Word: stemming
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Then perhaps the President could keep his promise to conservatives by coming out in favor of a big increase in funding for research on adult stem cells--research that is uncontroversial--but ban the work that requires destroying embryos? If he couched his position as being in favor of research but opposed to destroying potential babies, he could perhaps finesse the issue. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said that would be an acceptable compromise. But scientists and their backers in the world of patients would hate that solution, since research on adult stem cells, while promising, has three...
Perhaps the worst part of this quandary for Bush is that even after he makes his tough decision, the issue won't go away. Congress will take a crack at it, and court challenges are under way. Private researchers like those in Virginia and Massachusetts will continue to study stem cells regardless of what Bush does, since they don't receive government funding. (Congress could decide to regulate all stem-cell research, public and private, which would face Bush with another hard choice...
...favor federal funding of stem-cell research, but now I am scared to death--of my allies. The case they (and I) have made is simple: stem cells, possessing in theory the capacity to replace almost any damaged or defective tissue in the body, have a great potential for good. Although deriving stem cells may require destroying a five-day-old human embryo, this "blastocyst" is usually taken from fertility clinics, where it is going to be discarded anyway. It's not as if--or so we have been saying--we are wantonly creating human embryos only to destroy them...
...turns out the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va., has been doing exactly that: taking volunteers' sperm and eggs to create a human embryo for the sole purpose of dismembering it for its mother lode of stem cells...
...things are disturbing here. First, while this research did not become widely known until July 11, it had been reported to fellow scientists back in October. Yet for nine months, stem-cell advocates have been repeating the "only discarded embryos" mantra. What did they know, and when did they know it? Second, and equally disturbing, is the stem-cell supporters' response to the Norfolk research. John Gearhart, one of the original stem-cell pioneers, told the New York Times that he was "perplexed" by this development because "we don't think it's necessary...