I completely agree with dolly. There will always be abortions, so why not let some good come out of the bad!

Please, pleas enote that abortions are *not* a related issue. These cells are taken from discarded embryo in the fertility treatment business. Fertilised cells only a few hours old--not fetuses.

true - it's hard at times to keep the issues separate because you *are* dealing with a lot of very volutile issues....

Mix it all in with cloning (now they are trying to clone the emrbyos) and it does get complicated. But if some of the less related issues could be teased out there might be a bit less resistance!

I don't understand why not either. It can benefit so many different people and cure so many different things. So much potential. I think that we just need to leave personal and religious beliefs out; this is science. I would literally donate my eggs for free for science purposes because I believe in this way so much!

As long as abortion is legal, there should be funding for stem cell research.

Interesting thread! I had to look things up and I've learned a lot.

The embryonic stem cells that are talked about for this research come from fertility procedures, because the cells used are stem cells gotten from the inner cell mass of an early stage embryo known as a blastocyst. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4-5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50-150 cells.

Fertility clinics are the only place where eggs are fertilized and can be collected at the 4-5 day time period. These cells can't be collected from inside a woman and those cells are the only ones that might grow to become a fetus later on. In real life, blastocysts aren't even implanted in the uterine wall yet so many don't even make it to become a baby.

The people objecting to their use in research -- I've read -- think that since all life is sacred, then these cells are life and shouldn't be used for anything other than for trying to be implanted to became a fetus, even though many of them die in the process. The cells that would be used for research are the ones that won't ever be used to try and make a child. These cells are usually just thrown out.

I think that using the embryonic cells for research is more respectful than throwing them out, whether or not you if you think that they are life or if you think they are just a few cells.

I think it's better to use them than to just get rid of them.