OTTAWA, July 30 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The debate over the highly controversial use of stem cells in medical research has just become more urgent, according to the top story in the National Post today. The paper reports on a study published in the latest issue of Science which announces a breakthrough that could lead to “new treatments for nerve disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.”
Stem cell research benefits from abortion because the strongest cells are found in embryonic cells. The U.S. has banned the use of taxpayer dollars for use in stem cell research, but private funds have enabled research to continue. Stem cells have been taken from miscarried and aborted babies as well as from “surplus embryos generated at in vitro fertilization clinics,” noted NP. As the newspaper pointed out, “those who believe that life begins at conception oppose the procedure on the grounds that human embryos must be destroyed to obtain the cells.”
Well-known Canadian ethicist and founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, Dr. Margaret Somerville, told NP that embryonic stem cell research should be stopped until the moral and ethical issues have been addressed.
The study discussed in Science was an experiment with rats and is “the first study showing that embryonic stem cells can be used for brain and spinal cord repair in an animal model of a human neurological disease,” said Oliver Brustle, a neuropathologist at the University of Bonn, and the first author of the paper. The experiment seemed to effectively treat (not cure) “the myelin disorder in the rats, called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, [which] is part of a family of degenerative, debilitating and sometimes fatal diseases that slowly impair motor function in humans,” noted NP. Observers on all sides of the issue will be waiting to see if stem cell research is addressed in the bill on reproductive technologies anticipated for the fall.