Well Cris, what I have learned is about the dangers of the slippery slope
of taking too much notice of the “Religious Right”

They are great lobbyists, sheesh, I’m told that they even helped George
Bush get over the line against Al Gore! Perhaps now, in hindsight,
even they realise that that was not really such a good idea after all.

I once read that when the telephone was first invented, there were people
warning about it being evil. It seems that even they could not envisage
the slippery slope to broadband :)

To me this debate is quite simple. We have near unlimited supplies of
ova and sperms being flushed down the world’s toilets. We have people
in wheelchairs who are suffering and whom we might be able to help.
We have clever scientists in Aus. We have resources available, as I have
shown earlier. Lets bring them all together and make it happen!

Anything else to me is inhumane and lacks compassion. I refuse not
to try and help these people, in the name of some flawed religious
or philosophical dogma.

Have you read there'll be no more medical advances if there's no change?
I have.

Do you believe the propaganda?
Neither do I - and here's why.

The pro-legislation camp operates from a flawed platform.
Want both sides of the story? Read on.

....

Celling a Strategy (extract only)
27 November 2006

' ... targeted biologist David Prentice, (in a letter to the journal Science) for publicly pointing out that 65 human medical conditions are being treated with adult stem cells or cord blood, whereas ESCs are treating none. While this accusation falsely represented Prentice's statements, if anything Prentice UNDERSTATES THE FACTS. ... '

' . created human liver tissue in a petri dish from cord blood stem cells. Commenting on this breakthrough, Investor's Business Daily said, "Remember, you read it here first. In fact, this might be the only place you've read it, given the mainstream media's blackout of any successes resulting from non-embryonic stem cell research." ... '

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWRhYmZlYzI3NzQ5ZGM2ZDdkMTk2NTQ3NjMxNDczZTc=

Keeping a focus on ethics in medical research (extract only)
July 19, 2006

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Do adult stem cells have more promise than embryonic stem cells?

Dr. David Prentice: They certainly hold more promise for helping patients with diseases and injuries. Their normal function in the body is repair, and we're seeing more and more examples of their utility in this respect. Embryonic stem cells are difficult to control, tending to grow out of control as tumors, or not form the necessary tissue and integrate to repair damage.

[Dr David Prentice, Ph.D. Biochemistry, Founding Member of Do No Harm: The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWU4MDI0NmUzZThhNWM3ODdmZTRiZGRhODY4N2I1NmE

Right here, right now, patients with disease and injury are more likely to benefit from advances in ADULT stem cell research.

So why the big push? Here's another TRUTH:

Vaccines and medications for ENDURING DISEASES provide ENDURING REVENUE for companies, shareholders, patent holders - which has a flow-on effect for doctors, medical ethicists, scientists, etc, etc, etc.

Cures do not provide enduring revenue.

HH

Thanks. The example you give describes repairing a wing: It was broken, you helped repair it (but remember that it is the bird's innate ability to heal itself that you depend on for success), and the bird is then able to fly. My thinking of innate was along the lines of a bird with DNA(defective or natural) that would prevent it from flying; vestigial or absent wings for example. Such a bird (eg an emu) has not an innate capacity to fly.

The reason for my hypothetical was to introduce the idea of extrapolation. I would suggest that if you had the prescience to know of the human being that would develop from the fusion of a particular sperm and ovum, and their life in our great human civilisation, then neither you, nor I, nor anyone else on this thread would consider its destruction less abominable at any stage from gametes onwards. But we do not have this prescience. Instead, we have tens of billions of potential human beings created every year, all equally deserving of life as ourselves, yet only a small fraction of these can possibly have this chance. If cloning technology advances, the number of potential humans that can be created each year rises phenomenally when you consider cell turnover and the hundred trillion cell estimate for each developed human body.

Chris and yourself avoid this moral dilemma by denying any consideration to the human life cycle prior to the fusion of gametes, whereas Yabby and myself, by considering the human life cycle in its entirety, see the death of millions of potential humans as a natural daily occurrence. So for myself at least the question is why should these lives be wasted when they could be contributing to the greater good of humanity? How is there greater dignity and less suffering in flushing this potential humanity down our sewers than by using it for research? And surely the decision for the fate of these potential humans should reside with their guardians, as they cannot think for themselves and are in any case condemned?

