jillian said:
You mean, which law have they vetoed by replacing science with their religious beliefs.
And which laws are they trying to get undone because of their religious beliefs....
And which laws are they trying to pass because of their religioius beliefs?
As for the vote... gee, maybe they should try it.
Certainly, there are religious grounds to objections to stem cell research. There are also religious grounds to objections to pedophilia and slavery. That doesn't make them less valid than objections based on science.
And how do you logically prove that slavery is wrong or pedophilia for that matter? I think you start with a definition, don't you? Something is morally wrong if it hurts someone else, or something like that. But isn't that what abortion does? Then you might claim that fetuses aren't human. OK, I'll assert, neither are blacks or Jews, so it must be OK to enslave or kill them. Who defines what a person is? What magic occurs when a fetus is delivered from its mother's womb to suddenly transform it into a person with legal rights? I could also ask, if it is legal for a woman to abort her fetus because it isn't a person, then, if a woman goes into labor before her due date, why can't a hospital refuse treatment stating that, no life is at risk since that thing the woman has in her belly is not a person. Or better yet, what if a woman is giving birth to a baby and there are complications, why shouldn't the physician be able to abort the baby on the spot? Is it simply because the woman wishes to have a baby that suddenly it's entitled to legal protections? So, my mother is the one who decides whether I should live or die? Isn't that the same as the massah/slave paradigm of the antebellum South? If there's a difference, it seems to be a small one.
Fetal stem cell research, from what little I've read about it, has yielded little, if any results.
In fact, the assertion that only "religious zealots" are opposed to fetal stem cell research isn't valid. This speech, given in 2001 by the president of the National Order of Rare Diseases is also critical of the hype for fetal stem cell research
http://www.rarediseases.org/news/speeches/stemcell
From this speech, it seems that the many who who advocate the research into gene therapy and into fetal stem cell research also work for companies that stand to benefit from these technologies. That should cast some doubt as to the objectivity of those who make claims for fetal stem cell research.
Frankly, I believe that some individuals who support embryonic stem cell research may be taking that position because merely because it is a means of justifying abortion rather than saving lives.
The is article also raises doubts about embryonic stem cells:
http://www.linacre.org/stemcell.html
1. Embryonic stem cells are very difficult to control.
2. They are difficult to keep alive
3. Issues of the body of the person rejecting the cells, i.e. adverse immune response.
4. Stem cells differentiate into cells other than brain cells, e.g. hair or bone cells.
5. Stem cells sometimes become cancerous.
Therapies involving adult stem cells seem to be very promising as a treatment and have already yielded results.
The potential for embryonic stem cell research is just that, a potential. It isn't proven, and may not yield results. On the other hand, if it does yield results, will our society then be in a position where it must manufacture embryos just for the purpose of harvesting them for parts? That seems pretty barbaric to me.
