Adult Stem Cell Successes vs. Clone-and-Kill Failures

For those who haven't followed the debate, the Pro Life community is generally supportive of the use of adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood in conducting research and treating health conditions. To date, there have been numerous success stories associated with ASCs and cord blood. On Sunday, October 23, 2005, an article entitled "Medical Hope In Umbilical Cord Blood: Researchers find its healing powers may provide cures for many deadly maladies" ran in the Chicago Tribune. The article discusses a little girl named Gina who was diagnosed with a disease that apparently claimed her brother's life. Gina suffers some ill effects from her disease, but thanks to a cord blood transplant early in her life, she is basically a normal 5-year-old girl.

On the flip side, a person is hard-pressed to find a groundswell of support for continued ESC research in pro-life circles. This is primarily because as scientists conduct embryonic stem cell research, they create human embryos only to perform experiments on them, harvest their stem cells, and then kill them. Thus far, embryonic stem cell research has yielded little-to-no promise. That is a fact. Despite extensive ESC research, you will not find accounts similar to that of Gina associated with ESCs. Further, one of the common complications associated with embryonic stem cells is the growth of tumors. It doesn't appear there is a bright outlook for ESC/clone-and-kill science.

While Hollywood personalities and members of the community formerly known as "pro-choice" continue to clamor for more embryonic stem cell research, keep the above in mind.