We Respect What You Think Is Human Life, But We'll Kill It

The Post's latest editorial promoting embryonic stem-cell research--linked to a bill that President Bush says he'll veto--repeats some themes we've seen before:

Research into alternative sources of stem cells, while promising and important, remains too far from fruition to justify the continuing ban on using discarded embryos.

And by "too far from fruition" we mean "far closer to fruition than embryonic stem-cell research." Oh--the Post doesn't mean that, but if they extended their reach beyond the Post's almost nonexistent reporting on non-embryonic research, the editorial board might not appear to be operating without a clue. A Reuters story I linked last month is just one example--and I do mean just one example:

A gene named after the mythical Celtic land of the ever young could help explain how to reprogram adult cells into embryonic stem cells to treat diseases, researchers said on Wednesday.

They discovered that the gene called Nanog helped to transform adult mouse cells into embryonic stem cells after cell fusion--when two cells are combined to form a hybrid.

"The effect of Nanog is remarkable. All the hybrid cells became fully converted to embryonic stem cells," said Jose Silva of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, who reported the findings in the journal Nature.

Stem cells are master cells in the body. Scientists believe they could act as a type of human repair system to provide new therapies for illnesses ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's.

In one of his rare journeys into non-embryonic stem-cell progress, the Post's Rick Weiss wrote about Embryonic Stem Cell Sucess back in March:

Scientists in Germany said yesterday that they had retrieved easily obtained cells from the testes of male mice and transformed them into what appear to be embryonic stem cells, the versatile and medically promising biological building blocks that can morph into all kinds of living tissues.

If similar starter cells exist in the testes of men, as several scientists yesterday said they now believe is likely, then it may not be difficult for scientists to cultivate them in laboratory dishes, grow them into new tissues and transplant those tissues into the ailing organs of men who donated the cells....

The Post's reporting on this field is abysmal, so we probably shouldn't be surprised about editorials that rest on such a weak foundation.

The bill in question would allow the destruction of excess embryos that have been frozen as part of the procedure for in-vitro fertilzation:

The measure requires a determination that the embryos used for stem cell research "would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded." Those seeking the fertility treatment must have "donated the embryos with written informed consent and without receiving any financial or other inducements to make the donation."

Thus, no embryo would be destroyed that would not have been destroyed anyway. And research can proceed that holds out hope for saving actual, not potential, human life.

Tell these kids that they were merely potential human life.

Or, in the immortal words of Frank the Pug from Men in Black,

You humans, when're you gonna learn that size doesn't matter? Just 'cause something's important, doesn't mean it's not very, very small.