Free Republic

Below is an illustration from the Family Research Council to help explain the dizzying science behind embryonic stem cell research

Life Issues Forum Farming Humans for Fun and Profitby Richard M. DoerflingerJanuary 20, 2004 "Farming” fetuses for body parts. Human/animal hybrids. Putting unborn humans in animal wombs. Buying and selling human embryos. Patenting human beings. Chapter headings for a science-fiction potboiler? No. Just a typical day at the office for members of the President’s Council on Bioethics. On January 16, The President’s Council released a draft report that deserves attention from all Americans concerned about the use and abuse of science. Its title, “Biotechnology and Public Policy: Biotechnologies Affecting the Beginnings of Human Life,” is far from exciting; but its...

Commentators at the Chicago Tribune and NPR have pointedly questioned why President Bush signed into law S. 3504, the “Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006,” saying that the law deals only with a hypothetical situation because “scientists say [it] is not happening.” Unfortunately, fetal farming, a la artificial wombs, is already underway in Tokyo and in the U.S. Furthermore, the press has failed to expound upon the problem scientists are having experimenting on one- or two-week-old embryos. These embryos fail to develop properly and become useful for embryonic stem cell therapies.Of course, this isn’t the only instance where language...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Scientists in Britain have shown that stem cells extracted from human embryos can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that become eggs or sperm. The research raises the possibility that one day eggs and sperm needed for infertility treatment could be grown in a dish. Preliminary experiments also suggest that scientists may eventually be able to use the technique to create a supply of eggs for cloning. But the more immediate benefit of the work could be a better understanding of why some men and women do not create their own sperm...

For the past few years many of the world's leading scientists have promoted so-called therapeutic cloning as the most promising way to produce clinically useful, genetically tailored, biologically versatile stem cells. That is why claims by a team of South Korean researchers -- one in 2004 that the first cloned human embryo had been produced, then another in 2005 that the process of producing embryonic stem cell lines from cloned embryos could be done routinely and efficiently -- were hailed as a watershed. Hwang Woo Suk, the lead researcher, became an international celebrity. The best American scientists traveled to Seoul...