50 Ways To Kill Your Baby

by Marcus

In reading one of the online news sites this last week, a headline caught my eye; “Court upholds federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.” I then flashed on an anonymous comment posted to a news site immediately after Barack Obama became President. At the time, it stopped me in my tracks.

stemcellThe subject was President Obama’s lifting of the federal ban against funding for embryonic stem cell research. The comment was as follows. “It’s like we are emerging from the dark ages (Bush administration) into a new era of enlightenment. With increased funding, now we can really begin to research the benefits of stem cells and hopefully make significant strides in medicine. The only unfortunate outcome is that now we are going to have to listen to the crybaby right-to-lifers and how this destroys human embryos. Yes it does, but they will appreciate the outcome when these procedures save their lives.”

I found the comment dispiriting especially if it still represents a consensus opinion.

Again. A new era of enlightenment? Crybaby right-to-lifers? Yes, it destroys human embryos?

Using the resources of Priests For Life, I think it might be useful to quote some experts on this matter.

“To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence” (Dr. Jerome Lejeune, “Father of Modern Genetics” and discoverer of the cause of Down’s Syndrome. Testimony to Senate Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, April 23, 1981).

“By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception” (Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at Mayo Clinic, Testimony to Senate Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, April 23, 1981).
The widely used medical textbook The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edition, Moore, Persaud, Saunders, 1998, states at page 2 that “The intricate processes by which a baby develops from a single cell are miraculous…. This cell [the zygote] results from the union of an oocyte [egg] and sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being….” At page 18 this theme is repeated: “Human development begins at fertilization [emphasis in original]….”

So the cultural debate is not about life but the value of that life––calling the embryo a “potential human being” is a ruse, it’s a “human being with potential.” At its essence, the only real difference between me and an embryonic cell is that I’m older. We both are unique and should be accorded dignity.

A number of books attempting to establish the complicity or not of the German people in the Holocaust have been written. The masterminds of the final solution and other barbarity could not have killed six million people without organization, chains of command, logistics, operations and people, plenty of people.

To be sure, they marshaled another essential element as well. The murdered victims, Jews and other undesirables, were considered less than human by many of the executioners but no doubt, many of the killers fully recognized that they were destroying human lives. Morality and reason were easily pushed aside by evil.

To those people who naively think that Germany is the poster child with respect to man’s inhumanity to man, I respectfully disagree. Notwithstanding the murderous exploits of Mao and Stalin who make Hitler look like a bungler, we are in the midst of our own American holocaust because morality and reason are again scarce commodities.

You see, I can rip the head off an unborn child, suffocate a newborn baby, put a bullet in the brain of a one-year old, hang a ten-year old or step on an embryonic cell (I could list 50 methods but my point is obvious) and in all cases, the “crime” is the same. A human life is extinguished.

In the confusing reports of the media, many people don’t realize that there are embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, umbilical cord stem cells and amniotic stem cells. Concerning non-embryonic stem cell research, these efforts are greatly applauded because the greatest advances in stem cell research have come from this area, in particular, adult stem cell research. Granted, embryonic stem cell research has lagged behind the others due to lack of government funding, but, and I’m not trying to be callous, so what.

The good or benefits that could potentially result are immaterial. The exercise of evil for the outcome of good should never be acceptable.

Embryonic stem cell research is a tricky subject. Is my perspective too harsh?

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7 comments

crazymom13 September 4, 2012 - 3:44 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NqsO3Kf-Xw
This video is interesting…Dr Oz was explaining to Oprah & Michael J Fox why the”embryonic stem cell” research issue is “dead”. OW & MJF both look rather nonplussed that their pet issue was now a non-issue.
The far left seems hell-bent on spending money on this and reserving the right to snuff out as much embryonic life as they want in pursuit of their goal. From what I know (not a huge amount but I do work in healthcare and I have never once heard a MD say “we could fix this if you crybaby prolifers would hand over some embryos”) science has simply never showed any real promise. It’s a mirage and they are willing to kill for it.

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Marcus Allen Steele September 4, 2012 - 5:11 am

You raised a good point. How many embryonic cells have been sacrificed in research and is there a measurable outcome as to a “success” rate.

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Proteios1 September 6, 2012 - 6:35 am

Speaking as a scientist, I must state that the are mixed results on stem cell research. Speaking as a scientist who is Catholic…What truly concerns me is a general lapse in ethical considerations in science. The ethics, or bioethics as it is now called, is rarely taught in grad school, rarely even considered. To call ethics and afterthought is even too generous. So in a scientific definition, yes, life begins as fusion of egg and sperm when a complete genome is present. The process, though highly dependent for support, mothers womb, obviously, it has all it needs to develop, grow and pay taxes one day.

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Marcus Allen Steele September 6, 2012 - 7:16 am

A paucity of ethical discussions at grad schools is disconcerting but I’m not surprised. Taxes are another sore subject if used to fund immorality. Of course, some folks will suggest that morality is subjective, but I would generally disagree.

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Alejandro Rodríguez September 6, 2012 - 7:51 pm

This is true. And this is nothing like abortion where at least there it can be understandable. I’m pretty sure that if a cure for something like cancer involved killing people, scientists wouldn’t do it. The do it with embryonic stem cells because they invent the canard of personality so as to not feel any guilt.

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