I do support stem cell research, and feel that it will help cure disease and advance our medicine.

Amazing...how few people understand the difference between stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research.
Tangible health benefits have come from the former...none from the latter.

Absolutely disapprove. There is never a justification of taking an innocent life to try to save another human being's life. Not to mention that no research thus far has proven any evidence that the practice is indeed useful. When a human life becomes a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, it tells stories about how low our morality and ethics have fallen. Furthermore, stem cells extracted from adult humans without endangering their lives has proven being just as useful as those of killed embryos.

This isn't just research--it's the opportunity to save millions of lives by finding potential cures for hundreds of life-threatening diseases, among them type-one diabetes, parkinson's disease, types of cancers, and Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, the U.S is about to be left behind in this research because pro-lifers think that it's immoral. That's insane. What matters more to you, the life of a child with diabetes, or the life of a clump of cells the size of a dot?

I'm not totally against certain kinds of stem cell research. But creating babies just to use their cells is creepy at best. Even Dr. Frankenstein only preyed on the dead. And, does it bother anyone else - just slightly even - that this creates a market for abortion clinic refuse?

These stem cells come from the embreos left over from fertility clinics right all of you retarded pro-lifers This is NOT the same as abortion, which i believe in most cases is killing a baby. If they didn't take the left over embryoes from fetility clinics so they could do research and procedures that could save thousands or millions of human lives, what do you think would happen to them? THEY GET THROWN OUT!! The people who use fetility clinics usually have several embryoes created by extracting eggs and sperm and letting them meet eachother in a PETRI DISH. The couple chooses the healthiest embryeo or if they are all healthy, one is picked at random and injected into the wife. They don't use the rest of them. So you are saying that you would rather them throw the embryos into the trash than have them used in life saving medical research, well i'm glad i wouldn't have to walk around with that on my shoulders.

Update: This controversy DOES involve killing live embryoes for stem cells. What do you think the new bill passed by the House is about? Its SPECIFICALLY about taking live embryoes left over at fertility clinics and using them for embryonic stem cell research -killing and harvesting them for their cells. This bill is about using living embryoes that were initially created in the hopes of making a baby, but were not implanted and going ahead and killing them by harvesting them for their cells. This is a necessary first step society must take to first get over the queasiness many have about killing some life in order to benefit other life, blurring that line a little bit -making it eventually much easier to later decide there isn't much difference and therefore acceptable to go ahead and create embryoes for the specific purpose of killing them for their parts. Going against one's ethics and morals occurs in little steps, not big ones. It requires blurring of the lines in just this way -and this is a necessary first step before taking the next step. This is a bill that Bush has already promised he would veto because it crosses the line. NO federal money should be spent on killing innocent human life at any stage of that life. NONE -no matter what the reason, we cannot become a society that justifies helping some human life by killing other human life. In addition, researchers just recently announced that umbilical cord stem cells are the equal of embryonic stem cells for research purposes. I have already contacted my representatives calling for federal funds that instead go to establish and then push the use of a cord blood bank for research purposes, making it easy for new parents to donate that cord blood which currently is not easy to do at all. That is a far superior and entirely moral use of taxpayer funds that would provide a tremendous boost to this research, providing a much larger and steady supply of research stem cells and also one that does not involve creating and killing live embryoes for their parts. Instead it would use a previously discarded by-product of birth for the exact same thing -a by-product which researchers themselves have said is the full equal of embryonic stem cells in the first place -and an inexpensive but steady supply of it as well. Harvesting cord blood, aside from having none of the moral and ethical problems that embryonic research does, is a whole lot cheaper than what is needed to create, kill and harvest embryoes like a crop which would still never produce the same kind of huge, steady supply that cord blood cells would. If there is a way to accomplish the same (in this case even better) results without killing human life, as a decent society that respects life, we are obligated to do so. Period. To answer some of the questions posed by others: inadvertent deaths in a bombing of government buildings has nothing to do with this subject -even if private homes had been bombed which they were not. No child was specifically targeted for bombing in Iraq any more than a child was specifically targeted by Nazi bombing of England during WWll. Its a silly attempt to try and make them the moral equivalent when no such equivalency exists. Yet another: as a person who actually has one of the conditions that could someday potentially benefit from stem cell research, I can honestly say that I would refuse any treatment that involved killing live embryoes in order to provide that treatment to me. Without hesitation I would reject it, just as surely as I would reject killing you for one of your organs that might save my life. I would not consider that treatment for my spouse, mother, or child if it required a human life to be killed. I have to wonder about people who really do think that other people's morals are so flexible that the minute adversity appears appears it would all just disappear. You either have morals that actually mean something to you or they are for sale and pretty meaningless to begin with. It just doesn't work that way for most people. But then I didn't set my morals based on my current circumstances to begin with, but what I am morally certain is right and wrong all along. As for those who think the controversy isn't about killing live embryoes -catch up on the news, because that is EXACTLY what is under discussion by our government right now -just as I said it was before when others were insisting it was no such thing. You are just dead wrong here, and I was correct.

