[Winstonm]

One thing clearly stands out, IMO - GWB is not all that different from Bill Clinton. Both are politicians first and foremost, so what they actually think and believe is irrelevant as their actions are predicated on what they believe will help either their own reelection or others in their party. GWB believes he had no choice but to side with the "moral majority".

For those who yell hooray, are you aware that a stem cell is nothing but an undifferieniated cell and as such is basically a gop of silly putty - it is really nothing until the body differentiates it into a specific type of cell - heart cell, brain cell, liver cell, etc. Were you also aware that once differentiated, cells cannot cross space into another cell type - that is why you don't find pancreatic cells in the liver, or lung cells in the heart. That is why science needs them - to be able to determine what type of cell that want it to become.

In vitro fertilization - test tube babies - inject sperm into a number of eggs in a petrie dish - many fail to thrive and some do - but only one is needed to insert into the woman's womb. So what you are arguing against is a donor sperm inserted into a donor egg in a labaratory and when more than one egg is fertilized, the silly putty cells of the ones who aren't needed cannot be harvested to try to find a cure for cancer or diabetes or other horrible disease.

All for the sake of saving lives?

I'm sorry, but I do not see the logic in that.

[jikl]

This isn't the first Dubya decision based on religion. Remeber him ordering that all schools would teach "Intelligent Design" alongside Evolution? It took the courts to overturn that one.

Sean

[Winstonm]

Others have been correct on a different thread that there is no specific mention in the U.S. Constitution of "separation of church and state".

I, for one, do not like the idea of Presidential veto power surrepticiously in the hands of mind like that of a Jim Jones or David Karesh because of the President's religious views. Didn't John Kennedy vow not take bring his religious views into the White House?

Perhaps it is time for an amendment that ends the debate and fixes this oversight once and for all?

[mike777]

To think a President or any ruler or leader will not take his whole life experience including his notion of right and wrong and just and unjust into office is naive.

In fact people vote for the leader expecting them to use it as a guide.
To vote a deeply religious person into office and then expect them to never never let that influence their decisions is naive.

If you do not want that then vote for an atheist.

Btw Kennedy often invoked God in his decisions and speeches.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Jul 21 2006, 06:21 PM, said:

To think a President or any ruler or leader will not take his whole life experience including his notion of right and wrong and just and unjust into office is naive.

In fact people vote for the leader expecting them to use it as a guide.
To vote a deeply religious person into office and then expect them to never never let that influence their decisions is naive.

If you do not want that then vote for an atheist.

Btw Kennedy often invoked God in his decisions and speeches.

True, but Kennedy said he would not let the pope or the church's ideology affect his decisions as President. I do not believe he would have vetoed a bill to legalize birth control pills simply because the pope said it was wrong. One can separate church and state within his own mind and decision making process if one has sufficient intellectual capacity.

[Winstonm]

I have another idea which seems in keeping with the reasoning and logic of those opposed to embryonic stem cell research - and it seems in keeping with the moral majority's views.

Embryonic stem cells come from in vitro fertilization - fertility clinics where a couple who cannot have children go to have the wife's egg fertilized by the husband's sperm in a labaratory - a petrie dish if you will.

This involves more than one egg and sperm. The results usually end up with apporximately 16 fertilized eggs that are not needed - only one is needed for placement into the wife. What happens to the rest, the one with the stem cells that can be harvested and used to possibly find a cure for a horid disease?

The donors are given 4 choices for the excess embyos: 1) Freeze them for future use. 2) Donate them to another childless couple 3) Donate them for research 4) Discard them.

Freezing is unreliable and has a low rate of inducing a future pregancy and is quite expensive to boot. There are serious emotional conflicts for donating or receiving an embyo. Few are donated for research. The vast majority are discarded!!!

How can we let this inhumanity go unpunished?

There are laws already against this - after all, you cannot freeze your children (unless they are teenagers and want to pierce a moving body part). You cannot give your children away (No one will take your teenagers, anyway). And you cannot donate your children for research (Although some scientists may indeed like to figure out how the teenage mind really works.)
What about just discarding your children - I think there are laws against tossing a newborn into a garbage pail - in fact, I'm, pretty sure of it. (Unfortunately teens are like dogs - no matter far away you discard them they can find their way home.)
But here we are letting parents (if the embryo is a life then the donators are parents) discard their babies. There oughtta be a law!!!!

