Good question asked on Meet The Press

[hollowdweller]

The question was asked that if you oppose embryonic stem cell research then would you make it a crime for the fertility clinics to discard the fertilized embryos?

This really cuts to the heart of the argument. I mean if they are really concerned about it why not ban fertility clinics and that would take care of the problem?

[smoogatz]

1. Who asked it, who'd they ask, and what was the answer?

The bobbleheads make me homicidal, so I'm not watching.

[liam_laddie]

4. MD, US Senate contenders

Tim Russert was feeling his oats this a.m.; Steele the R stammered around, Cardin the D outlined his position fairly well...pro-research.

[hollowdweller]

9. Stammered around is right.

I wondered why I had never seen anybody bring out this contradiction. That it was OK for fertility clinics to toss the embryos, but not for them to be used to potentially help someone.

[abluelady]

2. They can't answer that question.

Have you noticed? Just another stupid wedge issue they put out there.

[PATRICK]

3. In talking to people

for whom this is a BIG issue it is puzzling why this line of defense ignores in vitro fertilization as the cause of so many discarded embryos. The actual principle of using human tissue? These lines of moral outrage shift like crazy leaving behind past hard lines in the dust of forgotten history. Remember the bugaboos about transplants still ominously portrayed in lowbrow cult science fiction? ALWAYS when the good results actually poor in and the world gets used to routine benefits the line disappears. Anti-vivisectionists and other particular exceptions notwithstanding the jury is already in for the majority of the population BUT there are still otherwise rational, well-meaning people sticking to this line of the ideal as if it were infanticide. The argument by the papacy that this causes an abasement of the value of life in society seems another unproven scare tactic. Those defending pain and natural death don't necessarily have much to offer for the value of human life, especially when they aggressively punish hope with an anger that does not ring of true compassion.

Cherry picking rage issues and lines in the sand. I thought Birthright(Catholic organization) whose ACTIONS and principles are closer to what my local Dem candidate espouses was THE best response to a societal issue that would always be there. But no, always certain activists enjoyed the rage over abortion, never doing anything compassionate or positive, never actively helping the born or the mothers.
Grasping the nobility of the fanatic it is all about restoring prohibition and punishment and in that spirit all manner of other ills accrued that had as little to do with the value of human life as the crusade had to do with true compassion. Yet that is an exaggeration to apply to all just as the black and white extremists miss most of the truth. Reason and compassion as a common ground can prevail.

[sendero]

5. Don't ask these folks to think..

... they aren't capable of it. You'll make their heads explode, then it will be your fault.

[alfredo]

6. Whacking off kills millions of sperm and should

be illegal.

Of course if God didn't want us to do that, he would have either not given us hands or made our arms shorter.

[footinmouth]

7. I watched the debate

Tim Russert asked Michael Steele about the fertility clinics. I'm sorry but I can't remember the exact wording of the question or the answer. As all I remember, is that Mr. Steele gave a rather non-committal answer.

I've often wondered why the right does not wage war against these clinics. They must be aware that discarded embryos are one of the results of this advance in science. They seem to pick and choose which advances in science to support. It's perfectly ok to create the embryos to create life, yet unacceptable to use them to enhance the lives of those already here. They really should be directing their efforts at the fertility clinics, not the embryonic stem cell research. I'm constantly amazed at the double speak from the far right.

[Ilsa]

8. And the other question: should IVF be legal if too many

"snowflakes" are created to be born? (My answer: "No".)

And what happens to all those thoughtless, brainless "souls" that get snuffed out, whether by miscarriage, or getting tossed out of the deep freeze, or by embryonic stem cell research? Of there are some thoughtless brainless souls in the GOP that should be made extinct as well.

[frogcycle]

10. not the point

they oppose using embryonic cells for research not because they are "protecting life", but because it will "open the door to cloning, to women selling fetuses, blah, blah blah"

a perfectly logical argument like this one falls on deaf ears to those who, after all, believe in magic. They think somehow that any such research opens the door to the devil - kind of like the thing about a vampire can't enter your house unless you invite it. They are completely illogical crazies. with that mindset, throwing the things in the garbage is fine, but using them for "the devils work" is tantamount to eve taking a bite of the forbidden fruit.

[ContraCommando]

11. "Killing little people"?

I’ve heard several republican pundits say that stem cell research is “killing little people.” Some actually do believe that these, almost microscopic, things are human life, and destroying them is equivalent to murder. I think that sitting around and watching people die, while we could be using our full resources in an attempt to save those individuals, is equivalent to murder. I wish they could see it like that, too.