Friday, August 12, 2005

Embryos and Stem Cell Research and Freezing

We hear a lot about stem cell research and how it requires the destruction of embryos. Some folks are convinced that "life" begins at conception which means at the embryo stage and that embryos are living human beings. Thus they believe destroying embryos is destroying "life". These same people consider it permissible to freeze these human beings and put them into limbo while they decide if they will permit them to join the ranks of the "born". Kind of a God decision isn’t it? These people believe that for embryos to be destroyed to provide raw materials for stem cell research is bad but that it is ok to freeze these same embryos even though there is a high probability some will be destroyed or is it die? Would they be willing to freeze the “born” members of their family with the possibility they would die from the experience?

When we talk about stem cell research and raw materials and embryos and “life” we need to define the type of life we are concerned about and for what reason. I am not in favor of abortion and have questions about stem cell research but there are a lot of inconsistencies in the arguments.

The same president who is unwilling to permit the sacrifice of embryos in an attempt to improve the lives of American citizens is willing to sacrifice the lives of American citizens, some against their will, in an attempt (futile as it is) to improve the lives of people who hate us and hate those being sacrificed. So far he has been willing to sacrifice over 1,800 lives of American citizens why not 1,800 embryos?

Regardless of when life begins who is willing to emotionally and financially care for the life once it is saved? We don’t hear from the “Pro Life” people when it comes to orphans and wars. Why don’t we? Isn’t a living breathing walking around life as important as life in a dish in a uterus? Why save an embryo just to sacrifice it later? Why save an embryo just to let it be sexually molested, killed by the mother’s boyfriend, left in a car during the summer heat and to be cooked to death, be starved, be passed through a school system without being educated, sent to a far away country to die for the greedy?

To discuss only killing embryos is an oversimplification of the problem and is just one of the issues to be considered.

It appears that pro-life is really just anti-abortion. And it appears pro-life people don’t want abortions to be done and they don’t want embryos destroyed unless they deem it necessary for their own purposes.

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