he made the best political decision! This should appease some of the moderates that would have totally abandoned him if he had banned the research completely. The dems would have only been happy if he had given the bank away for the funding. If he had done that though, he would have lost the people on the far right, and probably much of the red map. Now nobody is too pissed off at him.
The only thing that troubles me is that he is trying to play this off as if it wasn't a political decision, but a personal one. He heard moving stories from both sides, but when it came down to it he went with the best political position he could take. If he had gone with his gut he would have kept his campaign promise!
"Splitting the baby" indeed. It was an excellent call in many regards and, but for his campaign promises, may well be taken as presidential.
But one is left to wonder how, exactly, can one "compromise" on these questions? If the fertilized egg is not a living human being, then the question is a no-brainer: of course, you harvest the tissues for life-saving research. If the fertilized egg is a living human being, then the question is likewise a no-brainer: of course, you may not harvest the tissues, even if it has potential to save a life.
If you recognize a third possibility, that the fertilized egg is merely a potential life, then we have much deeper --and intellectually far more interesting-- questions. When does a potential life require protection from harm?
Of course, these questions defy authoritative answer -- and yet a binary policy decision must be made (for even the failure to make a decision effectively serves as a decision). The President was therefore faced with a Hobson's choice.
To that end, this left-of-Che-liberal salutes the man (or his advisors). It would be a great cop-out to simply announce a result, or worse, to announce a result and give a half-of-the-case justification, or worse yet, to do all of that and undertake to marginalize other reasonable arguments.
He actually gave a fair summary of some of the difficult issues and announced his policy without pretending that a fundamental principal that required the result. This enures much to his credit. (Alas, his spinmeisters continue to try to pretend this is consistent with those campaign promises and pose him as the ultimate pro-life candidate, but what can you do?)
Bush solved the political quandry by reducing the problem of sponsoring fertilized-egg-killing to one of "what do you do with the socially positive profits of an act, if the act is arguably immoral?" Credit where credit is due -- this is a stroke of genius. One needs to violate Godwin's law to point out the ultimate difficulties of the ethical position (something along the lines of whether it would be morally right to use Mengele's research if it yielded a cure for Cancer) taken, and in the end, the secret heart of most Americans wants the potential cure more than they understand the enormity of harvesting a non-implanted fertilized egg.
Amusingly, few people seem to have identified the actual ethical issue-shift that the policy accomplished. Amazingly, Hughes actually side-stepped a question about Catholic dissent by pointing out that a Pope had blessed the use of medicines resulting from research that included acts previously deemed immoral. However many debating points she thinks that may have won on intellectual grounds, suggesting a Pope's absence of infallibility suddenly unfinesses all of Bush's successes for the day.
Time will tell if there will be a price to be paid on this one. Bush turned a Hobson's choice into a chance for success and sound policy -- sound indicia of leadership.
Whether or not it succeeds, this left-liberal salutes a brilliant piece of political strategy.
Bush's "reasoning"
Life is sacred
Life begins at conception
Destroying a life to save lives is wrong
Embryonic Stem Cell research is promising
Embryonic Stem cell harvesting destroys life
Some lives have been destroyed already
Destroying those lives was wrong
Stem Cell Lines were derived from those lives
We can't bring back those lives
So it's ok to use those stem cell lines
If you are against destroying embryos, you should be against using these stem cells. If you support this research, you should support developing new stem cell lines.
I think this will be a successful political move on Bush's part, but it demonstrates that he is just as political as Clinton was(something Bush criticized).
For the record, I support stem cell research, using stem cells from embryos that are a by-product of fertility therapies. I think it is abhorrent to create embryos solely for stem cell research.
My other sig is extremely clever...
I can't see how supporting research on already-obtained cells differs in practice from funding resarch for stem cell farming. If there is more money available for a given stage in a process, wouldn't some of the money that would be originally employed in that stage be diverted to research in other stages now much more in need?
Am I missing something fundamental or is this really just GWB hedging against criticism?
I don't understand at all why the federal government should fund this or any other research. Let individual states subsidize the research. Or better yet have individual citizens donate directly to the companies that do this research. Why must everything be funded with my tax dollars? And why is the issue always framed such that denying companies my tax dollars is equated with outright banning of research?
Normally I ignore ACs -- anybody without enough courage in their convictions to at least stand behind a pseudonym is a Craven Anonymous Coward -- but this is too ignorant to pass up:
You've got to be kidding. Oh my god, sperm donation is horrific? Fuck, I've got friends that did that in college. I can't even think of how much money I could've made by now, doing that. And egg donation is wrong? Ooooooooooh, you mean that once a month a potential life is aborted? Get real.
No, an egg alone or a sperm alone is not a human life. When I mention donating a sperm or egg, it's for the embryo bank to combine to then create a life in the form of an embryo. You may find it extreme, but I do believe that once that egg and sperm combine, life begins -- that life has been tuned to receive the Great Radio Signal of the Soul, if you will.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
On the other hand, if he opposed research (as he said he would in his campaign) then the liberals and all science-oriented people would label him as a luddite who can't deal with the new technologies.
Instead, he says that he'll allow research, but not if the embryos are killed. Brilliant move. That's like telling a computer geek that "It's ok to mess around with your computer, but you had better not do anything that might damage the operation of the system," which is exactly the message he's sending.
Imagine if you were allowed to develop on a Cray supercomputer that has the potential to do some incredibly great things (like stem cell research is going to be doing). Imagine the possiblities... But your boss, who signs your checks, says "Ok, go ahead and program, but if you cause a GPF on the damn thing, you're fired and you get no more money".
Do you think that you'd be able to develop good programs? Of course not; you'd be too worried about losing your job. That's the same way with these stem cell researchers. They'll lose their funding if they kill any embryos, so they're not going to do anything that could even remotely harm them.
Stifling innovation, the President is...
Stem cell research finds a cure for 20 different disease/afflictions.
Now what happens if it is the case that only embryonic(sp) stem cells can be used for these cures? Do we start paying women to make embryos to use as cures? Do we start requiring or at least expecting women to do this when possible?
And would there be money to find an easier cure if there are these available sources?
Does anybody have a problem using the pre-born to extend the lives of the elderly?
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
When a fully-grown human dies, they have the legal right to allow for their body to be used for medical research/treatment. When a child dies, the parents have the legal right to allow the child's body to be used for medical research/treatment.
If we have a microscopically small cluster of cells, not being used for anything, which is going to be literally flushed, but just so happens to be an embryo, the US government does not want research done on it. Sorry if I seem a bit shady on the details, CNN's recap at 2 am last night never really explained whether this is more of a funding issue or a legal one.
Am I completely missing the point here? Or is my life not considered as valid a form of 'human life' as a 5-day old embryo?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
So this is (as you say) your Belief. That means that you are aware that this has not been proven. In fact the belief that two cells constitutes a life is based on just as much sound reasoning as has gone into this. You are dealing with the logical "problem of the beard" you have a continuum(sp?) along which, life occurs at some point, unfortunately, life is so ill-defined as to make it quite difficult (if not impossible) to determine where life begins... 50 cells? what about 49? what about 48? etc.
belief in God has nothing to do with it. I am quite sure that you will find many atheists who actually
1. believe that human life is valuable
2. believe that we cannot accurately determine when human life begins
3. Based on 1 and 2, believe we would be (I know this word is unamerican, but) Wrong to destroy something that may or may not be a human life.