Saturday, July 22, 2006

STEM CELL RESEARCH IS NOT ABORTION

Here's that link promised at the end of this post.

The Mailbox has been banging it's head against a wall from listening to our President explain why he vetoed a bill which would have granted more funding for embryonic stem cell research. Specifically:


"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life of the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our society needs to respect, so I vetoed it."

The moral boundary he's talking about is the same moral boundary Pro-Lifers use to defend abortion. But anti-abortion arguments don't apply because -- pardon the glittering obvious -- embryonic stem cell research is not abortion. Here's some points:

~ Stem cells are harvested from a blastocyst, which is a sack of cells formed after a human egg is fertilized.

~ A blastocyst forms five days after an egg is fertilized.

~ A blastocyst must attach itself to the uterine wall to begin changing into an infant. There is only a 33- to 50- percent chance of this happening.

~ More than 30,000 innocent lives have been lost in the Iraqi War, so next time you hear President Bush talking about protecting innocent life, just chuckle to yourself and remember that there's an election coming.

It's important for Missourians to remember that embryonic stem cell research is not abortion, because we may be voting on whether to constitutionally protect the industry. That ballot question has plenty about which to be skeptical, but none about abortion issues.

The Mailbox's formal opinion (it cleaned itself up pretty well) will appear in Sunday's Joplin Globe...it will post a link as soon as it's published. In the meantime, Wired.com's Stephen Edwars has published a list of distortions, fallacies and outright lies used by both political parties in the recent debate.

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