A
California Family Bioethics Council |
BIOETHICS | Formed in 2005, the California Family Bioethics Council (CFBC), a limited liability corporation, is a project of the California Family Council. Represented by Sacramento attorneys David Llewellyn and Susan Spann, CFBC is a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the legality of Proposition 71, the stem-cell-research and bond initiative passed by the voters in November 2004. In short, Proposition 71 has serious problems. It is not the medical and financial panacea it was promoted to be. Its potential for fiscal abuse through conflicts of interest and non-stem-cell research is troubling, and the revelation that its medical and financial projections are unreliable gives reason to question both the legality and the wisdom of this highly touted initiative.
California Family Council.
Embryonic Stem Cell Research ‘Far Behind’ Adult, Says Ethics Group |
Life Legal Defense Foundation CA: http://lldf.org/ |
Dana Cody, executive director of Life Legal Defense Foundation
Represents two taxpayer groups that challenged Proposition 71 in California
LifeNews.com for the pro-life community
Missouri Roundtable for Life : http://moroundtable.org/about.html |
The Missouri Roundtable has conducted a close, word by word scrutiny of the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Amendment. Our purpose is to clarify for voters the precise meaning and potential impact of this amendment if it should be enacted.
The definition
of a blastocyst in the text of the initiative differs from section
188.015.6 of Missouri law, which states that an unborn child is considered
"the offspring of human beings from the moment of conception until birth
and at every stage of its biological development, including the human conceptus,
zygote, morula, blastocyst, embryo and fetus." The initiative’s text, however,
lays out that a blastocyst is "a small mass of cells that results from
cell division, caused either by fertilization or by somatic cell nuclear
transfer,
that has not been implanted in a uterus." The fact that a blastocyst is
referred to as a "mass of cells" shows that "it’s not defined as a human
being." The text of the initiative states that "no stem cells may be taken
from a human blastocyst more than 14 days after cell division begins."
The National Pro-Life
Action Center (NPLAC)
Paul Chaim Schenck, NPLAC executive
director, stated:
"We affirm the necessity to
increase federal funding for ethical alternatives, such as regenerative
medicine, cell dedifferentiation, and adult and umbilical cord blood stem
cell research. But we reject techniques that involve the manipulation of
women?s eggs and the possible inadvertent destruction of human life. A
woman's egg is meant to bring new life into the world and is not meant
to be used as a time machine to manipulate cells into becoming embryos
-- healthy or defective. Countless women are already being coerced and
exploited for their eggs, and modified cloning techniques, like those proposed
in the defeated legislation, would likely only increase that abuse. We
renew our call upon Congress and the president to reject all such legislation."
News Report
|
In the June 2005 issue of "Cloning
and Stem Cells," a technical journal. In an article, Dr. Robert Lanza and
other researchers at Advanced Cell Technology reported they created cloned
cow fetuses, grew them in utero in adult cows to four months, performed
abortions and used the liver tissue from the aborted cow fetuses for experiments
and transplants. The same could be done in humans, Johnson contends, especially
if some sort of "artificial womb" is ever created. "We need to enact the
Santorum-Weldon
bill now in order to prevent biotech firms from pursing such experiments
with humans," Johnson told
LifeNews.com
|
Senate Bill: http://theconservativevoice.com/article/15777.html
|
Bob McAlister
South Carolina comments
| By Bob
McAlister |
Republican speechwriter Bob
McAlaster | 2004 NPR
Radio |
Bob McAlister, deputy chief
of staff to South Carolina’s governor
Most of human history has been
lived with the assumption
that God doesn’t give us a vote
on how we die. The Senate voted against that notion.
US Conservatives
| Amy
Hess | Stem
Cells |
News Reports
August 1, 2006
Stem cell foes rally in capital
Opponents compare research to
slavery.
By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
of The Associated Press Published
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
JEFFERSON CITY - Mixing religious fervor with scientific skepticism, opponents of a proposed constitutional amendment to protect embryonic stem cell research gathered yesterday for the first in a series of statewide rallies.
Hundreds of people who packed a Jefferson City church last night heard Alan Keyes, a former Republican presidential candidate and United Nations ambassador, compare the contentious research technique to the worst excesses of Nazi Germany and American slavery.
A researcher from Washington University in St. Louis questioned the largely unfulfilled promise of embryonic stem cells in contrast to ongoing research with adult stem cells derived from bone marrow, umbilical cords and other sources.
And an evangelical Baptist pastor from Texas said the Missouri ballot initiative, if approved Nov. 8, would exploit the women whose donated eggs would be needed to fuel such work. The Rev. Rick Scarborough urged the audience at Concord Baptist Church to work to defeat the measure known as the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. "If the church is silent, then she will get what she deserves," Scarborough said. "But if the church rises up, then we will turn back evil forces, and we will be successful."
The proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution seeks to legally protect stem cell "research, therapies and cures" permitted under federal law - a response to unsuccessful legislative efforts to criminalize such activities.
It also stipulates a ban on human cloning, defined as an attempt to implant into a woman a scientifically created embryo that did not come from a sperm and egg.
Scarborough, Keyes and other opponents suggested the title and ballot language are deceptive and misleading for failing to classify a certain form of embryonic stem cell research, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, as the scientific equivalent of human cloning.
Under that procedure, the nucleus of an unfertilized human egg is replaced with the nucleus from a skin or nerve cell. The altered egg then is stimulated to grow in a lab dish, and researchers remove the resulting stem cells.
Keyes invoked what he called the Declaration of Independence’s guiding moral principle: that all men are created equal. Like a human fetus, a human embryo deserves those same legal and societal protections, he said.