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ORIGINAL: Archer

Overall I am for stem cell research, but I am torn on the embrionic aspect,

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ORIGINAL: Evility

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: Evility

In principle I did not agree with President Bush when he banned federal funds from being used for stem cell research. During the public debate I recall reading/hearing a comment from a pro stem cell research advocate - I think it may actually have been Christopher Reeve - who said that the religious folks deserved no say in the debate which I felt was wrong. I'm not a religious man but to deny one group a voice on an issue due to some phony separation of church and state argument was nonsense. Based on that argument alone while I disagreed with Bush the ban didn't really bother me much because attitudes like that really piss me off.

Why should one person's or group's spiritual beliefs be the basis for restricting the activities of others? Should Christian Scientists be able to stop all federal funding of new surgical techniques?

My point was that everyone deserved a voice in the debate - regardless of any political or religious affiliation they might hold. It's nice to see that you have no problem selectively removing opposing viewpoints from the table. Welkome to Amerika.

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

I think the Republican leadership made a big mistake and failed to separate the fanatical support of the religious right from middle America and its fear and anger over 911.

Now that the fear has subsided and America is getting the upper hand in Iraq and a clear plan is developing in Afghanistan the Republicans are finding there is no majority support for the views of fanatics.

They were too slow to move back to the middle and they are suffering because of it. Until they realize war and economics are far more important to America than stem cell research and abortion they will remain the minority party.
Butch

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Why should the tax money fund government programs that are against their religious beliefs, and also not really part of our constitution.

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ORIGINAL: corysub

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After 9/11 it was these kinds of people that hung flags outside their homes...flags you did not see all over Beverly Hills, the northern towns  on Long Island, or the wealthy communities of nearby New Jersey.

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ORIGINAL: corysub

I was born a catholic but don't practice my religion. 

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

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Why should the tax money fund government programs that are against their religious beliefs, and also not really part of our constitution.

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ORIGINAL: corysub

For the same reason that my ethical beliefs didn't deter us from getting into a war that I found immoral, the giving of "faith based initiative money" to only Christian groups and to paying for education that spoke of abstinence as the only lesson someone needed to know in the area of sex education.

The fact is, that when you take the all knowing, all seeing authority of "God" out of it, religious arguments about public policy is just another two bit opinion.

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ORIGINAL: Raiikun

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ORIGINAL: MmeGigs
I think that anyone who is opposed to stem cell research on moral grounds and is also opposed to universal health care is a flaming hypocrite.

Eh, there's room for someone to be opposed to one and not the other without it being hypocrisy...the issues surrounding both, and the objections to either one are too different.

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ORIGINAL: lronitulstahp

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After 9/11 it was these kinds of people that hung flags outside their homes...flags you did not see all over Beverly Hills, the northern towns  on Long Island, or the wealthy communities of nearby New Jersey.

Meh i dunno...as a Long Island girl, i could remember not being able to sneeze without seeing a flag, post 9/11....having never lived in Beverly Hills or NJ, i can't speak for either.  But Huintington, Northport, Cold Spring Harbor etc.....flags out the ying yang.

~lawng eye-lund slut

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ORIGINAL: corysub
Why should the tax money fund government programs that are against their religious beliefs, 

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ORIGINAL: Archer

I'm of two minds about the issue.
Overall I am for stem cell research, but I am torn on the embrionic aspect, many places that they system could turn very bad.

I'm glad the ban was in effect on one hand because the need to work around it likely was the reason they found the new skin based Stem Cell where they can manufacture stem cells without the need for embrios at all. Which was found in 2007. Would this line of study have been followed as diligently without the controversy?

Yet I recognize that the slowing of the research has cost years of study on what they could do with Embrionic Stem Cells, which were and are the most promising to date.

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ORIGINAL: corysub

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

I think the Republican leadership made a big mistake and failed to separate the fanatical support of the religious right from middle America and its fear and anger over 911.

Now that the fear has subsided and America is getting the upper hand in Iraq and a clear plan is developing in Afghanistan the Republicans are finding there is no majority support for the views of fanatics.

They were too slow to move back to the middle and they are suffering because of it. Until they realize war and economics are far more important to America than stem cell research and abortion they will remain the minority party.
Butch

Why would a person of consience, who believes strongly in his faith, who believes that life begins at conception be called a "fanatic".  I was born a catholic but don't practice my religion.  However, I do have many friends who do, some who became priests, many who are protestant, and "born again"....and the one common denominator among so many of these people is how giving they are to those in need, how ready they are to volunteer to help with time and/or money, and how upstanding they are in the community.  After 9/11 it was these kinds of people that hung flags outside their homes...flags you did not see all over Beverly Hills, the northern towns  on Long Island, or the wealthy communities of nearby New Jersey.

"Fanatic"  liberals continue to use the word fanatic as one would describe a terrorist bomber, or a "skin head" or membes of Acorn....to describe people of faith.  Why should the tax money fund government programs that are against their religious beliefs, and also not really part of our constitution.   If someone wants to have five abortions or a scientist wants to do stem cell research using human embryo's be my guest, but pay for it privately.

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Why should one person's or group's spiritual beliefs be the basis for restricting the activities of others? Should Christian Scientists be able to stop all federal funding of new surgical techniques?

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ORIGINAL: Archer

Owner, there are several slippery slopes I worry about

That demand will increase to the point where a black market forms for stem cells, we have for example of how this can happen the black market in organ donation/ organ theft.

Creation of embryos for the purpose of maintaining a ready supply of "spare parts"

And the Octomom gives us the worry that doctor's ethics and fore-thought may not be all it should be. Will these embrionic stem cells only come from the sources they currently come from or will the demand shift the ethics and the "acceptable" means of embryo generation spread?

These of course are not reasons not to pursue the research but rather reasons to keep a very close eye on the development of ethics to go along with the capacity of science.

The research dollars and time spent on other sources of stem cells and the breakthroughs in those areas hopefully will make the embrionic stem cell use obsolete, and that can't be seen as a bad thing.