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Stem Cells and Cloning

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Sishir Chang, May 20, 2005.

  1. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    I think the stem cell and cloning debates are an important offshoot from the abortion debate since any law declaring human life starts at conception would effectively end using stem cells or thereapeutic cloning in the US.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7922271/

    Bush 'very concerned about cloning'
    Vows veto on legislation to ease stem cell research restrictionsThe Associated Press
    Updated: 2:26 p.m. ET May 20, 2005

    WASHINGTON - President Bush on Friday said he would veto legislation that would loose restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and expressed concern about human cloning research in South Korea.

    “I’m very concerned about cloning,” the president said. “I worry about a world in which cloning becomes accepted.”

    White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. “The president is opposed to that,” Duffy said. “That represents exactly what we’re opposed to.”

    South Korean researchers, funded by their government, reported producing human embryos through cloning and then extracting their stem cells. It is a major advancement in the quest to grow patients’ own replacement tissue to treat diseases.

    The president also threatened a veto of legislation that would clear the way for taxpayer money to be spent on embryonic stem cell research.

    A measure by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., would lift Bush’s 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines. Bush said he would veto such a measure if it reached his desk.

    “I made very clear to Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayer’s money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life — I’m against that,” Bush said. “Therefore, if the bill does that, I would veto it.”

    Public reaffirmation
    Bush, in his fifth year in office, has not yet exercised his first veto. The White House also promised a veto this week of a highway bill if it exceeded the administration’s spending limits.

    Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to “pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life.”

    The remark was a public reaffirmation of his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research.

    Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, “The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak.”

    Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year’s election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.
     
  2. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    Cloning advancements are going to happen either in the US or outside of US in countries such as China, South Korea,France, Italy, etc... I do not know if cloning will be good for the mankind but I know it could save many lives in the foreseeable future, and there will be many jobs created in these fields to help the economy.
     
  3. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    More Info.

    Link

    Stem Cell Debate Splits House Republicans By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
    Fri May 20, 8:30 AM ET



    WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders are throwing their weight behind a bill to encourage stem cell research that uses blood from umbilical cords. The measure offers an alternative to spending government money for research that would destroy human embryos.

    ADVERTISEMENT




    House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., had agreed earlier to allow a vote as soon as next week on a bill by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., to lift President Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cells lines.

    But after Castle and other moderate Republicans angered conservatives by sponsoring polls in their districts on the issue, Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said they would pair the bill with a separate measure to encourage umbilical cord stem cell research.

    DeGette on Thursday said the GOP leaders' plan was "a weak attempt to divert support from our bill."

    "The bills are completely compatible," she said. She said she intends to vote for both measures and will encourage other members to do the same.

    Supporters of embryo stem cell research, including Nancy Reagan, say it could lead to cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other degenerative brain and nerve diseases. Opponents say taxpayers should not be forced to pay for such research when large numbers of them believe that the resulting destruction of the embryo is immoral.

    Cord blood cells are similar to embryonic cells but can grow into fewer types of tissues. Extracting stem cells from cord blood does not require the destruction of an embryo.

    "There are some members who might be more inclined to vote no on Castle if they can vote yes on the cord blood bill," Rep. Dave Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Fla., said Thursday.

    The effort to provide undecided members an option more agreeable to anti-abortion groups jeopardizes the momentum the Castle-DeGette measure acquired after President Reagan's death last June and the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case this year. Supporters claim to have about 200 co-sponsors in the 435-member House and commitments from enough other members to garner the 218 votes needed to pass it despite a White House-promised veto.

    A rare split appeared in the House GOP caucus when Weldon and others said some sponsors of the Castle-DeGette bill helped finance a poll by the Winston Group in the districts of fellow Republicans showing that opposing the bill might prove unpopular back home.

    The survey of 1,300 registered voters — about 100 in each if 13 districts — asked respondents for their views on embryonic stem cell research, according to the firm's spokeswoman, Amy Hopcian. Of those polled, 66 percent favored stem cell research, 27 percent opposed it and the rest were undecided.

    The bill's opponents and GOP leaders criticized the polling during two meetings on Wednesday, according to lawmakers and aides. The resentment even spilled onto the House floor, where Rep. Rick Renzi (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who opposes the bill, and Rep. Mark S. Kirk (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., who supports it, got into an argument.
     
