Saturday, May 28, 2005

Embryonic Stem Cells: An Introduction by the Political Heretic

This week, the House of Representatives voted to support funding on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 21 and the president vowed to kill it with his veto (if only he vetoed Congressional spending more often!) should it come up to his desk for a vote.

Nevertheless, the moral debate over stem cell research is an interesting and very difficult one for a lot of us. The conservative "pro-life" advocates offer their own alternative, which allows for the use of umbilical chord stem cells. I will comment on it either tomorrow or before the end of the weekend but would like to provide some links to you before I do so.

Ramesh Ponnuru no surprise, comes out against stem cell research in this article which I linked to from "The Corner." He makes a pretty good argument for those on his side of the debate and it is worth reading since it does make you think.

The Debate over at "The Corner" http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/corner.asp itself promises to be lively and interesting. John Derbyshire again broke with his conservative colleagues on this and what he has to say is interesting as well. I'd like to see him develop it into an argument.

I know Slate Magazine had an article from the other side of the debate but I'll look for that one later.

And this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell offers important scientific background information so we all know what is actually being debated.

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