Stem-cell research is pro-life

Boston Herald ^ | Monday, April 4, 2005 | John Kerry

[Radix]

 For everyone, the issue of stem-cell research is deeply personal and fundamentally moral. We each dread getting a call from a doctor with the results of a diagnosis that makes our heart sink, or the day we say goodbye to a loved one.
     I'll never forget a woman I met last fall at a town hall meeting on stem-cell research. She stood up, her frail body shaking, and pleaded for her government to embrace stem-cell research. It was the moral clarity of her message that will stay with me forever.
     ``It's too late for me,'' she said, ``but we need to do this for those who still have hope.''
     It's not too late for 13-year- old Garrett Burgess of Chelmsford, paralyzed at the age of 5, who traveled to all 50 states with his father to make the case for stem-cell research his doctors believe hold the promise that he can one day walk again.
     In Massachusetts, we need to think of this moral challenge as Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio] decides whether to sign or veto landmark legislation to allow research that holds out hope for millions. It's a question of our values as a state and a people, and these questions should never be answered lightly - but they must be answered.
     More than 100 million Americans suffer from illnesses that one day might be wiped away with stem-cell therapy. Stem cells could replace damaged heart cells or cells destroyed by cancer, offering a new lease on life to those with a diagnosis that once came with a death sentence. Stem cells have the power to slow the loss of a grandmother's memory, calm the hand of an uncle with Parkinson's, save a child from a lifetime of daily insulin shots or permanently lift a best friend from a wheelchair.
     Some of the most pioneering cures and treatments are now right at our fingertips, but because of politics they could remain beyond reach.
     Nationally, America has been losing its lead in science. Our share of industrial patents is down, our share of Nobel prizes is down, our published research is down and the number of doctorates in the sciences is down.
     This is not the way we do things in Massachusetts. We're a state of discovery - a place where innovators and optimists are free to dream and explore. Where government encourages creativity and entrepreneurship instead of stifling it. Where we're always pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
     This hasn't just been a story of scientific imagination, but of political imagination - from leaders at every step who recognized the hope and possibilities of science to save lives.
     And that's why this groundbreaking legislation on stem-cell research must become law. Every day that we wait, more than 3,000 Americans die from diseases that may someday be treatable because of stem-cell research.
     We must make funding for this research a priority. Above all, we must look to the future not with fear, but with the hope and the faith that advances in science will advance our highest ideals.
     Progress has always brought with it the worry that we have gone too far. Some questioned the morality of heart transplants. We heard the same kind of arguments against biotech research that now saves stroke victims and leukemia patients.
     The question is no different on stem-cell research. People of good will and good sense can resolve the ethical issues without stopping lifesaving research. There's already bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate to ban human cloning and allow therapeutic cloning to advance. This issue transcends political labels. That's why Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Nancy Reagan refuse to tie the hands of doctors and oppose restrictions on lifesaving research.
     It should be no different in our state. Massachusetts has long led the country in great discoveries, always upholding the highest standards, ensuring our breakthroughs and our beliefs go hand-in-hand. And when it comes to stem-cell research, policymakers have worked to find common ground and draw strict and appropriate ethical guidelines, and they've succeeded.
     I hope that Romney signs this bill and makes it clear that in Massachusetts, we say yes to knowledge, yes to discovery and yes to leading a new era of hope for all.

[Tribune7]

When is he going to sign Form 180? Didn't he promise he was going to do that?

[CyberAnt]

They just don't get it. You don't kill unborn children to use to keep your loved one alive - sorry!

No wonder the democrats are in such trouble with moral values - they don't even know what moral values are.

[Mr. Silverback]

As the good Doctor McCoy once said, "I'd pay real money if he'd shut up."

ProLife Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

``It's too late for me,'' she said, ``but we need to do this for those who still have hope.''

It's not too late for 13-year- old Garrett Burgess of Chelmsford, paralyzed at the age of 5, who traveled to all 50 states with his father to make the case for stem-cell research his doctors believe hold the promise that he can one day walk again.

How late is it for the embroyo [baby] that is killed to provide the stem cells, senator? What's the term for those that eat their young?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Thanks for the ping!

[onedoug]

I'll never forget a woman I met last fall at a town hall meeting....

"Mr., I met a man once, who...."

"I guess none of our stories is very funny...."

[hocndoc]

Let's keep it straight: there is unethical research and ethical research.

Any research that purposefully and intentionally by design kills a human being or any of our children, is unethical.

Non-embryonic stem cells are ethical. There are 2 women in Texas who went to Portugal to receive therapy with their own stem cells. My granddaughter and thousands of patients have received umbilical stem cell bone marrow transplants. Researchers in Australia reported that they are able to get multiple lines of easily grown, self-reproducing stem cells from the sensory cells in the nasal mucosa.

[pyoursu]

Yes to stem cell research, all kinds, yes.

We need to cure people and keep them working, to pay taxes.

When they can't pay taxes anymore, pull their feeding tubes.

[hocndoc]

Thanks for the ping!

[Mr. Silverback]

De nada!

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Embryonic stem-cell research is to pro-life,

as homosexuality is to celibacy.

Please crawl back under your sewer cover Flipper John.

[lainde]

bttt

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[Petronski]

What we oppose is embroynic stem cell research, also known as clone & kill. It is immoral to create a human life in order to kill it for any reason.

Brilliant!

[bitt]

[agrace]

Really. His wife could fund some serious research. But of course the tax payers should pay for it instead.

Oh and by the way, Kerry, I agree with you - stem cell research IS moral...when done with adult cells. It's the embryonic - and so far completely unsuccessful - kind that's wholly immoral.

[infidel29]

Easily-----he's a DEMOCRAT...

Well, yeah, there's that....:)