Every sperm is sacred

Legislators take a look at stem cell research

There are six pieces of legislation before the 79th Texas legislature regarding stem cell research. For anyone who has slept for the past year and hasn’t heard of it, it’s research geared toward collecting embryonic stem cells before they become a fetus. These cells can be used to create a wide variety of specialized cells, and could lead to cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and heart disease.

But because it requires creating, and then destroying, an embryo, the fundamentaloids are playing the “sanctity of life” (SOL) card, and are thus opposed to it.

A bill filed by Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, would prohibit the therapeutic work. Such research raises ethical concerns because it could lead to cloning babies, King said.

Well, yeah, but selling automatic weapons could lead to someone being shot, but I don’t see a big push to outlaw guns. I guess gun control doesn’t qualify as an SOL issue, even though legal handguns end more lives every year than stem cell research ever will.

"Extracting the stem cell destroys the embryo, and that's where our ethical dilemma begins," King told the House State Affairs Committee. "There is no difference in the process used to produce cloned human embryos."

Well, maybe a little difference, since therapeutic cloning doesn’t use sperm or a uterus. Okay, a big difference, since I consider those two components some of my favorite parts of the reproduction process.

Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, filed a bill that would allow for most kinds of stem cell research, including therapeutic cloning. Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, filed a bill and a joint resolution that establishes a Texas Institute for Regenerative Medicine for stem cell research.. And Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, has a bill that establishes a stem cell research program to make grants and loans for the work.

These representatives believe that research will be done, and those doing the research will set up shop in states that not only allow the research, but encourage it. If Texas isn’t one of those states, money will go elsewhere, like California, which is on the cutting edge of this type of research.

On the side of “no” is Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, who filed a bill that would prohibit the use of state money for research involving embryonic stem cell research.

So far, no actions have been taken by the legislature. Whichever way we go, however, will determine whether Texas stays in the forefront of the medical research community, or lets other states attract the best medical minds and funding dollars.

But we don’t need better medical care, cures for untreatable diseases, or more money infused into our economy. Not if it offends our sensibilities. And why does it offend our sensibilities? Because the conservatoons told us it’s supposed to, that’s why. The same people who told us Iraq had WMDs, and that Haliburton was the only company that could handle the task of support for the war over those non-existent WMDs. So you know they wouldn’t lie to us to further their own agenda. Would they?