By Fritz Baumgartner, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery, UCLA School of Medicine
Former Head, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery Harbor-UCLA
Medical Center Torrance, CA 90509

Embryonic stem cell research means that human embryos will be cloned and destroyed in the name of "research." Unethical scientists call it "somatic cell nuclear transfer." That's the technical term for "cloning."

Embryonic stem cell research is a crime against humanity.

The Nuremberg Medical Trials of Nazis after World War II declared as much. As a result of the trials, the 1949 Geneva Declaration of Physicians stated: "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from its conception, even under threat, and I will not use my specialist knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity."

Clearly, physicians who drafted the Geneva Declaration recognized the clear and irrevocable humanity and dignity of even the smallest human embryo, a dignity no one has the right to deny regardless of the intended goal.

In 23 years, embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single human cure.

There hasn't been a single cure developed during over two decades of embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cell research is where the future lies

When it comes to cures, tens of thousands of people have been saved thanks to a different source of stem cells: adult stem cells. To date, adult stem cells have helped people with Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, sickle-cell annemia, heart damage, corneal damage and multiple other conditions.

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STEM CELL TRUTH

[Stem cells essentially can develop into any part of a human with the right stimulus. These are cells capable of regenerating damaged or diseased tissues.]
Stem cell research has generated a national controversy and moral debate in past years because researchers first thought the only source was human embryos.


There are at least five sources of stem cells:

1). Embryonic stem cells, harvested from a developing human seven to ten days after fertilization.
2). Fetal stem cells, often taken from tissues that would have developed into the ovaries or testes of aborted fetuses.

But we don't have to kill one person to cure another. The three remaining sources of stem cells present no ethical problems whatsoever:

3). Adult tissues, like bone marrow, lung, pancreas, brain, breast, fat, skin, and even tooth pulp contain stem cells that have been isolated.
4 & 5). Two other legitimate sources are newborns and their mothers: stem cells are in human placentas and umbilical cords, which for years have been discarded as waste products following childbirth.

See www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994418
Even ordinary blood could generate body repair, avoiding the ethical issues associated with embryonic stem cells.

To date, only ethical research on adult stem cells has actually cured people with "incurable" diseases. And there is opposition to cloning embryos for research purposes from just about every quarter of the culture.

So when you hear all the talk about the "virtues" of embryonic stem cells and how the government has banned research, remember that stem cells from non-embryonic sources are already curing patients. And embryonic stem cells aren't working. You won't hear it in the media, but we don't have to kill one human to cure another.

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By Jill Stanek

Michael J. Fox is a famous TV and movie star. He is witty. He is charming. A few years ago, we learned he has Parkinson's disease.

PD is a slowly progressive neurological disorder, characterized by tremors, shuffling gait, a masklike facial expression, "pill rolling" of the fingers, drooling, intolerance to heat, oily skin, emotional instability and defective judgment (although intelligence is rarely impaired).

PD is currently incurable, although there are several methods to slow its advancement, including drug therapy and surgery.

PD is tragic, particularly in Fox's case, because it rarely afflicts persons under 60 years old.

Yet everyone faces tragedy at one time or another, in one form or another. A person's moral fiber is revealed in tragedy.

So we learned through Fox's affliction that he has either extremely poor judgment or a diabolical character flaw. He supports human embryonic stem-cell experimentation, thus contending that some humans are subhuman and expendable for others' personal gain.

We know there is nothing new under the sun. So Fox's character flaw is not new, just a variation of the worst of human behavior throughout history.

Slaveholders thought those whose lives and deaths they controlled were "property," as the U.S. Supreme Court determined in the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

Hitler thought Jews were evolutionary mistakes. The Islamic government of Sudan currently has it in for black Christians.

Different day, different holocaust.

As is always the case, the powerful determine the fate of the powerless, and if the powerful don't hold the view that all humans are created equal, then the powerless end up enslaved or dead.

Some may think I'm going over the top to compare Fox to slave owners or Hitler or the Sudanese government. "Fox is a nice guy, and he's sick. Be nice."

If you think that, your sympathies are misplaced. Fox advocates killing certain people to experiment on them "for the greater good" simply because those people don't look like we do - yet. This is odd, because some day Fox won't look like most people either.

If Fox wanted to kill a football stadium full of toddlers to experiment on them, I doubt anyone would think he was normal, and I doubt anyone would bear with his barbaric rambling to be nice.

But using Fox's logic, experimentation of 2-year-olds should be acceptable. Toddlers are certainly far less developed on the human continuum and don't look at all normal by adult standards. The reason they are called "toddlers" in the first place is because their oversized heads and bellies cause them to "toddle" when they walk.

Scientifically speaking, a human is a human from the instant of fertilization, no matter what phase of development. "Take that single cell of the just conceived zygote, put it next to a chimpanzee cell, and a geneticist could easily identify the human. Its humanity is already that strikingly apparent,'" said Randy Alcorn in his newly released book, "Why Pro-Life?," quoting from "Preview of a Birth."

I'll worry about Fox's feelings after he stops using his considerable influence to convince the American public to support taxpayer-funded human embryonic stem-cell experimentation. Fox is not only pushing an ideology on me that advocates the destruction of human life, but he also wants to force me to pay for it. What gall.

I feel sorry for Fox's kids. Flashing them either forward or backward in one of Fox's "Back to the Future" movies, they are in lose-lose situations.

The future Fox wants to create for his three daughters looks bleak. No longer will only hens lay eggs for human consumption if Fox has his way. His daughters will be exploited for their eggs, too, because the only source of these pre-embryos is women.

It is foolish to think technology will be sated by the availability of today's orphaned embryos, as is now the spin.

And in an altered past, Fox would have allowed the dissection of his days-old embryonic children so he could surgically ingest them in an effort to cure his own ailments - high tech cannibalism.

It's funny that Fox calls himself a vegetarian.



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