PBeavr is 100% correct here. This does not involve killing live embryos to take stem cells...though an already dead foetus may provide these cells however. The UK has the biggest stem cell laboratories at the moment and Government gives money to the research. It has nothing to do with growing embryos for cells and abortion solely for their collection.

I approve of stem cell research, I do not approve of growing embryos for the purpose of using them for research but if their are ways that the cells can be harvested that would not harm an embryo I see no problem. I also understand that there are other types of stem cells that could be used for research and if that can advance medical science then I am all for it.

I am strongly against abortion and I think that in some peoples minds human embryo stem cell research just helps them justify the act. Taking a life to save a life is not the answer. There are others ways that don't kill babies. It all goes back to the question of choice; babies are not given the choice to decide their fate when they are aborted. I cannot understand how pro-choice people can think this is ok.

i dont necessarily believe embryos should be created in labs in order to do research on, but stem cells can be found in the uterus and in the after birth. especially if it helps cure diseases, defects, you know, all that neat stuff god gave humans to contend with. lab created stem cell research, however, should be controlled, HAS to be controlled, so as not to offend the baby lovers in this world, b/c insane religious conviction has a tendency to slow down the development of man. people on here who yell about stem cells vs abortion shouldn't be listened to b/c they are just trying to promote a christian agenda that has nothing to do w/the legality of abortion or science. i pose an offer to them, especially some of the white southern ones, if babies are so important, go ahead and adopt a few; volunteer at an adoption clinic; better yet, white southerners adopt a minority babyp; put your money where your mouth is...aside from the argument of raising your own kid.

I have a question for those who oppose this helpful research on the grounds that an embryo is a life: How could you support the bombing of thousands of Iraqi Children who were unquestionably,definately,absolutely ALIVE? Not only were they killed,they were maimed,mutilated,orphaned and allowed to die slow deaths in hospitals that did not even have electricity or safe drinking water,let alone medication or pain killers.How do you reconcile this with being pro-life?

If it gives the opportunity of a cure to paralyzed patients or even people with so-far incurable diseases, then I'm for it. However, it is possible to obtain stem cells from the blood of the umbilical cord, so I would suggest that route first before creating human embryos.

Definitely,it has to do with life.Don't tell me your religion would stop you from saving the life of your mother,spouse or child.

Stem cell research is the future- period. Go ahead, be a bunch of zealots and outlaw it. All that will happen is that American medicine will lag behind other developed nations and it will be MORE EXPENSIVE getting breakthrough treatments. You anti-stem cell freaks are like the Jesuit priests that tortured Gallileo when he invented the telescope. You don't want to cure Alzheimer's? Paralysis? Why don't you just bring back leeches and boiling people in oil?

Wait a second. I don't get it. Using animals that are bred specifically for testing of products, and are not cute or sweet, causes many to have a spasm attack. But using a HUMAN embryo (that apparently wasn't worthy of life) for testing and research is okay?

I completely approve of stem cell research.

I approve of it as long as it is regulated.

Approve, it is helping to save lives.

If it helps to cure disease then I'm all for it.

I personally think it is kinda creepy and reminds me alot of those early horror movies where they put human organs in jars on shelves. But I also understand that maybe it will help with diseases and stuff. But I just don't know...I think a human embryo is a life and maybe it is just as bad as abortion to do stem cell research. I think they need to do alot more research on the actual embryos...I am really at a loss on this one.....

It's wrong because it puts a value on aborted fetuses and that's both sickening and wrong.

I approve of any sort of voluntary medical research. If a human embryo being researched leads to the ability for scientists to provide home grown organs for those who need them, benefitting thousands if not millions of people, what's the problem? I don't know enough about this issue to know why embryos are necessary to the research, or even whether the proceedure harms the embryo, but even if it did I fail to see what the controversy is all about.

I used to have some ambivalence towards research on stem cell development; I felt that it could potentially open up a pandoras box of health and technological issues. In my comment on this issue in 2001 I demonstated caution on the issue. Now I feel that Stem Cell Research may lead to cures to such horrible neurological disorders like Alzheimers or Parkinson's and maybe even unlock the mystery behind cancer. The most intreguing development that could arise from developing this is the growth of replacement organs! Development of stem cell technology will at the end of the day save a lot of lives and prevent human suffering, always a noble goal. I believe that the US government should open up development on this technology; only a limited amount of strands of DNA and RNA can be research under current law. Bio-Medical engineering is the future of medicine; I believe that we should be at the cutting edge of this technology. Throughout history, some fundamentalists have stood in the way of technological development and time and time again they have been disproven. We need to be open to new developments for that creates a vibrant and more healthy society.

I am all for Stem Cell research! For one, those goofy hardcore christians who try to say that its taking a life, it isn't. Just think of the possibilities that, pardon the pun, stem from this! Ability to generate new organs, cancer-free cells, cure those pesky diseases and more! Bring it on, and lets extend our life expectancy off the charts!!!!!!!!!