How do you feel about stem cells?

[bicentennial_baby]

My Dad has had MS since I was born (30 yrs), my Mom was Dx'd with ALS a month ago. I came across a person on an ALS forum, who has ALS, who is against stem cell treatment/therapy, b/c they see it as a form of 'vampirism'...That kinda shook me. What do y'all think?

[w8liftinglady]

1. I would gladly be a stem cell donor-I have cared for so many who could benefit

from this research.

[bicentennial_baby]

3. Thank you

:pals:

[Disturbed]

35. I feel fine about stem cells of every kind.

Seriously, it is shameful to throw away stem cells that could be used to benefit people.

[terisan]

2. In favor of stem cell treatments. Hope your parents can benefit.

[bicentennial_baby]

4. I don't have my hopes up, but

I think this research needs to be pursued, regardless. :)

[ruggerson]

5. it's one issue that makes me see red

I'm sorry, I don't see their point of view. Living, rational children and adults are worth more than a clump of cells. Bush has condemned tens of millions of people to more suffering because he has stalled federally funded research for eight years. EIGHT YEARS! For this and this alone, he should be in jail.

[bicentennial_baby]

8. Oh, I agree!

It just blew me back to see someone with ALS opposing it...Hello! Uncurable, totally terminal and fatal disease!!

x(

[ruggerson]

19. Put it this way

if I didn't loathe the religious rightwing because I'm gay, I would loathe them simply on the issue of stem cells.

They are despicable, disgusting human beings with no understanding or care for their fellow human beings. I can't express in words how much I despise these people.

[babylonsister]

6. Worst decision the blivet ever made, ever. We all know someone

who would benefit, and he doesn't give a shit.
I'm sorry for your misfortune; you'd be amazed at how many more people are in the same boat, one way or the other.
It sucks because besides removing science, he's removed 'hope'.
This man is such a putz.

[bicentennial_baby]

9. Good way to put it...Removing Hope...

x(

:pals:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. I am absolutely in favor of their use!

All those little frozen embryos are going to die anyhow...

I want their deaths to mean something...

Stem cells does it for me...

Vampirism?

Where do these people come from?

Since when should a little clump of cells be considered a human?

Or have greater importance than the sick folks already here?

You have my complete sympathies, my dear bi_baby...:hug:

[nancyr]

10. I am very much in favor of stem cell research and treatment.

I think that anyone who looks upon it as "vampirism" needs to seriously re-tool their thinking.

[bicentennial_baby]

11. I agree...that thinking scares me...

:scared:

[Colorado Progressive]

12. lost dad to cancer, and his right to life was ignored

Cant tell you how angry I get when these so called right-to-lifers try to control who has the right to life and who doesnt. A blob of cells has a right to life but a living human doesnt. I have an MS in Biology so I am not just blowing shit out my ass. Allowing living people to die at the expense of potential living people....whats the point?

I sincerely wish you luck with your parents, and hopefully a Democrat will be elected on 08 to help you.

[bicentennial_baby]

13. ....

:hug: I'm fighting hard for Mom, especially. :hug:

[Colorado Progressive]

22. By the way he was a vietnam vet

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[bicentennial_baby]

24. My Dad is a Vietnam Vet as well..

:hug:

AF, here. Fully covered by the VA, thankfully. We don't do enough for our Vets, at all. x(

[Colorado Progressive]

29. not only that, we dont investigate why so many of these men have cancers and such

hugs and I'm so sorry
:hug:

[bicentennial_baby]

31. Exactly!!

They consider my Dad's MS to be 100% service connected, with full bennies, but...Why the hell do they consider it to be that?! We have wondered that for decades, really... :(

Thank you :hug:

[Colorado Progressive]

36. My dad was in the navy, on a nuclear ship,and he remembered

hanging over the ship painting it, with lead based paint. In the open ocean, just hangin there from some ropes painting the side of a frickin ship. My dad grew up in So Cal on Hermosa beach surfing, he loved the waves, but the heights terrified him. The lead based paint/nuclear crap could have caused so much damage. If my dad hadn't been such a great person I might not mind so much, but I will always wonder what he was exposed to during those times....

