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Scientists have used injections of human stem cells to heal spinal injuries in paralysed mice, allowing them to walk normally again. The research, which was funded by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, suggests that stem cells could be used to repair spinal damage in people who have suffered damaging accidents or disease, although further studies, including safety tests, are needed before the treatment can go into human trials. Neuroscientist Aileen Anderson and her team at the Reeve-Irvine Research Centre at the University of California, Irvine, used stem cells taken from the neural tissue of aborted foetuses. When injected into the...

Since 2001 when stem cell research first captured our nation’s attention, I’ve said many times the issue will have to be reviewed on an ongoing basis -- and not just because the science holds tremendous promise, or because it’s developing with breathtaking speed. Indeed, stem cell research presents the first major moral and ethical challenge to biomedical research in the 21st century. In this age of unprecedented discovery, challenges that arise from the nexus of advancing science and ethical considerations will come with increasing frequency. How can they not? Every day we unlock more of the mysteries of human life...

CANNIBALIZING HUMAN’S FOR ‘ENLIGHTENED MEDICAL APPLICATIONS’ Washington Journal, on the morning of Monday, June 6, 2005, had as their guest Robert Klein, a leader in the drive to fund and promote embryo stem cell harvesting and experimentation in California. It was a disturbing episode on several levels, mostly because of false assertions from Mister Klein and several supporting callers. There is fundamental mischaracterization, a big lie, at the foundation of Mister Klein’s assertions regarding the efficacy of killing embryos for their stem cell body parts, and that foundational lie deceives many in the public because of their lack of factual...

British scientists say they have successfully cloned a human embryo - the country's first. The Newcastle University team took eggs from 11 women, removed the genetic material and replaced it with DNA from embryonic stem cells. Three of the resultant clones lived and grew in the laboratory for three days and one survived for five days. The critical factor for success appeared to be how quickly the egg was collected and manipulated. Patient-specific stem cell first Any longer than an hour and there was no success, Professor Alison Murdoch and colleagues found. The clone that lasted for five days had...

Reeve's Star-Packed Tribute Saturday October 30, 08:25 AM For the last nine years of his life, Christopher Reeve was paralyzed, yet he still managed to move the hearts of innumerable individuals. More than 900 people turned out Friday to pay tribute to the late actor at an invitation-only memorial at the Juilliard School in New York, where Reeve honed his craft more than 30 years ago before bursting onto the big screen as Superman. Individuals who figured in different aspects of Reeve's life were due to speak at the service, including family members, fellow actors, like-minded activists and politicians. Reeve's...

SANTA FE, United States (AFP) - Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) hailed actor Christopher Reeve "America's hero," and vowed to keep up the campaign for stem cell research championed by the man known best as "Superman." In a statement released here, Kerry said he considered Reeve, who died Sunday nine years after being paralyzed from the neck down, a friend. "He was an inspiration to all of us and gave hope to millions of Americans who are counting on the life-saving cures that science and research can provide. "He met every challenge with a courage...

BISMARCK -- First, a series of heterosexual couples kiss. Then, two men are shown about to lock lips. All are dressed for a wedding. That is followed by three people, depicting a wedding of two men and a woman. The campaign commercial's message: Sen. Byron Dorgan supports gay marriage and unless North Dakotans vote for Republican Mike Liffrig for the U.S. Senate, they can "kiss their morals goodbye." Democrats demanded Tuesday that Liffrig pull the plug on that ad and another commercial that claims Dorgan supports human cloning, saying the allegations are lies. The ads began running statewide Monday and...

CAMDEN, New Jersey, August 27, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fertility specialists create more embryos than are needed when performing in-vitro fertilization. The question arises: what is done with all the "extra" embryonic children? Researchers at Rutgers and Pennsylvania State Universities conducted a survey of fertility clinics to answer the dilemma. The scientists found that besides simple disposal, clinics will also offer other options, such as adoption. Some clinics even allow the parents to take their embryonic children home, or allow them to attend a "funeral" for the children. "There is certainly a lot more ambivalence about what embryos are than I...

He just announced this on Hardball; he said that Kerry told him this personally on the phone while they were discussing Reagan's appearance at the Democratic Convention that his first act in office if he's elected will be to sign an executive order to reverse Bush's stem cell policy.

RON REAGAN, JR. TO GIVE PRIMETIME SPEECH AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION ON STEM CELL RESEARCH, Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter tells ABC News' Dan Harris...

Hatch: Senate Supports Stem Cell Research Sun Jul 4, 5:18 PM ET Add Politics - AP to My Yahoo! WASHINGTON - Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican supporter of embryonic stem cell research, said Sunday there is wide support in the Senate to ease the Bush administration's restrictive policy. Hatch said supporters have more than the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, but he's unsure whether Congress would act "in this hot political atmosphere." The Utah senator predicted on CNN's "Late Edition" that the administration and supporters of the research would reach a compromise that would include moral and ethical...

Andrew Sullivan: God help us: a holy war for the White House One of the many ways in which America has always been exceptional is in the role of religion. It has far higher rates of church attendance than other developed countries, constant religious references in public life, an enormous network of religious charities that do amazing work and a perpetual churning of spiritual frenzy. If you are a person of faith, as I am, it’s impressive. But it’s also fraught with danger and occasional excess. American religion justified the enslavement of African-Americans and their emancipation; it fuelled the Great...

ASHINGTON, June 14 - As Republicans try to cloak President Bush in the mantle of Ronald Reagan, their biggest obstacle may be Mr. Reagan's own family.Even before Mr. Reagan died, Nancy Reagan and her daughter, Patti Davis, made their opposition to Mr. Bush's policy on stem-cell research well known. But on Friday, at the culmination of an emotional week of mourning for the former president, his son Ron Reagan delivered a eulogy that castigated politicians who use religion "to gain political advantage," a comment that was being interpreted in Washington as a not-so-subtle slap at Mr. Bush.The remark has provoked...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (Reuters) - Former First Lady Nancy Reagan made an impassioned call for taking controversial stem cell research out of the political arena, saying it could help cure illnesses like Alzheimer's, which so sorely afflicts her husband. With the Bush administration and anti-abortion groups strongly opposing stem cell research, Mrs. Reagan at a celebrity-packed dinner in Beverly on Saturday night lent a powerful conservative Republican voice to the debate. Speaking to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Mrs. Reagan noted that Alzheimer's had taken her husband Ronald Reagan "to a distant place where I can no longer reach him...

In April of 1997, Life Dynamics began an undercover investigation that eventually exposed the hidden industry that markets body parts harvested from babies killed by elective abortions. (Most of the information we gathered was provided by people working inside of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic located in Overland Park, Kansas.) The Marketing of Aborted Babies is a thorough report on that investigation and contains data, analyses and documentation not previously released to the public. This book contains exact copies of baby body parts orders and price lists. These documents were not altered in any way other than to assign them...

he New Jersey state legislature recently passed a "clone and kill" bill that allows the creation of cloned human embryos that can be implanted into a woman's womb and then destroyed at any point during their development for use in scientific research. As expected, New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey signed the bill, making it be the most extreme law ever passed regarding human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. Supporters say it is an innocuous and forward-looking law opposed only by extremists. But the new statute will have morally disastrous effects. Most notably, it creates a commercial market for the...