STEM CELL ISSUE REACHES A HOT POINT

 

The day before former President Ronald Reagan died, 58 senators sent a letter to President George W. Bush urging him to permit embryonic stem cell research.  The senators are now insisting that with the death of President Reagan, the issue has taken on greater urgency. They cite the support that Nancy Reagan has shown for this type of research.

 

Catholic League president William Donohue cautions against any change in the current rules even as the issue reaches a hot point:

 

“Senator Orrin Hatch, an advocate of embryonic stem cell research, has said of Nancy Reagan’s support for this procedure, ‘I believe that it’s going to be pretty tough for anybody not to have empathy for her feelings on this issue.’  That’s true enough, but it doesn’t settle the issue: what ultimately matters is whether embryonic stem cell research is the intentional destruction of human life. Since every person ever born began as an embryo, and since embryonic stem cell research is predicated on the acknowledgement that embryos are human (otherwise the research would be meaningless), it is incumbent that our society not sanction it.

 

“The same day the 58 senators sent their letter to President Bush, Pope John Paul II admonished Americans to reject such things as abortion, same sex unions, pornography and prostitution as ‘self-centered demands’; he could easily have chosen to add embryonic stem cell research to this list.  The pope, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, might arguably have benefited from embryonic stem cell research had it been previously allowed.  But the Holy Father recognizes, as all of us should, that it is immoral for one person to have his life extended at the expense of someone else’s right to life. 

 

“One of the senators who signed the letter to President Bush is John Kerry, a man who calls himself a ‘practicing and believing Catholic.’  Given the fact that he supports partial-birth abortion and embryonic stem cell research, it would be instructive to know when Senator Kerry believes human life begins.”

 

 

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Answers

Laura Bush Says Cannot Support Stem Cell Research
Wed Jun 9, 2004 10:12 AM ET

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Laura Bush, whose father died from Alzheimer's, said on Wednesday she admired Nancy Reagan's devotion to former President Ronald Reagan until his death but could not back her call for relaxation of stem cell research restrictions.

Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, died on Saturday at 93 of pneumonia after a long battle with the brain- wasting disease. His wife, Nancy, and children were at his bedside.

Mrs. Bush, whose father died in 1997, said she had great respect for the former first lady and that she was an excellent role model for families struggling to cope with the illness.

"I know how very difficult it is for the patient, obviously, but also for the caregiver. It requires unbelievable strength of character to take care of the person you love as you see them slip away like that -- 'the long goodbye' they call Alzheimer's," the first lady told the CBS "Early Show" from Sea Island, Georgia, where leaders of the Group of Eight countries are meeting.

But Mrs. Bush said she did not endorse Nancy Reagan's call, already rebuffed by the White House, to allow greater stem cell research to proceed in the hope it would provide some answers to the disease or possibly a cure.

The Bush administration has placed restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and opposes using stem cells from most embryos, a stand Mrs. Bush said she supported.

"There are stem cells to do research on and ... we have to be really careful between what we want to do for science and what we should do ethically," the first lady said. "Stem cell ... is certainly one of those issues that we need to treat very carefully."

Pressed on whether she was prepared to endorse Mrs. Reagan's impassioned call for restrictions to be lifted, she replied, "No."

Read it all here.

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 09, 2004.

My ONLY daughter is in remission from Hodgkin's Disease. She is 32 yers old and is a loving wife and a mother of a 5 year old child. The cancer produced tumors which invaded her heart muscle, so she was not a candidate for radiation therapy. She also had severe, life- threatening reactions to two of the major chemotherapy agents normally used for Hodgkin's Disease. The chemo she did have left permanent scars on her lung tissue. If the Hodgkin's Disease returns, the only medical treatment available to save her life would be that of a stem cell bone marrow transplant. How much do you think she loves her husband, her child and her own life? How much do you think we love our daughter and would want her to live? And at what price do we as a family put on our daughter's life? Is her life more precious than that of the "other" ? Would she accept life taken from another so that she may continue her own? Her word for it is "GHASTLY". The very concept of trays of embryos existing in some sterile environment, tissue-typed and catalogued expressly for the purpose of being "harvested" as a medical treatment causes our family to recoil in horror. We continue to thank God for her remission and to pray for her full recovery if that is His plan, but stem cell research? No way.

-- lesley (martchas@hotmail.com), June 09, 2004.

What a great voice for life you are Lesley! Nothing is more profound than a story from one who has been there. My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your daughter.

-- Ed (catholic4444@yahoo.ca), June 09, 2004.

Lesley, also ask St Peregrine to pray with you. He's quite powerful! I know this from personal experience.

-- JoeJeff (soon2b@catholic.com), June 09, 2004.

In the Washington Post today:
"But the infrequently voiced reality, stem cell experts confess, is that, of all the diseases that may someday be cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit. "I think the chance of doing repairs to Alzheimer's brains by putting in stem cells is small," said stem cell researcher Michael Shelanski, co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, echoing many other experts. "I personally think we're going to get other therapies for Alzheimer's a lot sooner."

see the article.

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), June 10, 2004.

Here are two items from a recent issue of the American Life League's outstanding weekly e-mail newletter, "communique," which can also be read on the Internet (eleven years of issues at http://www.all.org/communique/cqback.htm).

FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: A comprehensive fact sheet listing some of the advances being made using adult stem cells is online at http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04I01.

SUCCESS: Researchers report that stem cells taken from bone marrow and administered after angioplasty and stent may improve the recovery of heart attack patients. (Reading: "Could extra fat help your heart?" WPXI-TV, 10/1/04, http://www.wpxi. com/health/3777712/detail.html)

-- Admirer of Judie Brown (friend@of.all), October 24, 2004.

Thank you, AoJB. On that note would the Moderator please change the title of this thread? Those who stand to make massive profits from embryo experiments, and the media, try to mislead the public by saying “human stem cells” when what they really mean is “human EMBRYONIC stem cells”. Don’t fall into their trap by using their misleading terms. The Church does not oppose the use of “stem cells”, only the killing/dismembering of human embryos to harvest embryonic stem cells. The Church supports research using stem cells, taken from adult tissues, or from the blood from the umbilical cord after birth, which would otherwise be destroyed as waste. In fact these stem cells are the only ones which have ever produced any benefit in any disease. Embryonic stem cells have never done so.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), October 24, 2004.