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David Adesnik, a research analyst in Washington DC, received his doctorate in international relations from Oxford.

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Monday, July 24, 2006

# Posted 12:19 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

STEM CELLS: In an editorial supporting the President's first veto, Bill Kristol and Eric Cohen argue that:
The most important arguments for maintaining the Bush policy are moral: The federal government should not be a party to the destruction of nascent human lives. Yes, such embryos might be left over in fertility clinics, but the fact that they are unwanted does not change what they are or give us a license to destroy them.
But who gave fertility clinics the license to produce untold thousands of embryos whose inevitable fate is to be discarded?

That wasn't a rhetorical question. I really don't know the answer. Unless the opponents of stem cell research are willing to criticize fertility treatments that produce such embryos, it seems irrelevant to criticize the use of such embryos for a positive purpose.

Also, if any of you happen to know how fertilitly clincis are funded, please weigh in below. Do they benefit from government funding, directly or indirectly? If so, then the government may already be party to the creation of embryos marked for destruction.
(3) opinions -- Add your opinion
Comments:
I don't know about the funding, but I will say that Catholic critics of embryonic stem cell research are equally critical of IVF treatments which lead to the destruction of embryonic humans.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 11:00 AM
 
Argh, this is so frustruating. When IVF was in its infancy (1980s) there were quite a few pro-life activists who complained that the process would become a wedge issue to push through fetal research and cloning. Lo and behold....
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 12:13 PM
 
Fertility clinics are for the most part privately funded by the exhorbitant and outrageous fees that they charge their patients (and if the patients are luck, their insurance). They tend to demand money 4-6 weeks prior to any procedure - very few of the top labs accept insurance (so if you are lucky to have a PPO that will reimburse you - you need to float the money - usually between $10-20K for up to three months).

For all that money if you are lucky your clinic won't have the feel of a factory, but then it might feel like some sort of science fiction dystopia)

As someone who has "funded" over $80,000 + of such research over the past 6 years, I know about this all too well.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 2:04 PM
 
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