Professor Schaff expresses gratitude over the recent discovery on stem cells. See the Chicago Tribune. For anyone who doesn't know, stem cells are cells that are not yet specialized for some particular bodily function. There is hope that they can be used to repair injuries that human bodies cannot repair on their own.
One source of stem cells for research is a human embryo. Destroying the latter raised serious ethical questions, and set the Bush administration against both the pro-choice activists and scientists eager to do the research.
Contrary to what Bush's critics often say, he did not ban stem-cell research. He was in fact the first President to fund such research. But he opposed the destruction of embryos for that purpose, on the grounds that it comes too close to harvesting human beings. I think the President's position was more ethically responsible than that of his critics. For one reason why, see this post from last year:
Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.
Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them.
Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.
What is ironic is that the President's position turned out to be more scientifically productive. From the LA Times.
Scientists in Japan and the United States announced Tuesday that they have successfully reprogrammed human skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. The new techniques bypass the need to create and destroy human embryos. Research using these techniques would be fully fundable under current U.S. federal government policy. It can be supported by liberal, pro-choice Democrats and socially conservative, pro-life Republicans alike.
The new method of producing stem cells from skin cells is apparently much simpler, requiring many fewer and less technical steps. It can be used in many more labs, and thus will supply much more research than the old method. The discovery in the U.S. came largely because the Administration was funding a search for alternative sources of stem cells. The Chicago Trib:
Those who opposed use of human embryos for research credit Bush's refusal to lift restrictions for spurring the breakthrough. Bush's critics argue that his restrictions slowed progress in the field and likely discouraged some researchers from entering it.
So Bush policy has led to a potentially tremendous advance in medical science, one that the approach favored by his critics would have missed. Don't look for that story on the New York Times.
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