Editor's note: In the last post, Thomas Jefferson was described as an atheist, when in fact, he was a deist. Sorry.
We had to get out of Haifa, hope peace can prevail somehow. Back in the U.S., {and glad we are!}, me,{idiot}, and my friend from the Religious Right,{RR} are starting a new discussion:
idiot: While we were concentrating on the Mid East, Bush vetoed the bill for stem cell research. Your reaction?
RR: That was probably the best news I've heard in quite a while.
idiot: I was upset..Think of all the promising medical miracles the president just said, "No" to.
RR: Promising medical miracles? Like cloning a goat? They say so far there have been no breakthroughs from stem cell research.
idiot: Well, first of all, the science is nothing at all like cloning. Secondly, it takes years of research before anything comes of it.
RR: That's got nothing to do with it...Abortion is wrong.
idiot: You mean, if a couple decides to donate an embryo in the interest of science, that's wrong?
RR: You don't understand, murder is murder, no matter the reason.
idiot: But these embryos aren't alive, are they?
RR: Life begins at conception.
idiot: I've heard that, but you know, the law defines the beginning of life as a baby's first breath. At least in New York state, where it isn't considered murder to kill a newborn unless the D.A. can prove the baby drew at least one breath. I got that from an episode of Law and Order.
RR: That's man's law, not God's.
idiot: I guess my problem with that is, America is supposed to be governed by man's law, not necessarily God's.
RR: So, you are one of Ann Coulter's Liberal Atheists, aren't you. You know you're the reason this country's going down the tubes.
idiot: Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, but, no: I don't consider myself a liberal, or an atheist. I think I'm a moderate, who believes in God, just not all of your thinking.
Commercial break.
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I've heard other arguments using the Bible, stating that Adam wasn't alive until God breathed into him. I'll admit, as a moderate, I don't know who's right on this one.
Speaking from a Godly women's point of view: I believe life begins when "God breaths life" into each of his creations. When that happens I am not sure but I can tell you that when I was pregant their was life moving in my belly long before he was born. This being so, and it was, the State by New York's legal phrasing can suck a pickle as far as I'm concerned.
If you take that embryo and plant it in a tummy, that embryo grows into a baby so if you kill it to "research" something, you've killed "LIFE." We do not have to authority to kill innocent life. How arrogrant that we begin to think of ourselves as god's - how deceitful the devil's lies begin to creap into our "power driven" thoughts. Scary? You better believe it.
Maybe the politicians who don't think so - should become pregant and talk with God through the big "china bowl" and have a few conversations with Him, as I did. I am sure then they will begin to believe it also.
Here is a thought, if embryonic stem cell research is so promising why haven’t venture capitalists rushed to provide huge resources for it? Imagine the incredible profits they will gain from the medical breakthroughs that will come from their investments. This would seem like a no-lose investment; but, to date venture capitalists have refused to provide the needed resources. I wonder why?
Here is a short list of the successful treatments achieved by adult stem cells. Keep in mind that on August 24, 2004, our wonderful newspaper of “record” in the United States, the New York Times announced from “on high” (science writer Gina Kolata) that no one had succeeded in using adult stem cells “to treat diseases.” Oh yeah? How about these…
● Rebuilding livers with “irreversible cirrhosis.”
● Repairing spinal cord injuries using stem cells from nasal and sinus regions.
● Reversing Type 1 diabetes in mice.
● Putting Crohn’s disease into remission.
● Putting lupus in remission.
● Treating sickle-cell anemia.
● Repairing the heart muscles in patients with congestive heart failure.
● Repairing heart attack damage with the patient’s own blood stem cells.
●Restoring bone marrow in cancer patients.
● Restoring weak heart muscles suing immature skeletal muscle cells.
●Putting leukemia into remission using umbilical cord blood.
●Restoring sight in blind people using an ocular surface stem-cell transplant and a cornea transplant.
● Treating urinary incontinence using stem cells from underarm muscle.
● Reversing severe combined immunodeficiency with genetically modified adult stem cells.
● Restoring blood circulation in legs with bone marrow stem cells.
Well, how about embryonic stem cells? What have they cured? Nothing. Meanwhile, at President Bush’s press conference announcing the veto of the congressional bill to provide tax payer funds for research that would kill embryonic babies (research that would have been celebrated by Dr. Joseph Mengela, Nazi), there were no less than twenty children fidgeting and fussing in the background that are adoptive children born from unfrozen embryonic stem cells.
I really do not think that in my lifetime there has been a greater disinformation campaign foisted on the American public than the full-court press by the elite media to shove embryonic stem cell research down our collective throats. Correction: embryonic baby killing—let’s cut the euphemistic obfuscation. Semantic senility is just an attempt to cloud the moral issues.
Your comment has shed some light on this issue. You're right, when you look at an embryo as a life I can't argue that killing anyone could be justified.
There are tons of programs that ask for the umbilical cord after the babies birth-and I donated Alex's. Why not do it that way? Sure, some want to Freeze theirs, but I don't see the big deal.
I don't agree to abortion-but what about using the donated umbilical cords with the stem cells in them once one gives birth? It seems like it would help a lot of people out-looking at the comments, and there's nothing I can do with it unless I want to pay over 200 dollars to have it frozen-monthly.
I agree with researching it, but I think we ought to limit it to the donated umbilical cords.
Heh-funny-I live in Idaho, and the only reason I came to this site was because it was called Potatoes....
Either I'm still having my pregnancy cravings, or I just need to face the fact I'm Idahoan.
A majority of embryonic stem cell research uses donated embryonic stem cells left over from fertility treatments, not aborted babies or such as the religious right would have you believe. The good news is Bush's veto only keeps this research from being funded by the government. There are still several labs which will continue embryonic stem cell research with private funding. Of course, the lack of government funding will hurt research, but it won't kill it. In all likelihood the advances made from this type of research will now come from European or Asian countries, which should only be expected with the state of science in America what it is, now that the religious right is trying to take U.S. citizens back into the dark ages.