Go, Kenny, excellent post.
And agree with every word, Monika.
The trouble with the argument that living with a disability is not a bad thing, is that the rest of us fear being a quadriplegic or having motor neurone disease or going deaf or blind.
We would grieve terribly if any such things happened to our children.
Now, we might get over it, and come to terms with it, eventually. We might even, one day, realise we have gained much and that our disability has been a gift, in many ways. But it would always be a gift gained through terrible pain. None of us would ever wish it to happen to us. So, the motivation to do what we can to avoid it isn't going away any time soon.
And I simply don't buy the idea that embryonic stem cells from embryos that already exist and will be discarded otherwise, should be wasted. I hear a lot of emotion from people who seem to think women (yeah the 100 million who'd rather run the (remote) risk of cancer than an unwanted pregnancy) don't live with lost embryos and cells quite commonly, but no logic.

I think about why, much of the time,
WHY is adult stem cell research being ignored, when human life, pain, illness and suffering is being alleviated by these methods already, and shows much greater promise;
WHY people are reluctant (or unable) to define when a life becomes a human being;
WHY most IVF couples do care for the fate of their embryos, especially those implanted that fail to grow;
WHY rising infertility rates and increasing recurrent miscarriages, albeit 'natural' are occuring;
WHY research has shown that these recurrent 'embryo shedding events' can be reduced by 80%, again by natural means, but some feel that research is not warranted;
WHY the incidence of breast (1 in 8 lifetime risk)and cervical cancer is not insignificant, and rising, along with the demographic of the OCP, yet the threat of an unwanted pregnancy clouds the facts

Lord Winston, the guy on telly with that wonderful moustache, the leading researcher in IVF etc has expressed his concern about the factors that have commodified human life and the big $$$ industry it has spawned. He has said that he did his research to help YOUNG naturally infertile couples, not people who have spent years using contraceptives / developing careers etc etc and now want a scientific/medical solution to their social/consumer mentality.

No wonder these people are vulnerable - such a harrowing experience with so little real results (15%, less than a Scratchies prize chance!), yet alone any cost/benefit economic analysis of this turmoil/suffering. Sure 1 million IVF babies cf "X" million abortions?

All the pro-embryo research comments above miss the point that when IVF was introduced all the 'nutters' like Dr Mac foresaw the ethical and utilitarian mess that was inevitable.

By moving the 'what is a life' bar to non-suffering, western (1st world) illuminati, is it no wonder that organ 'donor' children are swept off 3rd world streets (with parental consent!)for a 'better ends.'

Just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.

Unfortunately, so many men will be economically disadvantaged - no eggs, therefore, no use to science and the economy and what would a women want one for when science has the answer to pro-creation and medical longevity. The task of asking non-senscient 'matter' to speak and the responsibility for interpreting its reply is that of ethics, not science.

Do no harm. A pretty simple maxim. As Ronald Regan use to say, "I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born."

Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences. ~Lewis Mumford

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~Isaac Asimov

This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it. ~Jonas Salk

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. ~Carl Sagan

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. ~Alfred North Whitehead

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men. ~Jean Rostand

I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy. ~Bertrand Russell, Icarus, or the Future of Science, 1925

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. ~Mark Twain

Scientists, therefore, are responsible for their research, not only intellectually but also morally... They may lead us - to put it in extreme terms - to the Buddha or to the Bomb, and it is up to each of us to decide which path to take. ~Fritjof Capra

Reality check,

Do you have any orginal thoughts of your own or do you just like downloading thematic quotes from web pages?

Once again, we are not talking about absolute propositions. Science has always been subject to safeguards that evolve along with it. We live in a democracy, public scrutiny (provided the public is sufficiently informed by a vigilant media) provides a check on the legislature which can then impose limits.

Everything (except maybe your quote fetish) has a context. We are talking about people's quality of life here. We are talking about incremental changes in the way we treat illnesses. Changes are considered.

If we were to impose the philosophy embodied in your quotations point bland there would be no science at all. We would still be cabe men.

As usual, the pro-life (a brilliant bit of marketing, that title, with its logical corollary that opponents are pro-death) are claiming this requires a definition of when a foetus becomes a human being. No, it doesn't. A human foetus, zygote, conceptus, whatever, is an unborn human being – no dispute there. The definitional question is when this cluster of human cells becomes a person. You can't murder a non-person.

One definition which may be plausible to most is that personhood is possible only after the possibility of twinning has passed. How can you say "This is a person" if it may yet become two people?

Oh, and it's entirely untrue that adult stem cell research is being ignored – there's research going on with embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and cord blood stem cells.