[Apologetics] Stem cells

[Stephen Korsman]

Hi

The latest New England Journal of Medicine has a few things on stem cells - free access.

In Missouri this election season, former Republican Senator John Danforth, an Episcopal priest and abortion opponent, is citing the New Testament in support of a state constitutional amendment protecting the legality of human embryonic stem-cell research. "I find nothing in the Bible that tells me that cells in a lab dish are people," said Danforth, who lost a brother to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and believes that the research will lead to new treatments for diseases. "What I do find in the Gospels is an emphasis on healing - relieving people of their suffering."  - http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/16/1633

There's an interview (mp3) with Danforth as well.  http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/16/1633/DC1

Scientists at Advanced Cell Technology, a California company, reported in August that a single cell taken from an eight-cell human embryo can sometimes be coaxed to produce embryonic stem cells, suggesting that such "biopsies" might be a way to generate new stem-cell lines while preserving embryos.  ...  Nature issued clarifications of its press release shortly after its online publication and again 2 days later, citing "internal communications problems." Meanwhile, the findings were prominently reported in the national media as a possible solution to the Bush administration's opposition to the use of federal funds for research on new stem-cell lines. A White House spokeswoman was quoted in news reports, however, as saying that the new technique would not resolve the President's ethical concerns about the use of embryos in research. Later the same week, Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a prominent critic of such research, e-mailed reporters, charging that the study had been misrepresented. "This experiment left no embryos alive and solves no ethical problems," Doerflinger wrote. - http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/16/1634

God bless,
Stephen
--
Stephen Korsman
skorsman at theotokos.co.za
www.theotokos.co.za

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