Stem cell research

Okay, I admit, I didn't know much about embryonic stem cell research until earlier this morning, reading about the House bill that would expand its application. Sure, I knew what they did with stem cells, and how research with them could help people with grave diseases. I knew that the pro-life crowd was very much against embryonic stem cell research, and that Bush had come out saying that new stem cell lines would not be researched.

What I did not know is that embryonic stem cells don't come from developed fetuses. They come from 5-day old blastocysts, which are basically balls of about 100 stem cells which in no way resembles a human life. Embryonic stem cells come from blastocysts which are otherwise going to be destroyed.

Honestly, I really fail to see the outrage about this. If they're going to be destroyed anyway, why not use them for potentially beneficial purposes?

In the article I referenced above, Rep. Michael Pence (R-IN) says, "I think it's morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use it to fund research that they find morally objectionable." Well, Michael, I think it would be morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of anti-war Americans and use it to fund a war that they find morally objectionable. Is there a difference between those two arguments? Nope, not really. Their flaw is that they represent half of the population as the whole, and the other half as non-existent, without valid opinions of their own.

Fargus...