  4. krosfyah

    krosfyah Member

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    Exactly my thought. America has limited influence in this respect. Its like the Internet...politicians would like to think they can influence it but they can't. The march to the first human clone has begun whether America is involved or not.

    But wherever there is money to be made, I'm sure America will still be involved. Even the disgusting Oil-4-Food program, America accepted 52% of that oil...cause there was a buck to be had.
     
  5. flamingmoe

    flamingmoe Member

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    your right, we're already being passed up by other countries


    Who's got the stem cells? Not us.
    http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/whos_got_the_stem_cells_not_us/

    The new breakthrough in cloning from South Korea is terrific news, but in many ways it's not at all surprising. Cloning by transplanting somatic cells into enucleated ova has been around for decades�we all knew that all it would take to get it done in humans was persistence and meticulous diligence and practice, practice, practice. This is not to belittle the accomplishment of Hwang's team, who have done an amazing job, but to point out what must be the frustration of being a reproductive biologist in GW Bush's America.

    Carl Zimmer discusses the ironies involved:

    Everything in biology is connected. You don't get to pick and choose which piece you should 'believe' in, and which pieces to reject, on anything other than the evidence. When the Kansas school board says they refuse to accept the central principles of biology, they don't get to turn around and say, "we'd like the benefits of cutting edge biomedical technology, please." When you cut down the tree, you don't get the apples.

    And oh, the possible benefits! The South Korean cell lines have interesting sources, as a Science news article describes:

    Do you know anyone with diabetes? How do you think doctors will ever come up with a cure? These are the tools biomedical researchers need.

    Of course, there will always be ethical issues. This isn't trivial stuff, and it isn't easy. Here's one problem that will have the religious right screaming (and troubles me a bit, too).

    The religious right will freak out because of goofy ideas about the sacredness of eggs, but I don't like it because it is more incentive to take advantage of young women, although at least the National Academies discourage payment for oocytes. The thing is, I think the way to get over this ethical hurdle is to allow scientists to do the research and figure out how to improve success rates, minimize oocyte use, and streamline the whole process. Burying our heads in dogma does not solve any problems.
     
  6. flamingmoe

    flamingmoe Member

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    and then we have the grand hypocrit himself


    Today President Bush announced that he plans to veto any legislation that would loosen restrictions on embryonic stem cell research:

    That's strange. When he's talking about the death penalty, President Bush says he likes policies that destroy life in order to save it:

    So, let's get this straight: President Bush supports state-sanctioned killing because he -believes- that it will save lives, despite the multitude of studies showing that's nonsense. And President Bush opposes research that could rescue millions from the living hell that is Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, spinal cord injury, stroke, etc., because he objects to -destroying- embryonic, in vitro stem cells that would have been discarded anyway.

    Oh, and don't forget, this mangled, convoluted logic is called -principled.- And it shows a committment to a "Culture of Life."

    My head hurts.

    http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=932
     
  7. meggoleggo

    meggoleggo Member

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    I hate this quote more than anything in the world. Bush is so uneducated when it comes to this subject. The vast majority of stem cells are obtained from fertility clinics that have left over embryos that would normally be thrown away anyway.

    And the other thing that bugs me about this whole debate is that people need to keep in mind that an embryo is the prefetal product of conception - it's a fertilized egg. That means that it doesn't have arms or legs or a nervous system or a circulatory system. It's no different than a tumor - it's a set of rapidly dividing cells.

    A fetus is the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth. Fetuses have arms, legs, hearts, lungs, and nerves. Please don't confuse the two. When you think stem cell, don't think of a 7 month fetus.

    And while great ole Bush has made it so that we can't use public funding to start new stem cell research, we can still do it with private funding. But like it's been said, the US is already getting passed up in this area even though we do still have private funding for research. If Halliburton would pick up stem cell research as a new interest, I wonder exactly how fast Bush would change his mind about this....
     
  8. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    If you had posted that in the abortion thread there would be a firestorm.
     
  9. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    forreal

    HYPOTHETICAL:
    Are you ok with someone Cloning himself . . . . for spare parts?
    Are you Ok with Cloning people . . .and tampering with their DNA . .just to be servents/soldiers/slaves?

    At what point would a CLONE become a PERSON?
    Are you ok with folx utilizing the Clones/fetuses like. . uhm. . . bandages. . . use them and through them away?

