Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

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Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Roofus »

President Barack Obama's announcement Monday that he is overturning his predecessor's policies toward embryonic stem cells also will include a broad declaration that science — not political ideology — would guide his administration.

Obama planned to reverse President George W. Bush's limits on federally funded stem cell research and direct the National Institutes of Health to put in place safeguards so science is protected from political interference. The moves would fulfill a campaign promise.

"We've got eight years of science to make up for," said Dr. Curt Civin, whose research allowed scientists to isolate stem cells and who now serves as the founding director of the University of Maryland Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. "Now, the silly restrictions are lifted."

Bush limited taxpayer money for stem cell research to a small number of stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001. Many of those faced drawbacks. Hundreds more of such lines — groups of cells that can continue to propagate in lab dishes — have been created since then. Scientists say those newer lines are healthier and better suited to creating treatments for diseases, but they were largely off-limits to researchers who took federal dollars.

"We view what happened with stem cell research in the last administration is one manifestation of failure to think carefully about how federal support of science and the use of scientific advice occurs," said Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who is chairman of the White House's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.

Bush and his supporters said they were defending human life; days-old embryos — typically from fertility-clinic leftovers otherwise destined to be thrown away — are destroyed for the stem cells.

Obama's advisers sought to downplay the divisions.

"I think we all realize, and the president certainly understands, there are people of good faith on both sides of this issue," said Melody Barnes, the White House's domestic policy adviser. "We recognize there are a range of beliefs on this."

Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said the focus should be on the economy, not on a long-simmering debate over stem cells.

"Frankly, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research can bring on embryo harvesting, perhaps even human cloning that occurs," he said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "We don't want that. ... And certainly that is something that we ought to be talking about, but let's take care of business first. People are out of jobs."

The long-promised move will allow a rush of research aimed at one day better treating, if not curing, ailments from diabetes to paralysis — research that has drawn broad support, including from notables such as Nancy Reagan, widow of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan, and the late Christopher Reeve.

The move also will highlight divisions within the Republican Party, now in the minority and lacking votes in Congress to stop Obama.

The proposed changes, which Obama planned to sign around noon Monday, do not fund creation of new lines, nor specify which existing lines can be used. They mean that scientists who until now have had to rely on private donations to work with these newer stem cell lines can apply for government money for the research, just like they do for studies of gene therapy or other treatment approaches.

Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can morph into any cell of the body. Scientists hope to harness them so they can create replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases — such as new insulin-producing cells for diabetics, cells that could help those with Parkinson's disease or maybe even Alzheimer's, or new nerve connections to restore movement after spinal injury.

But they come with criticism.

"I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative organization that opposes the move.

"While such research is unfortunately legal, taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for experiments that require the destruction of human life," said Perkins. "I urge President Obama to direct funding not only to the best science, but also to the surest common ground — research using adult stem cells and stem cells created by reprogramming."

Civin said that type of rhetoric was not helpful.

"This was already life that was going to be destroyed," he said. "The choice is throw them away or use them for research."

Source: MSNBC

Also, Barack Obama is a Muslim.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

Very good news.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Ex-Cyber »

"I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative organization that opposes the move.
The Family Research Council is one of those "Christian" organizations having an unhealthy obsession with other peoples' sexual habits. Just quoting them as a "conservative organization" is pretty misleading.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by U-said-it »

Five words. - "Separation of Church and State".

It's about time that Bush's unconstitutional policy got overturned...
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by BlackAura »

Some idiot who apparently has no idea about how any of this works wrote:I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science...

While such research is unfortunately legal, taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for experiments that require the destruction of human life
That shows quite a lot of ignorance.

First, a couple of cells can hardly be classified as "human life". These cells can not develop into a living human being by themselves. The process of turning a frozen embryo into a living human is complex enough (see IVF). Doing that with stem cells alone is completely impossible, as far as we know.

Second, embryonic stem cells are not taken from healthy embryos that would otherwise be used. They're taken from extra embryos that have no further use, and would otherwise be classified as medical waste and disposed of accordingly.
Same idiot, apparently with selective attention when it comes to all this science stuff wrote:I urge President Obama to direct funding not only to the best science, but also to the surest common ground — research using adult stem cells and stem cells created by reprogramming.
Using adult stem cells is far more difficult. It requires actually obtaining adult stem cells (which are rare) of the correct type (some of which do not exist in a typical adult human), and then trying to do something useful with them. Undifferentiated stem cells, which can ultimately become any type of cell in the body including other stem cells, are far more useful for research purposes - they allow the study of any cell type, rather than the few we have access to in an adult.

Scientists have actually been forgoing federal funding, rather than trying to work around the limitations imposed by the previous funding ban. They clearly believed that working with reduced funding, at a slower rate, was the best way to do the research that was needed. So what does that tell you about research into adult stem cells? Simple - that the kind of research that needs to be done can't be done with adult stem cells.

As for reprogramming, that's still really new (within the last year or so, I believe). We still don't know to what extent this is possible, or how useful it is for research. It's likely to be more useful for eventual treatment, of course - if you were to use stem cells to grow a replacement organ, there's pretty much zero chance of rejection if that replacement organ was grown using your own cells. Still a long way off from being able to do any of that, of course.

