October
2006
Every Sperm is Sacred
Let's break it down. Why does Congressman Mark Green really oppose embryonic stem cell research?
His whole argument against embryonic stem cell research, which Governor Jim Doyle supports, hinges on the issue of his belief that life begins at conception. How where does he think these embryos would come from? Is he dreaming of a scenario where some perverse mad scientist spanks the monkey over a petri dish full of eggs so he can have more fertilized embryos?
That's ridiculous.
All scientists want to do is use the fertilized embryos that would otherwise be discarded. In vitro fertilization isn't an exact science. In that process, multiple eggs are fertilized but not all fertilized eggs are implanted. Many go unused and are discarded along the way.
Scientists want to use those embryos that would otherwise be discarded.
It's as though the Monty Python song, "Every Sperm is Sacred" could be the present day ballad for Republican politics these days.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
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“Bent over their instruments, three hundred fertilizers were plunged … in the scarcely breathing silence, the absent-minded, soliloquizing hum or whistle, of absorbed concentration.”
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
So Mark Green thinks that life begins at conception, and that’s fine–I hope freedom to think continues in the United States. But think about what that really means: It means that if Mark Green were in a burning building with a 6-month-old baby girl and a freezer containing 300 embryonic cell clusters, he’d leave the girl behind and grab the freezer in order to save the most people.
There’s 500,000 embryos on ice today, stuck in limbo, whatever your belief:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/07/souls_on_ice.html
Jim:
If you read green’s plan you should note that he supports research into technologies which allow embryonic stem-cell research without destroying the embryo. This is technology that is currently available. Doesn’t this seem like a sound alternative which might put aside the debate?
Further, we should note that most progress in the stem-cell research field has come from adult cells. This line of research has already helped 70 treatments come to the market. Researchers don’t see a great deal of promise in embryonic cells, certainly not for parkinson’s disease.
And we should worry about the mad scientists. As Hawthorne points out so eloquently in his stories, science often turns individuals into objects. Our heads have far outpaced our hearts.
Christopher,
While there is promise in the removal of a single cell from an embryo that would lead to embryonic stem cell research, we have fallen behind in the research that could have been done on the nearly 500,000 embryos that are left in some freezers right now.
But bygones aside, I would agree that if this new technology works, it may be a solution to the debate. I wonder however if that single cell which would be harvested could result in a full embryo itself, thereby just doubling the amount of embryos out there that the lunatic fringe on the right would proclaim as a human being?
You assert that most of the progress so far has come from adult stem cells. Is this shocking since it is adult stem cells which have received funding while the more versatile and more promising embryonic stem cells have been cut off from federal funding?
I’m not trying to rile you here, but it seems like it’s a little disingenuous to argue that the research which had less promise but got funding deserves to get more because it had some breakthroughs.