    Rocket River
     
  10. MartianMan

    MartianMan Member

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    I wonder if pro-life people know that a lot of embryos die even if no forced abortion occurs because of many factors such as non-disjuction, ectopic pregnancies, etc. LOL. Pro-life people! DON'T HAVE SEX. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN ENSURE NO EMBRYOS DIE!!!
     
  11. giddyup

    giddyup Member

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    I'm sure glad my two wives didn't give birth to any tumors!! :eek:

    I daresay it is quite different since we are talking about a moving picture here and not an old Polaroid.
     
  12. giddyup

    giddyup Member

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    The issue is not dying; it's killing.
     
  13. krosfyah

    krosfyah Member

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    Everybody, don't bother arguing with giddyup as he is unwavering on the topic.

    He just wants to save lives at ANY costs.

    Who cares (say 200 years ago) if the baby is born into slavery.

    Who cares if the baby grows up in a slum living off welfare forever.

    Who cares if the parents don't want it and its destined to a life of foster care.

    Who cares if the mothers won't live through delivery.

    Who cares if the mother was raped.

    Who cares that an outright abortion-ban has been ruled unconstitutional for conflicting with basic rights of freedom.

    For giddyup, abortion is the murder of babies and life must be preserved. Oh wait, giddyup supports the Iraq war. He said war is ok. Woops.
     
    #13 krosfyah, May 22, 2005
    Last edited: May 22, 2005
  14. giddyup

    giddyup Member

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    Originally posted by krosfyah

    Everybody, don't bother arguing with giddyup as he is unwavering on the topic.

    <b>And you are wavering like a what? Give me a break! Do you see the abject Politically Correct Gestapo technique that you have just applied to a discussion?</b>

    He just wants to save lives at ANY costs.

    <b>The particular focus here is totally innocent lives...</b>

    Who cares (say 200 years ago) if the baby is born into slavery.

    <b>Let the baby decide if they want to live as a slave or run away or die fighting for their own freedom. Who are you to decide for them?</b>

    Who cares if the baby grows up in a slum living off welfare forever.

    <b>The baby cares. If s/he doesn't appreciate Life, they can commit suicide-- but it is their choice.</b>

    Who cares if the parents don't want it and its destined to a life of foster care.

    <b>Liberalize adoption. Speed up the process. Reform foster care. Any of those are better that abortion on demand.</b>

    Who cares if the mothers won't live through delivery.

    <b>When did I ever say that I objected to the choice for abortion when the mother's health is truly as risk? Do you even bother to try and understand my positions or do you just paint with a dismissive broad stroke?</b>

    Who cares if the mother was raped.

    <b>I care.</b>

    Who cares that an outright abortion-ban has been ruled unconstitutional for conflicting with basic rights of freedom.

    <b>Things can change. Didn't that ruling come out of THE ME DECADE? LOL.</b>

    For giddyup, abortion is the murder of babies and life must be preserved. Oh wait, giddyup supports the Iraq war. He said war is ok. Woops.

    <b>It is called a discriminating mind. I can see both similarities and differences and can so come to different conclusions about events that may share some characterisitics but not all. Simple.

    Apparently you see no difference between killing and dying. Is that so?</b>
     
  15. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    You're most assurdedly right, giddy. If stem cell reasearch is being stopped for "religious" reasons, which I personally think are political reasons as far as Mr. Bush and company are concerned, and could cure devastating deseases if allowed and funded in the degree it should be, then you are killing people who could otherwise be helped and/or cured as sure as if you put a loaded gun to their head and pulled the trigger.

    The issue is about life. The lives of those with deadly deseases. What would be used for the research that might very well save them is currently being tossed into a medical dumpster. To not use it is criminal, in my opinion. I find the argument from the other side, no offense personally to you, giddy, to be akin with those who wanted Galileo burned at the stake for proving the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not the other way around.

    That's all I have to say on the subject. I've read enough pissing matches about "life" as seen from a religious context, abortion, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure Yoda, if he really existed, would find the "yada yada" of this tempest in a teapot absurd. May the force be with those who are truly for life and cutting edge scientific reasearch to save it. And may we be saved from another President as dense, stupid, idiotic, rediculous, criminal, lying and damaging to our beloved country as the fool we have now.


    Here's a related article about how the President's hurting our own state that is directly related to this subject:


    THE GREAT DIVIDE
    Partisan fractures reach into the countryside
    As nation becomes more polarized, states and cities define futures by taking stands on such issues as stem cells, gay marriage.


