Why is DUH-bya so stubborn with regard to stem-cell research?

Question

Regardless of your political affiliation, would you agree that finding cures for various diseases is of maximum importance to humankind?

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=24906

Answer 1

Science is the engine of progress for a country (and humanity). It's what puts a country ahead of other countries and over the long term, it's what puts their economy ahead of other countries. To reject, hamper or restrict science is to launch a direct attack on a country's competitiveness.
If he's going to play the morality card, he should play it consistently. Science's most horrific invention is the nuclear weapon. It saves lives by taking lives, just like stem cell research (assuming you consider embryos to be lives, but let's assume that for now).
If you were going to call "morality timeout" on any area of science, it would surely be nuclear weapons research. Yet he seems to have no problems with all the talk of developing new nuclear weapons, those bunker busters and the like. It's inconsistent and hypocritical, and thus to my mind indefensible.
Research involving human stem cells...promises new treatments and possible cures for many debilitating diseases and injuries, including Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, burns and spinal cord injuries. Stem Cells harvested from the human embryo is the single most promising entity available to scientists today. Isn't it ridiculous for people who have already decided that it is moral to blow up people in the name of war to show some squeamishness about destroying human embryos in a petri dish? And what about cells harvested from the umbilical cord and placenta that are just thrown away after birth? Still no funding! Would the scenario be different if Stem cell research would offer a better solution for Erectile Dysfunction than Viagra?
You ask why Duh-bya is so stubborn? It’s his stupidity that keeps the “moral right” happy and the big pharma companies in business. If scientists find a cure to a disease then big pharma (like Pfizer and Merck will go out of business) and the campaign contributions to the Republicans diminish. Merck endangered the public with their Vioxx fiasco and they are still in business thanks to these moronic practices of the Republicans and FDA. Invest in west coast Biotech instead!!(/end-joke)

Answer 2

Wow lots of misinformtion about stem cell research out there - probably because it's been so politicized). Sound familiar? (WMD, global warming)

First, embryonic stem cells are are totipotent - meaning they can develop into any tissue found in the body, blood cells, neurons, muscle, bone etc. Stem cells isolated from other tissues (blood, umbilical cord) are not totipotent they are at best pluripotent , meaning they can develop into a number of different tissues but are somewhat restricted in their developmental lineage. Which to you sounds more promising for curing a wide variety of diseases?

Totipotent embryonic stem cells - right? That's what scientists in the rest of the world think too and they're loving the eight year hiatus in the US to develop important technology and patented cell lines from their research.

The moral controversy revolves around the question; should we use fetuses to develop these cell lines? Many have a problem with this - but this is not the entire part of the solution. Did you know that fertility clinics routinely fertilize human eggs and store embryos frozen in large numbers for long times? Many of these embryos are never used and eventually discarded. Why not use these to develop embryonic cell lines to help cure disease?

Bush is stubborn though. The whole sanctity of life stance is so ironic and tragic though given the 100,000 Iraqis who've died in his war for oil;...

Answer 3

its the whole genetic engineering thing .
ONCE we as humans start to monkey around with live then what does it become and where does it lead .
YOU have to accept that like in the movie Island if you say it , that man is greedy and will hold on to live even if it means the sacrafice of anothers .
As i have said before a new life distinct and seperate from all others with a built in code makes all of us unique .
THIS is when the union occurs between sperm and egg .
this is the basic building block that stem cells come from and is why i can not support this .
WHILE it is true that many lives may be saved it is my contention that we are and should not play God .
I do not look at death as the end of life but a new beginning in a different state of being .
Unless you believe that we are a random occurance in a universe that has no creator and thus we are all going to at death cease to exist .
IF we accept that thenhow do we establish rights for people and who determines the value of life .
IF i believed that this was not part of an evolution and that our life was confined to the 70 year window of oppertunity there would be nothing preventing me from having what and who ever i wanted .
THIS is the path we head down when we do not prevent and protect the individuality of life and begin to play around with the cells that make up life .
IN the future people will use others and claim they have no soul or worse yet that no life after death is possible or that it is for each of us to decide .THIS will keep us divided and will only create great conflict amog mankind .
I think all of us at one time or another feel the presence of something greater then our own being within us .
NOW this may be a fools folly but i have an inner peace nowing this is but one stage of my development .MY thoughts and my understanding and how i do things is completely different then anyone else . I am an individual with as much right to enjoy my life as anyone else and if i where a clone i would want to be treated the same but i have a felling that some people would pass laws making clones somewhat less then human and define there life as being somehow less important .
THE old addage i gave you life and i can take it away is widely held by people in the back of there minds .IT would only take someone saying it is ok inorder for it to become common to end your childs life if you wished to do so .