So here is what I propose we do - the donators have to either implant all 17 embryos and give birth to 17-uplets, but if they discard them they will be charged with murder, child abuse, child neglect, child abandonment, and any other child welfare law I haven't already covered.

That ought to be right up the alley of all the smug, self-righteous, right-wing, holier-than-thou, moral mojoritans - they get to keep all those embryos alive and throw someone in prison all in the same day.

Halleleujah!

[keylime]

Staying within topic, the reasons why I feel the veto was in the best interests of the majority of Americans...

1. I've yet to be convinced of the medical potential that embyronic stem cell research has promised now for years to deliver on. Adult stem cells have been used to treat Type I diabetes, liver disease, and spinal cord injuries, along with reversing cirrohsis in the liver, turning back Crohn's disease, and offering true hope for leukemia sufferers.. However, embryonic stem cell research has yet to produce one single positive medical contribution. I firmly believe that embryonic stem cell research is part of the larger pandemic of pseudoscience that is plaging the community right now. Just look at the South Korean researcher that admitted he doctored up all his findings...

2. The reason that embryonic stem cells have become such a cause celebre is partly due to the celebrities that have gone through significant diseases and afflictions; Ronald Reagan, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve come to mind. In the emotional outpouring of seeing these well-known people suffer in the public eye, those who aspire to put in place their morally incorrect and corrupt ways have used embyonic stem cell research as their "solutions to all medical problems".

3. Many families are unable to have children, and between adoption and surrogate parents, they have a way to gain fulfillment to their lives. I myself was adopted, and I am very thankful that I wasn't left to an orphanage. To use any eggs for solely the purpose of failed science is unconditionally wrong in my eyes; it is the identical type of crime as someone taking away from someone else their existence on Earth. It's murder.

4. I firmly believe the same type of people that espoused gleefully the word "science" when it comes to this topic, are the same ones that state that global warming caused an increase of hurricanes, that DDT caused the deaths and sufferings of thousands, that women and men are of the same internal level of skill when it comes to subjects like math, science, history, and such, and those that believe evolution and intelligent design are one and the same item.

5. Under the mantra of science, my cost of living has skyrocketed needlessly. Every time the government enacts legislation to protect the environment, my buying power diminishes. Frankly I want me 6 gallon toilet back please (it's a felony to install them in the United States these days).

As an adjunct, if I was a betting man, I bet on Israel everytime. That's why I've been reading "Jerusalem Countdown" by John Hagee.

[Gerben42]

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I firmly believe that embryonic stem cell research is part of the larger pandemic of pseudoscience that is plaging the community right now. Just look at the South Korean researcher that admitted he doctored up all his findings...

Sure, why not just insult all the people who work very hard in this and many other fields in science?

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The reason that embryonic stem cells have become such a cause celebre is partly due to the celebrities that have gone through significant diseases and afflictions

Maybe in the US where science is media-hyped anyway.

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To use any eggs for solely the purpose of failed science is unconditionally wrong in my eyes; it is the identical type of crime as someone taking away from someone else their existence on Earth. It's murder.

Talking about murder when we are talking about embryonic stem cell research is WAY off, as is calling it failed science. Next you'll be suggesting that every time a woman has her period that's murder too...

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I firmly believe the same type of people that espoused gleefully the word "science" when it comes to this topic, are the same ones that state that global warming caused an increase of hurricanes, that DDT caused the deaths and sufferings of thousands, that women and men are of the same internal level of skill when it comes to subjects like math, science, history, and such, and those that believe evolution and intelligent design are one and the same item.

Intelligent design should very quickly put back where it belongs: away from schools and innocent children.

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Under the mantra of science, my cost of living has skyrocketed needlessly. Every time the government enacts legislation to protect the environment, my buying power diminishes. Frankly I want me 6 gallon toilet back please (it's a felony to install them in the United States these days).

Define needlessly. Apparently you would prefer we just use up our planet and go to the next one? Besides if you want to get away from science, why not move to some remote place without electricity and running water?

Sorry Wayne but although I enjoy your views on bridge, this is WAY off the mark.

