Democrats spoiling for fight over stem cell bill

Democrats spoiling for fight over stem cell bill - Stem Cell Research - MSNBC.com

…Bush made his position clear weeks ago when he said the legislation, which involves the destruction of human embryos, “crosses a moral line that I and many others find troubling.”

What Bush intentionally fails to understand is that ESC research ‘involves’ the destruction of human embryos by scientists in the same way I am ‘involved’ in the death of innocent Iraqis. Someone else, besides me or the ESC researchers, is deciding to create and destroy these embryos. They’re generally left over from in-vitro fertilization (i.e., by couples who take drugs that over-produce ova because the odds of implantation are so low). These embryos will be destroyed anyway.

And none of these embryos are ever used without permission. If parents have a right to donate their own bodies, or those of their children, to medical science after death, why can’t parents donate their embryos as well?

And if they can, why can’t they designate these for public, non-profit research, instead of only for-profit causes. If it were me, I’d hate to donate my body or a god-forbid deceased child to someone who will exploit our tissues for money… That’s what’s morally corrupt about the Republican assertions. That’s the true exploitation. Where is my choice in the matter?

And as for the GOP “only banning federal funding,” anyone who makes this claim doesn’t know how science works. Basic science is generally not supported by for-profit companies — there’s no money in it, yet it is essential to their work. What they do is called applied science — that which has an end goal of producing a product. Applied science requires basic science, published papers, and trained scientists.

The entire scientific educational system in the US requires public funding for university labs — professors who both do research (including funding students to do research for them) and teach at the same time. And if they can’t do that in universities, they’ll have to get work in private labs and drop the teaching part.

So cutting off funding will not only cripple basic research, but reduce the number of scientists we produce. It’s incredibly bad policy overall. And we can already see the results of Bush science cuts in other areas of science.

Finally, once again, this is an encroachment of religion into the public sphere. I understand that some people are morally opposed to the destruction of embryos. If you are, then your enemy is IVF treatments, not stem-cell research. IVF is what makes those extra fertilized eggs that are later discarded. The scientists working on ESCs are just trying to help people — to save or improve lives if possible. And without federal funding, this research will be retarded by 10 years or more. That’s what’s at stake when people inject religion into scientific debate.