Dark days

[aadler]

 
I see that Nancy Pelosi is celebrating the current President’s rescinding of the stem-cell ban as a wonderful thing: in the words coming out of her office, “today’s victory is your victory.”

Victory. Yeah. Big noise, no truth. It isn’t a victory, it isn’t a gain, it isn’t even important scientifically. In fact, the whole blather about Bush ‘putting ideology ahead of science’ was a blatant lie on at least four major points.

1.   There were never any breathtaking cures waiting in the wings if medical researchers could just be allowed to work with embryonic stem cells: the use of embryonic stem cells produces monster tumors and no useful results. In contrast, adult stem cell lines (the use of which, and research into which, have never been proscribed) have given us several valuable treatments, some going back decades.

2.   Use of and/or research into embryonic stem cell lines has never been forbidden. Only federal funding for such use was taken off the table. Anyone who wanted to follow what might be (but wasn’t) a promising line of inquiry, was welcome to do so, but taxpayers — many of them violently opposed to such activities — wouldn’t be forced to directly subsidize them.

3.   Even within the issue of federal funding, embryonic stem cells per se weren’t taboo. Those stem cell lines that already existed could still be utilized. Funding wouldn’t be granted for the destruction of human embryos to create NEW stem cell lines, but the lines already there were open for use.

4.   IT DOESN’T MATTER ANYMORE. A new technique has been developed that transforms adult cells into the precise equivalent of embryonic cells, but without requiring the destruction of human embryos. The technique itself is far more important than the current result, because that same technique can be used in many different ways for many different purposes. The ‘breathtaking cures’ may be within reach now, by a totally different and much more effective process. I heard about this over a year ago. I never saw it trumpeted in the news. Why not? Why not? As far as scientific fact goes, it ended the whole stem cell debate, yet nobody in the media seemed to care. Or notice.

That’s because it wasn’t about the science, or the facts. It never was. It’s all been part of a war of ideology, and the war isn’t over medicine or science or alleviating human suffering. It’s about abortion. Scrupling over the destruction of human embryos (for such oh-so-very-high-minded purposes) might someday, somehow, to some tiny extent, be used to state that the destruction of unborn humans for-no-reason-except-convenience is equally bad. That would be a result so horrible, so unthinkable, that it fully justifies lying about the truth and ignoring the science and condemning people for attitudes they don’t possess and actions they never took.

We can’t, we can’t, ever allow ourselves to admit — or anyone else to successfully maintain — that

1) a human embryo
2) formed from the union of a human spermatazoum and a human ovum
3) that will unquestionably become a human person if not prevented by disease, disaster, or human intervention,

can in any way qualify as human. Any such conclusion would mean someone might be able to prevent you from killing it any time you wanted to do so until the moment it drew its first successful breath.

Right. And a slave was only three-fifths of a person.

We’re not allowed (nor should we be) to harvest Nancy Pelosi for useful parts, even assuming anything useful could be found in that carcass. But she considers it a ‘victory’ to clear the way for further destruction of innocent life.

Victory?

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Comments

[lwbush.livejournal.com]

Do you mind if I share this on Twitter?

[aadler]

Feel free.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

A new technique has been developed that transforms adult cells into the precise equivalent of embryonic cells, but without requiring the destruction of human embryos. The technique itself is far more important than the current result, because that same technique can be used in many different ways for many different purposes.

Do you have any idea what this technique was called, or who may have published about it? This is vastly interesting, and I want to Google or go research at the library.

[aadler]

I heard the news at different times, and followed it in different forms, but a fair summary can be found here, toward the end of the article.

Basically, a year and a half ago, scientists found a way to use viral vectors to reprogram ordinary skin cells into their pluripotent (able to develop into different forms) state, the property that made embryonic stem cells seem so promising. Since the virus used integrated itself into the resulting cells, though, there was some concern that the virus might have adverse effects in any attempted treatments. Six months ago, a method was developed for accomplishing the same thing without the viral vectors being integrated. And just within the past few weeks,

researchers published a paper showing that they can reprogram an adult cell into a pluripotent stem cell without using viruses at all. Instead, they simply insert a sequence of DNA (called “piggyBac”) carrying four genes that reprogram the cell. Andras Nagy, who led the research behind this technique, explained that “after they do their job they can be removed seamlessly, with no trace left behind. The ability for seamless removal opens up a huge possibility.”

Hope that helps.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Wait -- Nancy Pelosi, the demon behind the throne, might have useful parts?

[aadler]

My own feeling is that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi (second and third in the line of succession) are the leading reasons everyone should pray fervently for President Obama’s good health over the next four years.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you on that one, brother.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I obviously can't add anything. You've laid it out perfectly. Although, I don't know if the media has so much of a pro-abortion agenda as it has a ratings agenda. Controversy stimulates ratings. The facts, as you have laid them out, wouldn't sell air time. It's mercenary and irresponsible but that's the media.

[aadler]

Back in the 1970s I recognized the media’s cynical dedication to profits at-the-expense-of / in-total-disregard-of any consideration of morality. I’ll disagree that the decision here was made on the basis of ratings, however. The fact that the stem-cell wars were so high in the public profile made the newer developments a way to continue the story, throw new light on the same issues, get talking heads batting it back and forth … but no, that would have interfered with the holy sacrament of abortion-on-demand, so it was almost universally ignored.