This caught my eye. People such as myself have been framed as opponents of stem cell research, which is false. My opposition has been to embryonic stem cell research that KILLS (i.e., destroys embryos). However, with some recent clarification, it apparently is possible to do embryonic stem cell research without killing the embryo. I would not oppose embryonic stem cell research, if the process developed by Dr. Robert Lanza and his colleagues is viable, AND is used in ALL embryonic stem cell research.
I do have to point out that this article in the New York Times continues to reinforce the false view that those of us who oppose embryonic stem cell research oppose all stem cell research. That is shoddy journalism.
Please note that after extracting the single cell, a lot of the embryos were still killed. NOT acceptable. This report also brought up another train of thought, is in vitro fertilization (IVF) a good thing? I could never minimize the pain and anguish of not being able to have children. Knowing how much joy and love (and frustration, but we’ll skip that for now) my children bring into my life, I could not imagine what it would be like without them, nor what it would be like to not be able to have them. Embryonic stem cell research would not be possible without IVF. An excellent argument by proponents of embryonic stem cell research, is that there are millions of embryos from IVF that are in freezers just “sitting” there. Most of them will never be implanted. To me that is almost as bad as killing them to extract stem cells, but at least there is still a chance of them becoming the people they are already are.