[Winstonm]

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To use any eggs for solely the purpose of failed science is unconditionally wrong in my eyes; it is the identical type of crime as someone taking away from someone else their existence on Earth. It's murder.

Please explain to me why when donors give unneeded fertilized eggs to science for use in stem cell research it is MURDER, but when the same couple choses to have them DISCARDED instead it is justifiable homicide.

Geez, I guess if we follow this logic if a women in her seventh day of pregnancy slipped and fell and miscarried we would have to charge her with involuntary manslaughter.

Perhaps many do not understand the physiology that occurs - in natural coitus, the sperm fertilizes the egg in the fallopian tubes. The fertilized egg becomes a zygote. The first mytosis of cells occurs in the fallopian tubes. Four days later, the egg has formed into a solid ball of about 50 cells and is called a morula. The morula forms a liguidy center and transforms into a blastocyst. It is this blastocyst that becomes an embryo and moves into the uterus. About 6 or 7 days after fertilization, the blastocyst embeds into the wall of the uterus - it is at this point, and only this point that pregnancy takes place. The blastocyst must implant - no implantation, no pregnancy. Embryonic stem cells are harvested from this blastocyst prior to implantation.

If fertilized eggs in a petrie dish are not implanted, there is no pregnancy, and hence no chance of life.

One of the biggest problems science has had in embryonic stem cell research is a lack of research material - the cells to work with. And there are major differences between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Personally, I don't care where these cells come from - if they can be used for cures. If it turns out that adult stem cells work and embryonic do not that will be fine with me, too. However, to find that out both have to be investigated. And a problem is that adult stem cells can only produce a limited number of types of cells, whereas embryonic stem cells can produce any type cell - so to say adult stem cells can be used in every circumstance is incorrect.

This type of mystical hysteria makes me think that something similar must have occurred when Copernicus first suggested that the earth revolved around the sun. Guess if George W. had been around, he'd have vetoed that one, too.

I'm with Gerben. I like you and think you're a good guy, and we all have the right to our opinions. Your opinions just surprise me.

[the saint]

Winstonm, on Jul 23 2006, 03:32 AM, said:

Quote

To use any eggs for solely the purpose of failed science is unconditionally wrong in my eyes; it is the identical type of crime as someone taking away from someone else their existence on Earth. It's murder.

Please explain to me why when donors give unneeded fertilized eggs to science for use in stem cell research it is MURDER, but when the same couple choses to have them DISCARDED instead it is justifiable homicide.

Geez, I guess if we follow this logic if a women in her seventh day of pregnancy slipped and fell and miscarried we would have to charge her with involuntary manslaughter.

Or go one step further and say that every woman who goes through with her monthly period is allowing an unfertilised egg to die.

[keylime]

Maybe murder was a little bit strong of word admittedly. However, the essence of what I'm saying I feel isn't - I just feel that having eggs offers much more hope for families that can't conceive than for the sake of science that at the very best is shaky.

I wouldn't say that a woman who has a period is allowing an egg to willingly die. That's a little bit of a reach compared to eggs that have been frozen and for whatever reason(s) are about to be discarded.

I'm all for the betterment of people's lives. However, I don't think it should be done at the expense of potentially newborn lives. Yes I am pro-choice, but I choose life.

With regards to scientists in general, my comments were in no way slandering the true researchers. However, in many cases, scientists have become more lobbyists than practicing the scientific method; just look at the many drugs that come on the scene and then have unknown medical issues that are discovered after the fact. I simply want the junk science to be reduced.

[Winstonm]

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I'm all for the betterment of people's lives. However, I don't think it should be done at the expense of potentially newborn lives. Yes I am pro-choice, but I choose life.

I believe that is a reasonable point of view. I respect your choice to believe it. Seems that the debate is when does life begin - and my view is that until the embryo becomes implanted in the uterine wall it is a potential life but not life per se. In my views I would rather see these eggs used in scientific research than to be discarded like so much trash - at least that way the potential life would have had some meaning.

We all pick the wrong words sometimes in the heat of battle - murder just struck me as over the line.

Apologies if I came across too sharply in my criticisms.

[ecepal]

http://www.lifenews.com/bio1604.html

Thanks stephen.
this is very useful, since my doughter is suffering with diabeties, i am all for it
Also this helps as gerben said alzheimers, parkinsons diseases, maybe many more..