Two House members who were the chief backers of legislation to expand embryonic stem cell research are working on a new bill that would codify President Obama’s recent executive order allowing greater federal funding for the research. Their legislation will also contain language allowing the National Institutes of Health to invest in other kinds of research into human cell biology, perhaps including what is known as “therapeutic cloning…The NIH’s draft guidelines were intended to spell out what kinds of embryonic stem cell research it will support, in the wake of a March 9 executive order by President Obama that ended the George W. Bush administration’s strict limits on funding of the research.
Just what is therapeutic stem cell research?
The nucleus of an unfertilized human egg, which contains the cell’s DNA, is removed and replaced with a nucleus from the somatic tissue — skin or other organs — of a patient. Then the egg is stimulated to divide, becoming an embryo. Stem cells are harvested from the embryo, destroying it. Theoretically, the stem cells — now a genetic match with the patient — can then be developed into whatever tissue the patient needs replaced and implanted with much less risk of rejection than if the cells came from an unrelated embryo...
Conservative groups warn of a future where cloned embryos are created en masse in “human embryo farms,” strictly to be harvested for stem cells. Or, they say, unscrupulous scientists might bring a cloned embryo to term, raising uncomfortable new legal and moral questions about what it means to be human.
You have to wonder about the politics associated with stem cell research when other methods such as adult stem cell research have been more successful and don’t require destroying what many consider a human life.
A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Oz argued against embryonic stem cell research on Oprah in light of the amazing recent successes in adult stem cell research.
More on NIH’s plans for banking human cloned embryos:
One vision for successful stem cell therapies is to create custom stem cell lines for patients. Each custom stem cell line would consist of a collection of identical stem cells each carrying the patient's own DNA, thus reducing or eliminating any problems with rejection when the stem cells were transplanted for treatment. For example, to treat a man with Parkinson's disease, a cell nucleus from one of his cells would be transplanted by SCNT into an egg cell from an egg donor, creating a unique lineage of stem cells almost identical to the patient's own cells. (There would be differences. For example, the mitochondrial DNA would be the same as that of the egg donor. In comparison, his own cells would carry the mitochondrial DNA of his mother.)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t help but think of the movie “The Island” whenever this subject comes up:
Comments
The next big item on the Obama administration agenda is stem cell research and whether or not to invest taxpayer money in cloning human embryos. . . . You have to wonder about the politics associated with stem cell research . . . - Jamie Cochrane
I think you're right on both counts. Stem cell research, particularly embryonic stem cell research is going to get a huge influx of our money in the near future. Just another case of our tax dollars at work, I guess. In light of all the real and relevant advances in adult stem research it would be easy to write this all off as nutty but, sadly, it isn't.
Personally, I think that those on the pro-abortion side of the debate "need" embryonic research to continue just to keep "proving" to the public how beneficial abortion really is. In other words, abortion is now good for all of us since it will cure all our major injuries and deformities. Also, it keeps the focus on the fact that the embryo is not really human and it's ok to abort it - for the good of us all.
Evil multiplied is what it is . . .
- Verbatim
I'm glad you mentioned the Island in your post, Jamie. I personally think it is a vastly underrated movie and got far less attention than it deserved when it was released. Besides being a great sci-fi flick, though, its message was pro-life and anti-cloning. It seriously examined the slippery slope society would embark on by showing how easily cloning would compromise our most cherished values.