    By Bill Bishop

    AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

    Sunday, May 22, 2005

    One in an occasional series exploring the reasons for the nation's increasingly bitter political culture.

    Several scientists are "waiting to see what happens" with proposed legislation banning embryonic stem cell research before deciding whether to accept jobs in Texas, a University of Texas official told a state Senate committee this week.

    Dr. Kenneth I. Shine, executive vice chancellor for health affairs for the University of Texas System, said he is recruiting several researchers who "don't want to be in positions where they can't pursue this line of research."

    And if the Legislature does ban stem cell research, there will be a "giant sucking sound" as researchers already here flee the state to more hospitable political atmospheres in California or New Jersey, said Dr. William Brinkley, dean of Baylor's graduate school of biomedical sciences.

    It's unlikely the stem cell research ban will pass in the legislative session's final week. But its mere consideration by state lawmakers is one piece in a larger mosaic, as the political fractures evident in the two most recent presidential elections begin reaching into statehouses and city halls.

    As many states tip strongly toward either Republicans or Democrats, they are increasingly considering, and sometimes enacting, policies that reflect the extremes of the country's politics.

    These decisions are affecting where people choose to live and work.


    Los Angeles removes the cross from its county seal. Texas asks the U.S. Supreme Court to let a granite tablet of the Ten Commandments remain on the state Capitol grounds.

    Kansas places a ban on same-sex marriages in its state constitution, and the Connecticut Legislature votes to allow gay unions.

    The Democratic Maryland Legislature requires Wal-Mart to provide health insurance, only to have the plan vetoed by Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. The Florida Legislature passes its "Stand Your Ground" legislation allowing pistol-packing citizens to use deadly force in a public place if threatened, and the National Rifle Association vows to export the legislation to other states.

    California (especially Los Angeles), Connecticut and Maryland all voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2000 and 2004. Texas, Kansas and Florida voted for George W. Bush.

    "You can't wait for Congress; you fight it out where you've got the votes," said Alan Rosenthal, a Rutgers University political scientist. "You have the blue states and the red states. You might say we've got two political cultures, or the development of two political cultures."

    In the past 30 years, most U.S. communities have become increasingly Democratic or Republican, as people cluster in communities of like-mindedness.

    Greater polarization leads to "greater efforts at the state level to enact policies that reflect the views of the public in that state," said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. So states pick sides. They bypass Congress and the president and choose futures that often fall far to one side of the national political divisions.

    Twelve states and two cities in early April asked a federal appeals court to make the federal Environmental Protection Agency regulate greenhouse gases.

    All but one of the states voted Democratic in both of the past two presidential elections, and the 12th — New Mexico — tipped Republican only in 2004. The two cities, Washington and Baltimore, were among the nation's most Democratic metro areas in 2004.

    There is an explicit attempt to move national policy locally.

    "What we did in Connecticut in passing civil union legislation was not only to confer full legal equality under law to same-sex couples but to send a powerful message to the rest of the country," said Connecticut state Sen. Andrew McDonald, sponsor of the state's new gay union law.

    "Everybody understood that this was not just a Connecticut issue, that this was going to serve as a platform for many other discussions and debates around the country," McDonald said.

    States are "sending signals," said Abramowitz, telling the world about the kinds of places they intend to be. And these signals in turn "might influence decisions about where people choose to live."


    It's one of the vagaries of science that a jellyfish that produces green fluorescent protein could help stem cell research advance in Houston.

    Michael Mancini holds up a panel of six photographs of a cell, all different colors.

    "It's my tribute to Andy Warhol," Mancini says of the cells colored with the neon intensity of the artist's homage to Marilyn Monroe. Using the jellyfish protein, Mancini plans to begin a study of stem cells.

    These days stem cell researchers keep one eye trained on government. In 2001, Bush announced a policy limiting embryonic stem cell research, which anti-abortion groups strongly oppose.

    Suddenly, stem cells became one of those issues that defines a community's politics.

    California voted last year to spend $3 billion on stem cell research. Meanwhile, in Republican Texas, Gov. Rick Perry told an anti-abortion rally early this year that embryonic stem cell research "requires the destruction of human life. . . . As long as I am the governor of this great state, I will oppose any taxpayer dollars being used and spent on research that ends a human life."

