These days, it's the opponents who are as dishonest as the proponents, though. That's what burns me up.
I'm an old dude...back in my day, conservatism meant honesty, and it meant that we held positions because we believed they were right and we believed we could defend them.
But now, people are calling themselves conservatives yet trying to hard to distort the discussion and debate, rather than address the facts honestly.
The truth is that adult stem-cell research is where nearly all the breakthroughs have been
Of course, that's where nearly of the advanced research has been. And the advanced in adult-cell research relied upon things learned from embryonic-cell research--techniques because that wouldn't have been available without embryonic research.
[...] and the opponents of fetal stem-cell research have been working tirelessly to distinguish that adult stem-cell research is very promising
If they focused on that, I'd have no problem with them.
whereas fetal stem-cell research is unnecessary and barbaric.
See...right there, you are repeating two distortions of the opponents. I don't know of a single place in the entire world that is working with fetal stem-cells rather than either adult or embryonic/blastocystic-derived lines. That is, they are not experimenting on cells from fetuses--but rather from embryos that are so early they wouldn't have even been implanted in the uterus even if they had been fertilized in a woman's body.
In fact, "embryo" gives many people the wrong impression. The actual "embryo" is a blastocyst--only a few days "old" (after fertilization). Here it is, in color (the green part is the part that would grow into a fetus), and black and white...
Also, little of the research is being done on actual cells from embryos, especially in the US. The first clinical study approved for human trials in the US, for example, is using a line from long, long ago.
There is likely much greater promise with induced pluripotent methods, but two things are important to note--1) without embryonic research, we wouldn't have gotten there, 2) because of the restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research, we're not nearly as far along and don't know yet what might be capable, and 3) no embryos need to be killed for this research--it can continue by using existing lines and generating lines from embryos being destroyed every day anyway.
>> These days, it’s the opponents who are as dishonest as the proponents, though. That’s what burns me up. <<
You obviously have profoundly different values and beliefs as proponents. It’s rather sad that you insist that proponents are therefore dishonest when they make statements that reflect those differing values. To wit:
>> Of course, that’s where nearly of the advanced research has been. And the advanced in adult-cell research relied upon things learned from embryonic-cell research—techniques because that wouldn’t have been available without embryonic research. <<
Not at all true. Profoundly untrue. States have spent billions on research which mandates (preversely) that fetal/embryonic/blastocytic stem cells alone be used.
>> I don’t know of a single place in the entire world that is working with fetal stem-cells rather than either adult or embryonic/blastocystic-derived lines. <<
That’s a distinction without a difference for four reasons:
1. Most people understand “fetal” to mean all preborn humans.
2. Googling “blastocytic stem cell research” appears to be a term invented by lay apologists for preborn-humans stem cell research. Even when the companies performing embryonic stem-cell research actually are using blastocytes, they don’t use that term.
3. The REASON people don’t learn such a distinction is that few people hold a moral distinction between killing a fetus and killing an embryo. There isn’t even a term to differentiate between an induced abortion of an embryo and an induced abortion of a fetus, even though the procedures are vastly different.
4. Embryonic and blastocytic stem cell research will lead to technologies which involve fetus harvesting, since that’ll be a far cheaper means of procuring significant numbers of cells.
>> 1) without embryonic research, we wouldn’t have gotten there, <<
Says who? If the successes are on adult stem cell, how can you possibly assert those successes wouldn’t have come about if the early research had used adult stem cells?
>> 2) because of the restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research, we’re not nearly as far along and don’t know yet what might be capable, and <<
Meaningless, since there ARE no restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, only on federally funded stem cell research.
>> 3) no embryos need to be killed for this research—it can continue by using existing lines and generating lines from embryos being destroyed every day anyway. <<
Using discarded IVF embryos or abortion products cheapens those procedures, making them more common. So anyone who opposes those procedures must oppose using the “byproducts” (i.e., human remains) of those procedures. Further, what do you think will happen should one of those lines of research become successful? You’ll create a permanent market for killing preborn human beings.