[Labors of Hercules]

14. Stem cell research should be just like all research,,,

limited by palpable respect for the specific area of study under which the research is warranted, and not by some stupid arbitrary dogma.

[bicentennial_baby]

17. wise words...

thank you :pals:

[Az]

15. They offer great hope and promise to the world

They may end suffering and give lives back to people. I can think of nothing more important.

[bicentennial_baby]

16. I completely agree

:toast:

[Warren DeMontague]

18. I think that if they're old enough to fight in a war, they're old enough to vote and drink in a bar.

Seriously, the folks holding back science because they want to protect the "rights" of clumps of cells that -in the case of IVF clinics, at least- are destined to be thrown away...

Well, I have a relative with CP. It infuriates me no end that these flat-Earth religious loonies are keeping OTHER people in their misery because of THEIR stupid superstitious idiotic dogma. They can all go fuck themselves, individually or collectively.

[saracat]

20. Some of these people blow my mind! By their definition every

woman who has had her monthly cycle is a murderess as she has destroyed "potential" life by not being impregnated and every guy who has a "wet dream is a murderer as he had destroyed " potential Life" Give me a break.What gives them the right to decide not only what is life but who gets to live and what their quality of life should be.I support stem cell 100% and i also have a condition which might benefit from this .And I believe I am worth more than any "potential life" because I AM alive!

[bicentennial_baby]

21. well said!!

:applause: Thank you :)

[Colorado Progressive]

23. precisely, life must come before potential life n/t

[Az]

26. Its not a question of life, but of identity

A simple questions shows the difference. Which would you rather have preserved? A sample of your skins cells (life) or your mind (identity)?

Life seems to be necessary for a mind to arise but that does not mean that where there is life there is a mind. It takes very specific structures to give rise to a mind. And those structures simply do not exist for the first two trimesters of fetal development.

Yes, it destroys life. But so to does scratching your arm. You kill human skin cells when you scratch your arm. And if life is all that matters then you have murdered yourself on a regular basis.

Its the mind that matters. Not life.

[saracat]

37. That reminds me of a conversation I had with a girlfriend who happens to be a doctor

regarding abortion.We were discussing abortion under the circumstances where a threat to the mother's life existed.She said she would have absolutely NO qualms about having such an abortion herself because she "knew" who she was and what she could contribute to society whereas the embryo was an unknown and only a "potential" with just as much chance of being Charles Manson as Albert Einstein or anything in between! I completely concur with this and consider it an applicable argument for stem cell as well.

[Greyhound]

25. They're quite good in a butter-garlic sauce...

:rofl:

But seriously, the only reason there is even a debate is because we are, in general, the most ignorant boobs on the face of the earth.

Undifferentiated stem cells could well become a panacea in just about every area of medicine, and thanks to the mindless idiots that inhabit vast regions of our nation and control many of our politicians, their benefits will be realized by people in civilized nations while we continue to needlessly suffer and die.

[bicentennial_baby]

28. Geaux Kucinich!!

Love your sig!!

And yes, you are correct :pals:

And no, that's les escargots that go well with garlic and butter ;)

[Spinzonner]

27. They are some of may favorite cells

I wouldn't be here without them

(No intent to belittle the seriousness of the subject or their medical applications)

[Colorado Progressive]

32. dork. apology accepted, point made, we all need stem cells :-)

[napi21]

30. I believe scientists should be free to research any avenue they find

promising in the search to cure diseases. I don't believe in utilizing all their findings personally. But nobody is forcing me. ie: I would never undergo atrificial insemination. I understand there are many people who do, and that should be their decision. I still find it very difficult to understand why opponents of stem cell research object to using the unwanted cells at the clinics for research when they know they will be destroyed anyway.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[bicentennial_baby]

34. OK Grovelbot, but do you have any Stem Cells?!

:P

[azurnoir]

38. Something that almost everyone can do

Is to, if you are expecting a baby donate the umbilical cord blood, which is very rich in stem cells and more effective in bone marrow transplants than bone marrow. Most hosptals have the paperwork so just ask your doc or midwife.

[bicentennial_baby]

39. I will do that...

We're hopefully going to have a baby next year. I am SO going to do that. Thank you!!