    Legislation pending in the Texas House would ban research using embryonic stem cells. Missouri, another red state, has also considered restrictions. Meanwhile Democratic-leaning states — Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts — have all encouraged stem-cell initiatives.

    The politics of stem cells is influencing where people live. Researchers flood California with résumés. At the Texas Capitol, legislators are warned that if they pass a stem cell proposal, scientists will leave the state.

    Scientists such as Mancini. Thanks to incredible technology and shining jellyfish protein, he can now watch live cells change one at a time. He'd like to extend his research at the place he describes as "the center of the biological universe."

    Mancini grew up near Eminem's Eight Mile Road outside Detroit.

    He dropped out of school, started a family, opened a landscape company, went back to school and found his way to the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, one of 65,000 people — all seemingly garbed in green scrubs, white lab coats, jeans and running shoes — who work at the Texas Medical Center. The labs are filled with researchers of almost every race and nationality. Mancini is collaborating with Austin Cooney, a 44-year-old from Ireland. Cooney works with Thomas Zwaka from Germany.

    The world inside the medical research center is racially diverse, collaborative, secular. "But it's not the world out there," Cooney says, waving vaguely in the direction of Austin and the rest of Texas.

    Those two worlds are colliding. "This is why there's going to be an exodus," says Mancini. "If your state is going to make it miserable for you not just in the absence of support but in the presence of political disdain, people are going to leave."

    Cooney says people may leave Texas. So does Ferid Murad, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and medical doctor at the Texas Medical Center.

    "A few senior scientists are beginning to look elsewhere to continue their stem cell research since the climate is not favorable in Texas," Murad wrote in an e-mail. "I believe the stem cell research climate in Texas will tend to influence the decisions of younger people and trainees as they begin to seek their first positions in universities or industry. States such as California will certainly have a significant recruiting advantage."

    Not everyone will leave, of course. Mancini is settled into Houston, and his photography work can go on without using embryonic stem cells.

    But as states and cities increasingly differentiate themselves by passing laws, scrutinizing school textbooks for their treatment of issues such as evolution or sex education, and raising issues in legislatures, they send signals people hear clearly.

    "How did stem cells become such an important referendum on what's valuable?" asked University of Pennsylvania historian Susan Lindee. "It's not like stem cell research does nothing, but it hasn't exactly had dramatic practical consequences. But it has this high profile. It's a referendum on identity — who you are and what you stand for."

    Those values aren't cast in iron. They shift with national politics. It was the political left that voted for stem cell research in California, but in 1977, the first community to place limits on genetic research was Cambridge, Mass. One of the bluest towns in the bluest state nearly outlawed genetic research in its jurisdiction 30 years ago.

    "Originally, you evaluated recombinant DNA technology the same way you would evaluate a new kind of pesticide or a large dam," said Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in San Francisco. But since the religious right came out against embryonic stem cell research, it created "this reflexive response to that religious point of view. What's happened is fascinating."

    Cooney asks for the specific number of legislation in the Texas House that would bar stem cell research. "This directly affects me," he says as he turns to his computer and Googles the Texas Legislature.

    Brinkley testified against a proposal in the Texas Legislature that he said would "make it a felony to do those experiments and even for patients to use the therapy." The legislation that would ban stem cell research has stalled, but with Perry's staunch opposition to this work, the proposals, and more importantly the depth of political support behind them, have researchers here worried.

    Polls and election results indicate that the debate over this research has as much to do with partisan politics as science. Staunchly Democratic California voted for the stem cell initiative last year more as a referendum on the president than on the worth of the scientific research, Darnovsky believes.

    "The initiative was triggered by the Bush administration's restrictions on stem cell research, certainly," she said. "Democrats, liberals, progressives, leftists saw that vote as a way to poke a stick in the eye of the Bush administration."


    Moveon.org championed the California stem cell initiative as part of its effort to defeat President Bush, Darnovsky said. Pro-abortion-rights groups lined up in favor of the research proposal in an election that mirrored the fractured politics of the nation. For the anti-Bush vote in California, "it was, 'If they're agin it, we're for it,' " Darnovsky said.

    In early August of last year a statewide poll found California voters split on the stem cell initiative. But voters supporting John Kerry backed the initiative 2-to-1. Bush voters opposed stem cells by the same margin.


    What's happened is that the fights over culture and morality that split the nation in the past several presidential elections have become routine parts of state and local politics.

