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May 20, 2004 I often find myself wondering about the specifics of stem-cell research, and on the news that Britain would be launching its first major stem-cell laboratory; I had to finally sort out my exact opinions on the subject. Briefly I was engaged in discussion over stem-cell and cloning when President Bush made his anti-cloning statements early in his term, but cloning has never been my interest. It all seems too distant. Stem-cells, on the other hand, have the potential to serve a very important and beneficial role in society. Their versatile characteristics make for nearly limitless possibilities – everything from kidneys for those in need to skin grafts without the tearing. The main opponents to stem-cell research in the United States come in the form of religious right-wingers, as has always been the case in most issues involving science. We remember the Scopes Trial, where the religious right moved to block evolution from schools and were made fools of in court. We remember Roe v Wade, when the Supreme Court made its landmark decision that medical abortion procedures should be legal in all states – flying in the face of what the religious right had been lobbying for. Now we stand ready for yet another fight against the religious extremists of the right. This one does not simply unfold within the boundaries of the United States, but throughout the world. Stem-cells provide important slates with which to virtually draw up any organ, any tissue that is needed. It has the potential to shrink hospital waiting lists for organs, lower the prices of transplant procedures, and provide needed organs and tissues to hospitals in other nations that previously had to do without. We could, with worldwide support and funding for the stem-cell program, redraw the wheel as it stands in the medical profession. No longer would scientists have too few organs to study, too few tissues to mend those injured. We would very nearly have a bounty, for the first time in medical history, an organ donation bounty! The religious fanatics of the right flock and picket because, to get the stem cells, to obtain these building blocks that would cure and help find cures for billions, we must remove them from fetuses. Now, I’m respecting of the views of others, but when you are laying out the equation of one potential life as defined by the Supreme Court, one fetus to save millions of lives, it is the good of the whole that must prevail. How foolish we would be to sacrifice the good of billions, of very nearly all the world, because the skewing in the religious right declares we should not. We must remember that there is an area of the world where religion has been granted carte blanche in drafting what is just and what is not. We call that area the Middle East, the Cradle of Terror, the focus of our President’s woes. The religious right must know that they cannot prevent the easing of the ills of the world simply because they feel it is not right. An aborted fetus, instead of going to waste as the religious right prefers they do now, since they are unable to stop the abortion process itself, could go to infinite use for millions in need. Stem-cells allow us to help our ailing brethren. What is more noble than that? ------------ About the author: Max Burns lives in Indianapolis and interns with the Indiana Democratic Party. He is the webmaster of The Foaming Liberal and author of the fantasy-fiction novel Alcardia. He is currently a junior at Lawrence North High School and is active in political clubs and associations. Email: MBurns_NS@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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