Chris,

You are so eager to portray us as Nazis and yourself as a martyr for the 'unborn' that you are really begging the question. Calling a rock a pet doesn't make it so, and the same is true if you call a clump of cells a human person. To a very real extent you are your brain. You are still you after a kidney transplant, but not if your brain is removed and replaced with someone else's. People who are brain damaged are still treated as human because no one can know to what extent personhood is left. When it is clear that the entire brain has been wiped out, i.e. brain death, neither the churches nor the overwhelming majority of ordinary people, religious or not, have any problem with pulling the plug. In practice, with lesser brain damage the community often takes the attitude of "need not strive/ officiously to keep alive". The death rate of schizophrenics on the streets is pretty bad.

Again, you show an unwillingness to think through the consequences of your beliefs. Here is another example. There was a recent short article in a science magazine (and I am trying to track down the original paper) on the problem of recurrent miscarriages that afflict some women. Some good friends of ours desperately wanted a baby, but eventually gave up because of the health risks to the wife from continual miscarriages. There have been a number of theories about the problem, but this latest paper claims to have evidence that it is the woman's immune system that has gone wrong, so that it tolerates abnormal early embryos that would normally be expelled. The embryo implants and continues to develop for several weeks or months, but is eventually killed by its abnormalities, causing a miscarriage. Now imagine that the research is fully confirmed and that there is a safe drug available that will cause the normal immune system to react in the same way. Does a woman have an obligation to take the drug? What about the abnormal embryo's right to life?

Those supporting new legislation in the hope of cures or treatments need to consider this TRUTH:

Research funding pools are limited.

Please re-consider your support for ADULT stem cell research.

Why?

Because ADULT stem cell research represents a HIGHER PROBABILITY of success in the NEAR FUTURE but it would be compromised if funding were re-directed to embryonic stem cell research.

Because progress on research that is ETHICAL, MOST PROMISING and has a HIGHER PROBABILITY of near-term SUCCESS would falter (and may even grind to a halt) whilst funds are redirected to research which is UNETHICAL, LESS PROMISING and has a LOWER PROBABILITY of SUCCESS.

Conceivable scenario? Yes.

As a consequence, treatments using ETHICAL stem cells would be pushed even further into the future, leaving those who are suffering (those you say you care about Yabby) waiting even longer for help.

For those more interested in the future promise of 'human spare parts' - your bet’s safer if you support ETHICAL stem cell research:

' … human liver tissue in a petri dish from cord blood stem cells. Commenting on this breakthrough, Investor's Business Daily said, "Remember, you read it here first. In fact, this might be the only place you've read it, given the mainstream media's blackout of any successes resulting from non-embryonic stem cell research." ... '
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWRhYmZlYzI3NzQ5ZGM2ZDdkMTk2NTQ3NjMxNDczZTc=

Yabby,

Lobbyists get paid. I’m just someone who takes an active interest in our children’s future and feels compelled to act when it’s at risk.

Because population control is important to you I’m including this news extract – fewer pregnancies, no lives sacrificed:

' ... The U-N report points out that prevention programs focusing on those most at risk of H-I-V infection are having some success. It says that campaigns promoting abstinence, the use of condoms, and fewer sexual partners have lowered infection rates in Botswana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. ... '

http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-11-28-voa9.cfm

Fester,

There is no 'human life cycle' prior to fertilization because prior to fertilization a human life does not exist.

Divergence,

Two posts per day don’t extend to three diversions - perhaps later.

Cris, rather then trust your judgement, given your obvious agenda, well meaning
as it may be, personally I think its quite foolish to predict exactly what Science
might or might not discover.

There are actually far more resources around then the limited ones that you
claim. Philanthropists simply want to make sure that money is well spent.
I note that Paul Allen donated 100 million$ for his brainatlas project, to
benefit everyone. Not to make money, but so that we can further understand
Alzheimers, etc. etc.

Tying everyones one hand behind their back, for the sake of flawed ideology,
just makes no sense at all to me. Let them see what they might discover!
It might be you or I in a wheelchair one day, or one of our kids, benefiting
from all that discovery.

Sorry, but I just can’t get emotional over a string of dna, that would have been
flushed down life’s toilet anyhow.

You might claim that religion plays no role in your decision, but that is certainly
not the case in this overall debate. The religious right are amazingly good
lobbyists, I grant them that. In debates like this, they appear from everywhere.

So rather then trust various people with various claims as what Science will
do, I’d like to give Science and scientists a chance to discover and show
what they can do, using both hands. I’ll also let the philanthropists prepared
to risk huge amounts of money on this kind of research, to be good judges
as to whom they entrust their money to do the work. People like Gates,
Buffet and similar, are not exactly fools.

Stopping all this from happening, due to some flawed ideology or religious
dogma, makes absolutely no sense to me