    Twenty years ago, said Rosenthal, "legislatures could pretty well keep the most contentious issues off the agenda because they were no-win issues. Everyone would have been bloodied."

    Legislatures once could control these issues, keep them bottled up in committees and off the front pages.

    "Now they can't," Rosenthal said. "These issues come up. One side wants 'em. The other wants to kill 'em. And they can't push them aside. So they do battle, and the majority side wins."

    In Congress, Democrats have grown more liberal over the past two decades. Republicans have grown more conservative. Congressional districts have grown more partisan. Only a handful of congressional districts have a competitive mix of Republicans and Democrats, reports Vanderbilt University political scientist Bruce Oppenheimer.

    "And it's even more severe at the state level. State legislative districts are even more lopsided," Oppenheimer said.

    There may be less formal participation in politics these days, Rosenthal said. People vote less often. But there are more people interested in particular issues, and their interest is intense.

    "Thirty or 40 years ago, more people voted, but they didn't really do anything or care or give money," Rosenthal said. "Now, fewer people vote, but I imagine 35 or 40 percent of the population gets engaged on one issue or another. There's passion out there."

    Legislators now represent districts that are less moderate. Interest groups are stronger, and legislators are more dependent on these groups to win primaries. "And that leads to polarized institutions," Oppenheimer said.

    Kansas held hearings this spring on replacing or removing the teaching of evolution from the state's classroom.

    University of Kansas paleontologist Leonard Krishtalka told the Washington Post that the argument could deter faculty members and students from coming to Kansas.

    "There is a great deal of hesitancy," Krishtalka said to the newspaper. "They don't see this as a nurturing academic environment for themselves or their kids."

    John Higley, chairman of the government department at the University of Texas, said the conservative policies of state government can deter some potential faculty members from moving to Austin, particularly those from the Northeast.

    "Texas can be one of the variables that goes against us," Higley said.

    Although several measures were filed this session addressing various aspects of stem cell research, the one considered by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee last week, Senate Bill 943, was not voted out, and there's little time for it to pass. But scientists are as much concerned with the social atmosphere in which they live and work as the legal strictures that define their work.

    Testifying Thursday, former Austin Mayor Kirk Watson told the Senate the potential of a ban on stem cell research made Texas appear "backward" and would deter researchers in other disciplines from coming to the state. Indeed, a recent survey of scientists found that researchers felt more constrained by local morality than local laws.

    "Our results suggest that informal limitations (on scientists) are more prevalent and pervasive than formal constraints," the authors of the study, "Forbidden Knowledge," wrote this year in Science Magazine.

    "There's a ripple effect," Mancini said. "If science is seen as evil, with monsters, it means we'll have to go elsewhere."


    http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/greatdivide/052205future.html



    God help us, if he exists, from the ignorance the country is being assaulted with from the money and media machine of the Bush Administration. Fear and religion, hate and ignorance are the calling cards of Bush, Rove, and those who see political success in their tactics, like the current leadership of the Texas Legislature and the United States Congress. God help us all.



    Keep D&D Civil!!
     
  16. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    I have to clarify that there's no real ethical debate that clones are definitely humans, but there is debate on when embryos become one.
     
  17. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    lot of people die because of many factors
    .. . so we should be able to kill them too

    following your logic . .that is

    Rocket River
    where the hell is my rolling eyes. . . .
    OH . . there they are. . :rolleyes:
     
  18. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    hold up
    you say that but then someone will say
    It is MY CELLS . . i paid to HIM GROWN
    how is he NOT MINE!!!??!??!?!?!?!?!?
    I make a copy of my self and the government wants
    to tell me what I can and cannot do to it . ..
    Will the government make me pay the *thing* child support????

    BLAHBLAHBLAH

    just being the devil's advocate here. . . but i can see the arguments


    Rocket River
     
  19. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    Rocket River;

    You raise a good point which is why I think most people are for thereapeutic cloning of the kind being researched by the South Korean group and against cloning to create a whole other human. I do think that sooner or later some group will create another human and I think for now that person who would be recognized as another human and if they were born in the US would be considered US citizens with all the rights of a citizen.
     
  20. MartianMan

    MartianMan Member

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    You definitely aren't following MY logic.

    don't let embryos die for use for stem cells->don't have sex, so embryos won't die
    Preventing deaths->preventing deaths.

    your statment, on the other hand, is deprived of logic.
     

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