Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Posted at 7:19am on Jul. 3, 2008 Obsolete embryo killing petition close to ballot in Michigan
By RightMichigan.com
Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.
While we're talking petitions... Most of the petition talk going around the conservative blogosphere to this point has revolved around the shady effort to rewrite the constitution, and with good reason. There's another petition floating out there though that just announced their intentions to turn in between 500,000 and 550,000 signatures by next week's Monday deadline.
Posted in Breaking News | Christopher Reeves | Embryonic Stem Cell Research | Marty McFly | Michigan | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:02am on Apr. 3, 2008 Far be it from me to correct "God-o-meter"
By Ben Domenech
From its chats with various leading lights of the Christian Right, God-o-Meter knows the embryonic stem cell issue has emerged as the biggest sticking point between the movement and McCain. How much of this is because the Christian Right feels that last year's scientific breakthrough allowing skin cells to be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells gives their ailing anti-embryonic stem cell research cause new life? Quite a bit.
Well, it didn't exactly give us new life. It ended the stem cell wars entirely. All the science journals know it; the mainstream pubs acknowledge it; the staffers on the hill are glad to be rid of the proxy war. Only the candidates for President this cycle seem not to recognize this fact. Oh, and Beliefnet.
Posted at 10:53am on Feb. 22, 2008 Re: McCain being wrong about Bush's tax cuts
By Alexham
That's good to hear, Adam.
Now, if McCain would only admit that he was wrong in supporting federal funding of ESCR.
Posted at 12:00pm on Jan. 14, 2008 Professor Robert P. George on the dignity of the embryo
By Alexham
The always brilliant Professor Robert P. George nails it:
Posted at 11:39am on Nov. 30, 2007 "Rarely has a president – so vilified for a moral stance – been so thoroughly vindicated"
Bravo! to President Bush and his steadfastness on life issues
By Jeff Emanuel
"The embryonic-stem-cell debate is over."
That's what Charles Krauthammer has to say in response to last week's news that James Thomson Shinya Yamanaka made "one of the great scientific breakthroughs since the discovery of DNA: an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem cells."
"Even a scientist who cares not a whit about the morality of embryo destruction will adopt this technique because it is so simple and powerful," writes Krauthammer, who says that this development:
allows a bit of reflection on the storm that has raged ever since the August 2001 announcement of President Bush’s stem-cell policy. The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president — so vilified for a moral stance — been so thoroughly vindicated.Why? Precisely because he took a moral stance. Precisely because, as Thomson puts it [Auth. note: Thomson said "If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough"], Bush was made "a little bit uncomfortable" by the implications of embryonic experimentation. Precisely because he therefore decided that some moral line had to be drawn.
Read on.
Posted in Embryonic Stem Cell Research | Life Issues — Comments (39)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:16pm on Nov. 23, 2007 A Layman's Guide to Recent Stem Cell Developments
By TomlinsonDouthat
Promoted from Diaries by Mark I.
Embryonic stem cells are valuable because they are pluripotent. Pluripotency comes from Latin, roughly meaning "can do many things" (literally, "can do more things"), and in this matter it means that these cells can become almost any other kind of cell. They are basically blank disks: If you give the right information to a disk, it will become, in a way, a word processor or a game or a movie or whatever. In much the same way, if you feed an embryonic stem cell the right information (encoded in chemicals), it can become just about any other kind of cell. And cells like this might be used for all sorts of medical purposes for patients that are in need of a certain, very specific kind of cell.
There are two catches, though. The first is that, once you feed information to the embryonic stem cell "blank disks," you can't overwrite the information. (At least you haven't been able to, as we'll see below.) If you turn an embryonic stem cell into a red blood cell, it stays a red blood cell; and if you turn it into a skin cell, it stays a skin cell. Happily, before you do that, while embryonic stem cells are still embryonic stem cells, you can copy them as many times as you want. So you'll have enough to make whatever you need to make and still have enough left over for future projects.
Read on...
Posted in Adult Stem Cells | Embryonic Stem Cell Research | ethical alternatives | Life Issues | stem cells — Comments (113) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:00pm on Nov. 21, 2007 Stem Cell Silence from Dem Presidentials
Couldn’t Even Fake It, Huh?
By Mark I
Yesterday’s breakthrough announcement on ethical stem cell research was greeted by statements of praise and skepticism from politicos from the White House, to Capitol Hill, to the campaign trail. But there was a curious silence from the Democratic presidential candidates. Not one issued a press release or made so much as a passing comment on the news. A search of the online news rooms for each of the candidates produced no mentions of stem cells, not even among the lesser candidates who might have used the news to try and draw attention to their campaigns.
These Democrats are the ones who claim to have so much compassion for the suffering and afflicted and who label their political opponents as heartless and cruel. So, why the silence on this advancement? In some cases it could be because the campaigns are seeking a way to appear to praise the announcement while not offending embryonic stem cell research advocates among the their supporters. For Sen. Hillary!™ Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, it may be because in a crucial vote for ethical stem cell alternatives taken earlier this year, they voted no.
Read on…
Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Embryonic Stem Cell Research | ethical alternatives | Hillary Clinton | stem cells — Comments (27)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:50am on Nov. 21, 2007 The Culture of Death's faithful servant
By Alexham
