Stem Cell Recap

By hrynyshyn on July 19, 2006.

For anyone needing a good primer on the stem cell situation when it comes to the state of the science, Rick Weiss has a good recap in today's Washington Post.

The core issue:

Religious conservatives, in particular, believe that even human embryos in the earliest stages of life are beings with moral standing.

Proponents of the research, in contrast, allow that human embryos deserve respect but have argued that it is wrong to grant them the same moral standing as a fetus, which has reached a more complex stage of development, or a newborn. In general, proponents have argued for the right to do research on embryos until they reach 14 days of development -- when it is possible to discern the beginnings of a spinal cord and nervous system.

Consider the religious position: "in the earliest stages of life." What does that mean? Fertilization is not an instantaneous event. The time it takes to change from sperm and ovum to zygote can be measured.

So, as President Bush reaches for his virgin veto pen, that's what I'd like all opponents of embryonic stem cell research to consider: When, exactly, in the continuum that is the human life reproductive cycle does moral standing kick in?

(Of course, the 14-day point idenitified by the scientists is also a bit arbitrary, but at least that has something to do with the utlity of the stem cells.)

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this is one of my favorite webpages on the matter of where life begins: http://7e.devbio.com/article.php?id=162

the bigger issue to me is how is it that Bush thinks it's morally OK to throw the cells away, but not morally OK to use those same cells to uncover new cures and treatements that may save millions of lives? gee, almost sounds like there's some politickin' goin on