Reasonable Moloch-worshippers peddle "moral" ESCR

The usual suspects rant about the usual benefits of killing unborn children to save us all. Only they claim to have found a way to create a line of stem-cells from an embryo without killing the embryo. There's only one trouble: they only manage to prepare for another embryo to enter the world and be killed.

Yahoo! News has the story here.

Try not to get to nauseous at the mandatory hagiography of ESCR proposed by LA Times staff writer Karen Kaplan. It's only the Reasonable thing to do. First, Ms. Kaplan summarizes the latest discovery:

Scientists say they have created viable embryonic stem cell lines without destroying any embryos — a development that could clear ethical barriers that have sharply restricted federal funding for the controversial research.

Two separate techniques were demonstrated in mice, and researchers are optimistic the processes could be replicated with human cells. The new methods were published online Sunday by the journal Nature.

Scientists and ethicists said the approaches offered a potential compromise with social conservatives who see embryonic stem cell research as an untenable trade-off that amounts to destroying life to create medical cures.

Dr. William B. Hurlbut, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, said he had persuaded several religious and conservative philosophers that at least one of the new approaches was morally sound.

But given the intractable debate about when life begins, there are lingering ethical concerns.

Next, the absolute praise of modern-day child sacrifice:

Protection of human embryos has been the guiding principle behind
President Bush's stem cell funding policy.

Bush was the first to approve federal money for the research, but he limited funding to the cell lines already in existence in 2001 to avoid having taxpayers subsidize the destruction of embryos. Scientists have said that only about 20 of them were usable.

Those lines, which have proven unsuitable for some research, were derived from frozen embryos donated by couples that no longer needed them for in vitro fertilization.

The federal restrictions have hampered scientists seeking to tap the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells, which have the capacity to grow into any cell type in the human body. Researchers believe, for example, that the cells might eventually be used to treat juvenile diabetes by growing replacements for faulty islet cells that make insulin.

Some researchers have moved forward by using private funds to create their own lines of embryonic stem cells. California has taken the most aggressive position, passing Proposition 71 in 2004 to provide $3 billion for stem cell research.

Not bad! Ms. Kaplan backslaps Fools for believing that embryos are children, and body-slams President Bush for not whole-heartedly embracing Moloch. All in a days work; but she's not done yet. There's still the noteworthy discovery:

Dr. Robert Lanza, medical director of Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in Worcester, Mass., and an author of one of the papers, extracted a single cell from a mouse embryo that developed in the laboratory into an eight-cell bundle.

After removing the cell, called a blastomere, Lanza's team surrounded it with human embryonic stem cells from the Bush-approved lines, allowing the mouse cell to pick up the appropriate biochemical cues to start behaving like a stem cell.

Using 125 blastomeres, they were able to create five cell lines that tests found had the same properties as embryonic stem cells.

To demonstrate that the single-cell biopsy posed minimal risk to the embryo, seven-cell mouse embryos were implanted into surrogate mothers. They resulted in live births 49% of the time, virtually the same as for the regular eight-cell embryos.

Lanza said human stem cell lines could be created using single cells extracted for genetic diagnosis at in vitro fertilization clinics.

In a laboratory dish, the extracted cell would be allowed to divide into two. One cell could be screened for genetic defects and the other used to create stem cells, he said.

"It's relatively simple," Lanza said. "It does not damage the embryo, and it's been used on thousands of healthy babies."

Of course! Hallelujah! The Culture War on stem cells is over! Life-saving therapies for everyone (in about 25 years under perfect research conditions)! It's a win-win, right?

Not so fast!

Some scientists believe that a single human blastomere may be able to develop into an embryo, throwing Lanza's method into the same ethical terrain as conventional stem cell methods, said Daley, the Harvard professor.

The removal of an embryonic stem-cell might reproduce and form a new embryo. In other words, unborn children's lives remain at risk. Nothing's changed, if those scientists are correct. Meanwhile, Adult stem cells, including those that can emulate the properties most valued in embryonic stem cells, still offer the greatest hope treating illnesses.

But that wouldn't serve the Agenda, now would it? Besides, there's nothing like the cha-ching! of cashing in Federal dollars while supporting the pro-abortion and pro-baby-assembly-line industries at the same time! Now that's Reasonable!

And that's all that matters to the Reasonable supporters of ESCR. The latest solution is another Orwellian exercise in obfuscation. Our Reasonable elites would still have us sacrifice children for the sake of the nation. It's amazing how the worship of Moloch has changed so little!