Obviously the ultimate goal is to be able to use knowledge gained from stem cell research to treat live patients. But we're still a long way off from this - we need to do a great deal more research. Once that research is done, we likely won't need to do any more research on embryonic stem cells, so the entire argument becomes moot.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Calavera »

Do you eat chicken eggs for breakfast? If so you are a fucking murderer!
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Maturion »

I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science...
Same here.
Do you eat chicken eggs for breakfast? If so you are a fucking murderer!
In my opinion, there's a huge difference between food and killing embryos. Embryos are human life, eggs are not.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by |darc| »

Maturion wrote:
I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science...
Same here.
Yeah, it makes a whole lot more sense to just let people die instead of doing the proper research when it harms no one, right? :roll:

Seriously, stem cell research is the biggest fucking non-issue made into an issue by the right. Get the fuck over it.
Maturion wrote:
Do you eat chicken eggs for breakfast? If so you are a fucking murderer!
In my opinion, there's a huge difference between food and killing embryos. Embryos are human life, eggs are not.
A chicken egg is an embryo surrounded by protective membranes and an outer shell.
It's thinking...
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Ex-Cyber »

Maturion wrote:
I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science...
Same here.
They're currently being thrown in the trash; I don't see how that's a morally superior course of action. You may oppose that as well, but this policy just substitutes a useful form of destruction for a useless one.
Maturion wrote:Embryos are human life, eggs are not.
"Human life" does not define the issue in any meaningful way. At no point in the human reproductive cycle is there a transition of non-life to life - a living sperm cell and a living egg cell fuse to form a living zygote. It could be (and probably has been) argued that the combination of genetic information is a transition from non-human to human (i.e. from haploid to diploid), but that's not really a useful distinction either - any somatic cell has a full human genome, yet nobody seriously argues that every living cell has rights. Rights are not vested in "human life", they are vested in people.

The relevant question is thus not when "human life" begins - it began a long time ago, and it continues. The question is when personhood begins, and that is not a simple question with a straightforward answer. Most people agree that personhood exists upon birth, but even that is not universal - at least one modern philosopher (whose name I don't recall at the moment) has argued that there is a short but considerable period after birth during which an infant is not a person.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Christuserloeser »

Most people agree that personhood exists upon birth, but even that is not universal - at least one modern philosopher (whose name I don't recall at the moment) has argued that there is a short but considerable period after birth during which an infant is not a person.
An interesting thought, and I guess you could say that it is true (although I don't really think that there can be made much of a connection between the topic at hand and this observation): Upon birth, you're way below the level of e.g. newly born Unglulates like you're used to see on TV. You exist merely as a piece of flesh and bones, incapable of doing anything, anything at all. You're blind, you can't think, you can't react, your entire set of possible interactions with your surrounding is reduced to basic reflexes like sucking - and interestingly: holding. Everything that makes you human, everything that makes you a person, you have to learn by imitation once you're capable of recognizing your surrounding. Much like a bird has to learn to fly.

My little nephew is almost four months old now, and his progress is absolutely amazing, but he still got a long, a very very long way ahead to beat my cats in terms of intellect.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Lartrak »

Yeah, the holding reflex is very interesting. Especially how strong they are. Ever see a picture of a baby holding itself up by just holding onto a doctor's fingers?

I might add babies aren't actually born blind - their eyes just don't work properly, so they see very very poorly. They can basically see light contrasts. At least, this was my understanding.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by toastman »

Lartrak wrote:Yeah, the holding reflex is very interesting. Especially how strong they are. Ever see a picture of a baby holding itself up by just holding onto a doctor's fingers?

I might add babies aren't actually born blind - their eyes just don't work properly, so they see very very poorly. They can basically see light contrasts. At least, this was my understanding.
Understandable considering babies have never seen light before being born.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by cactusjoe3 »

You know locusts tear the head off their mate and eat it.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

I'm all for abortion as long as it's done within the first trimester. As far as I'm concerned, it's a human being as soon as the later stages of pregnancy.

It's a very gray line and therefor I think it should be up to the parents and their own beliefs regarding when it becomes a person.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by DuffMan »

This is another issue that conservatives use to base there vote on which is entirely stupid. Same goes for abortion. These issues should never be discussed in the political arena because they simply will never change. No matter how hard the conservatives push for bills to ban abortion and stop stem cell testing, they will never be passed. Ever. As far as I am concerned, it is a moot point.

If they did pass we would be wasting the opportunity to test stem cells that are being THROWN away. Which is just a waste (maybe Obama should look into going "green" about this). And the last thing we need are self aborted babies in allies by people unable to care for children. Which would result in both issues being banned.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Eviltaco64X »

I know I'm going to get heavily slammed for this, and for that I'm not arguing, but I believe life begins at conception. Abortion is, without a doubt, murder. I know, it's just a "fetus" that's not completely alive for a few months, but to deprive the poor kid of the rest of his life? Just because he's technically not alive yet?

There are a few medical exceptions in my book (like, if the kid were to be born, he'd not only die but so would his mother) it, but the majority of abortions are just unwanted pregnancies which are usually selfish.

Now, obviously, no one contemplating abortion is going to stumble across these forums, read this post, and change their mind. So, if someone were to have an abortion, at least do it earlier on. The worst thing someone could do is kill a baby in the third trimester. That's just not cool. If you're going to go that far, then you might as well have the kid and put him up for adoption than have him suffer... America lacks orphans anyway.
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Re: Obama wants to rip babies from the womb with his bare hands

Post by Stryfe »

I'm pretty sure the majority of the so said stem cells come from in-vitro fertilization clinics, and they're from "embryos". That's a far cry from 3rd trimester abortions, and not even a related matter.
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