Maureen Condic Exposes ESCR's Real Record

Maureen Condic's scathing critique of the most recent embryonic stem cell research can be read for free now at First Things. As with most articles at First Things, this one is very readable for the non-specialist. Go read it. Then answer this question in the comments section of this blog:

"If ESCR advocates can only defend their embryo-obsession with pure storytelling about "likely" success, isn't it cruel to those suffering from debilitating diseases to divert attention (and public funds?) away from the adult stem cell research that doctors are currently using to treat 72 conditions?"

Or...

"Given the paucity of evidence that ESCR will ever help anyone, why waste any time on it - especially given the fact that it kills one human to do research on her body in hopes of helping someone else?"

Comments

[Jonathan]

I suppose abortion advocates hoped they finally had a reason they thought would stand up to the average person's scrutiny.

[Rayilyn Brown]

Doctors are NOT using adult stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease. Use some common sense - do you know anyone with PD who is getting ASCs? I have had PD over 10 years and am outraged by the lie that is continually promoted by ESCR opponents.

[Daniel Wynne]

Rayilyn
First let me say I am sorry for your condition, and I pray you find relief.
Having said that, please go to www.leaderu.com/science/stemcelltestimony_turner.html
I don't pretend to know why this individual received ASC treatment and you didn't, but it does not follow that since you have not been offered it, that no one with PD has.

[Daniel Wynne]

Just a follow up.
"I don't pretend to know why this individual received ASC treatment and you didn't,"
Sorry, i wrote that before I read the article thoroughly.

[Paul A]

Hi Rayilyn,
You wrote, "Use some common sense - do you know anyone with PD who is getting ASCs? I have had PD over 10 years and am outraged by the lie that is continually promoted by ESCR opponents."

First, it is not a matter of "common sense" to establish whether anyone with PD has been helped with the aid of ASCs. That is, we must investigate facts outside ourselves, not just perform internal reflection on a situation.

Second, like Daniel, I empathize with your condition and hope you find relief and healing. However, treatment for any disease is not a justification for the experimentation on and taking of other human life. The debate over ESCR should not be focused on what good it can produce, it should be focused on the moral question of "what is the unborn" first. If not, we could justify terminating and disassembling all sorts of people, since each person would result in many organs that would help (even save the lives of) many others.

I would think you would be *more* outraged that ESCR proponents dangle fantasy "cures" out there, hoping to win an emotional foothold, when the science doesn't point to favorable results. I am further outraged that ESCR proponents frame this as a "theological debate" when there are real human lives being sacrificed in the process.

[Rayilyn Brown]

I do not believe that a microscopic, undifferentiated cell is a person, kid, baby,or fetus.
If I did, like you, I would be opposed to taking its life to save mine. Why do you believe a cell is a person? One of us must be nuts.

[Paul A]

Hi Rayilyn,

By the time the embryo is able to be harvested for ESCR, it is far more than a single cell. At any rate, you have at least realized the importance of the question, "what is the unborn," since you recognize that if it is a human, we can't morally justify killing it just to help others.

I'm not sure that "one of us must be nuts," but one of us is either confused and/or mistaken. Can you tell me how many cells are necessary to make that "thing" a human? Asked a different way, if that "cell" isn't a person, what is it? Do you differentiate between "human" and "person"?