Frozen Embryos Become Focal Point in Stem Cell Debate

[Chauga]

By Kevin Freking
Associated Press
June 16, 2005


In politics, it always helps to put a face on a cause.

For supporters of embryonic stem cell research, nobody played that role quite like Christopher Reeve, the paralyzed actor who touted the promise of such research before his death in October.

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research also have found their face, 21 of them. They are the children who helped President Bush show what a frozen embryo has the potential to become.

"The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo," Bush said last month at the White House.



http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB936AL0AE.html

[rodeodance]

1. I think these comments raise the specter of why couples do not want

'extra' embryoes adopted out. This option is NOT for all couples and those who are pushing should step back and repect these couples wishes.



...........Pamela Madsen and her husband, Kai, who have two children, have chosen another route for their frozen embryos.

"Giving them to stem cell research may not help a child be born, but it may help a child lead a better life," said Madsen, executive director of the New York City-based American Fertility Association, an advocacy group for families struggling with infertility.

Madsen said she was uncomfortable with the idea of donating the embryos to another couple.

"It would be a full sibling," she said. "That raises very complicated questions for our children and for that child."............

[Coastie for Truth]

2. I am a diabetic. (At least third generation)

This is not Christian! This is blasphemy and heresy - like the exploitation of Terri Schiavo.

This is not Jefferson's Bible and this is not the teachings of the noted theologian Frederic Church (Senator Frank Church's son) or the noted theologian John Buehrens. This is pure blasphemy, heresy, and idolatry.

The experimental method is properly called "therapeutic blastocyst somatic cell nuclear transfer research."

This is pure Bushco "Rapture Repug" emotionalism - and creation (or exploitation) of a wedge issue that is killing our children and grandchildren.

In the same category with "young earth creationism" and "intelligent design" - the theological basis for this superstition has been blown apart by their own Evangelicals -- David Wilcox (God and Evolution) and Kenneth Miller (Finding Darwin's God).

I wish these people - and our President - would quit trying to "establish" a "theocracy" and allow me to have "free exercise." (Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas? : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America", but there is hope - it is darkest just before the dawn, Jim Wallis"God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" and Frederic Church "God and Other Famous Liberals: Recapturing Bible, Flag, and Family from the Far Right")

[TalkingDog]

3. Ellen Goodman had an EXCELLENT analogy

to use on the unthinking who would call these things children:

You have a vial full of 100 frozen embryos in a clinic. In that clinic is also a 2 year old child.

The clinic catches fire and you only have time to rescue the vial or the toddler. Which do you choose?

Obviously saving 100 babies and sacrificing the one, while a horrible choice, is still the right one. But I will guarantee that not one person who claims these are children would make that choice.

A fertilized chicken egg is not a roaster. An embryo is not a child.