Answer 4

Because the fool insists the cells are living beings. Remember, the ones that would have been used for research will be destroyed. According to his sense of logic, this is murder. Therefore, the people who destroy the cells should be imprisoned and put away forever for murder. But, nothing happened. Is this warped logic or what? Of course when you have your head up your a** like he does, nothing really makes sense when it comes out of his mouth.

And of course, finding cures and making for a better quality of life for people with debilitating diseases is important. But the fool doesn't see it that way. Maybe if all the people who would have benefitted from the research had agreed to become Republicans he wouldn't have vetoed the stem cell research funding bill.

Answer 5

I agree, but it will happen anyway. They could do it today with embryos (which does have ethical problems associated with it, while they wouldn't show up right away there is a fair chance that scientists will make living embryos solely for the purpose of research rather than just using the extra ones) or they could wait a few years with this new research that can do stem-cell research without actual embryos, but rather sperm and maybe egg cells that haven't been fertilized. I disagree with Bush, but to a point he is right (something new to him, so he doesn't know how to explain it real well to others).

Answer 6

Stem cells do cure diseases and cures can be found. However not with embryonic stem cells. They have been trying for years and have found nothing. On the other hand Adult stem cells have cured some cancer, repaired spinal cords, and they are on the verge of diabetes. He is stubborn because we dont want to throw money away in the research of embryonic stem cells that will never produce anything.

Answer 7

i'm no longer against stem cellular study yet besides the shown fact that i'm pleased with coming up 3-armed 2-headed six-legged people so i'm in all probability no longer the only to ask. that's a factor of the liberal edge of my philosophy. This does play into between the suited issues now we've however. technology has produced such more suitable technologies for curing illnesses and prolonging existence that the fee of wellness care is skyrocketing. How do we %. who gets to have joint implants. Will the government or our coverage be expected to pay for synthetic organs or for organs grown from our very own stem cells? i think of we are only touching the tip of the iceberg of what's obtainable in this component of study.

Answer 8

He is against *additional* federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and he said he would not support funding the creation of any more ESC lines when he authorized the FIRST federal funding of ESC research on already existing lines. ESC research wasn't funded until Bush decided to fund some already existing lines. Federal funding for ESC research was originally rejected by Reagan.

Now, Adult stem cell, blood stem cell and umbilical stem cell research continues to be federally funded. ASC research has yielded a number of effective treatment programs for diseases, and promises to deliver even more. BSC and USC research is very promising, and should deliver treatment programs shortly. ESC research has found nothing, not even anything remotely promising, and will probably not develop anything for decades.

The question about ESC research is an ethical one of deliberately destroying a human life form to conduct research. Many, many people, many scientists, ethicists, etc, support Bush's decision. As do I.

It is not about stubbornness, it is about whether we should have a dispassionate, clinical and cavalier attitude towards the destruction of human life.

Answer 9

Okay, lemme clarify. To all those out there, Bush did only veto the use of embryonic stem cells. However, most Conservatives are against stem cell research to begin with, so it's only a matter of time, if they have their way, before all forms are outlawed. This is due to the fact that it goes against God by taking life, and death, out of His hands and putting it in ours. But to that argument, I present a counterpoint; if the sole purpose of the Conservative Party was to put life back in God's hands, wouldn't it make sense to also get rid of defibrillators, ventilators and all the alike?

Answer 10

yes, I would agree with your statement...but it's where the stem cells come from that is the problem. Of course it would be wonderful to cure diseases like Alzheimers, etc....but there has to be another way....

Michelle: your insistence that the right is hypocritical..it goes both ways....the left is against war, but for a choice that often leads to abortion. It's the opposite side of the coin, so if you see one side, you have to see the other.