Stem Cell research and Religious Objectors

[brettdale]

"This was posted on another board"

Johann Hari: Stem-cell research is Liberation Biology - and the religious objectors are costing lives

The religious damned organ donation, autopsies, IVF and even pasteurised milk
Published: 14 June 2007

In the black gloop of down-beat news on global warming and Iraq, we sometimes forget that, in at least one respect, we are living through a shimmering moment of progress that should fill us with awe. The 21st century is - as the science writer Ronald Bailey puts it - an era of Liberation Biology. Every week now, scientists are steadily defusing the diseases that have cut human life short for millennia, and stolen from us the grandparents we never knew or the lovers who died too soon. They are setting us free.

Only yesterday, it was revealed by Yale University scientists that they have been able to make primates with severe Parkinson's disease walk and eat unaided, by injecting them with human neural stem cells. The implications for further research into humans are obvious - and dazzling.

Even those of us who are not privileged to be scientists can get the gist of what is happening. In 1998, researchers were first able to isolate embryonic stem cells - immature cells taken from human embyros.

These cells matter because they have the potential to develop into many different types of tissue. Scientists are now slowly discovering which molecular signals make them develop in different ways. If they can unlock this code - if they can make the cells grow into whatever we need - they will be able to transplant nerve cells into broken spines, making the lame walk. They will be able to inject insulin-producing cells into diabetics. They will be able to generate motor-neurone cells to treat Parkinson's. And on the list goes, each one freeing millions of humans from misery.

But - incredibly- there is a large slice of humanity that stubbornly refuses to see any of this as progress. Instead, they see it as a massacre.

read the whole article at http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2655896.ece

So who's against progress then? Oh, yes, best to leave the sick to the mercy of their god, than try to actually really help them.

[iamahaingttta]

1. Personally, I believe that if the...

...religiously insane want to die prematurely because their beliefs tell them to, we should encourage them not to seek stem cell treatments. However, I also believe that they should leave the rest of us the fuck alone to do what we see fit for ourselves.

Of course, the religiously insane have NEVER left the rest of us the fuck alone...