by Allie Martin and Bill Fancher
(AgapePress) – While President Bush is expected to announce soon his proposal to regulate embryonic stem cell research, nearly two dozen states already have laws on the books governing research on human embryos.
Legal experts say the laws, many of which date back to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, could make it tough on scientists and researchers. At least nine states ban any experimenting with human embryos and some states prohibit payment for embryonic tissue.
According to The New York Times, such laws could prevent scientists from buying the cells, even if the President approves federal funding for stem cell research. Currently, South Dakota is the only state in the nation that bans stem cell studies. In fact, it is a misdemeanor in that state to experiment with cells or tissues obtained from human embryos.
Proponents of the research say the cells, which are extracted from the inner mass of a human embryos, hold great promise for treating disease. Pro-life advocates say stem cell research is tantamount to murder as human embryos must be destroyed in the process.
Dr. David Stevens of the Christian Medical and Dental Society says there is an aspect of embryonic stem cell research that is not getting any attention.
“Even if embryonic stem cells are successful, you still have the problem of tissue rejection,” Stevens says. “To be able to use [the stem cells], you would actually have to clone the individual that you want to treat, create an embryo, which is a twin of themselves, sacrifice that twin, and take those cells and use them for therapy in that person.
“So instead of having one ethical issue, you have two,” he says. “Going down the embryonic stem cell route is the wrong path, and once we head down it we've got nothing but problems ahead.”
Stevens feels the willingness of those who favor embryonic stem cell research to sacrifice some lives for the good of others is terrible. He says ethical alternatives must be pursued in stem cell research, and he claims some of those alternatives offer more hope for success than the embryonic stem cells.
“People don't realize that there's an ethical alternative which is as promising or more promising available to us,” he says. “If we look at adult stem cells [and] put our money into that, we'll get those discoveries that we need to cure diabetes, Parkinson's, and a lot of other problems … that all of us are concerned about.”
He is hoping the President will decide soon to quit funding embryonic stem cell research with tax dollars.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
