Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Senators Debate Stem Cell Research Funding

C-Span featured Feinstein, Kennedy, Brownback and others on stem cell research today. Kennedy was most divisive, blasting Bush for previously vetoing federal funding for this questionable project. A typical, grumpy, obnoxious, divisive, disrespectful, missing-the-point democrat.

We ALL need to call Sherrod Brown (our democrat senator) and remind him this is not about the research itself but about funding it with federal dollars. We have no business funding this research any more than we should be funding abortion itself. Both are legal by current laws, but neither should be supported by public funding.

Let democrats make donations for both abortion and the private research projects of their choice. There IS such research by people hoping to make a killing on stem cell remedies, but don't make ALL of us support this dubious technology which could lead to cloning ourselves and killing our genetic twin/clone to replace our bodyparts. This is MAD science. What if the clone or your spouse decides YOU should be replaced by your younger clone? Defenders of Senate Bill 5 say this is not about cloning, but there IS a question of what madness such research could produce and whether or not God would even allow us to benefit.

MOst success in stem cell research and therapy has been with our own adult stem cells. Also ethical in research is the use of umbilical cord cells.

Contrary to popular opinion, CONSERVATIVES ARE NOT, BY OPPOSING THIS LEGISLATION, VOTING TO STOP ANY AND ALL STEM CELL RESEARCH --JUST FEDERAL FUNDING for any research which kills innocent life. So far, no one has moved to make any such research illegal, that I know of. Conservs and Bush just refused to fund any research on viable, so-called excess embryos--who could be implanted and survive. Such embryos ARE "whos" --potential people--and so far there is less potential for remedies from their cells than from adult stem cells from one's own body.

We need to put tax dollars into research that has the most potential for good. The conservative senators told us about many research projects for cutting edge remedies that do not kill one person to help another.

8 comments:

steve said...

I hate to be crass, but what about all those "potential people" who get flushed down the toilet monthly by billions of women. Who is going to stop this menstrual holocaust? Who will speak for the innocent blastocysts?

Barb said...

Ah, like you really hate to be crass!

blastula are fertilized eggs --the first stage of embryo before it implants in the womb?

It's up to God whether or not implantation occurs. This is natural --abortion is not.

The more important issue is whether or not this is where our federal dollars should go if adult stem cells are showing more promise for our health than any current research on embryonic cells.

Research on aborted fetuses will be sanctioned if this is --giving moral license to "giving up your baby for science."

liberal_dem said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Barb said...

The photo of the hand on the surgeon's finger predates the House series by at least 10 years. It wasn't done first for any tv show. It was a real surgery photo that circulated on the internet.

I don't remember if we assumed the baby REACHED for the finger --but gave a stimulus response common to new borns --put a finger in a baby's hand and he'll latch on. I don't remember the age of the fetus in that photo --but it was a poignant reminder that the very young child in utero IS a baby --whether it is "viable" outside the womb yet or not.

liberal_dem said...

Grisly Sacrifices Found in Pyramid of the Moon

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 02 December 2004
04:40 pm ET



New discoveries at an ancient burial site near Mexico City suggest grisly sacrifices and a materialistic society, scientists said Thursday.

Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Moon was built by an unknown group of people about 2,000 years ago. The surrounding ruins, a master-planned metropolis sprawling over 8 square miles, is thought to have been the first great city of the Western Hemisphere.

A newfound burial vault contains the remains of 12 people, all apparently sacrificed. Ten of them were decapitated. The vault also contained a large variety of offerings and the remains of various animals of clearly symbolic importance, scientists said.

"What we have found in this excavation suggests that a certain kind of mortuary ritual took place inside the tomb before it was filled in," said Saburo Sugiyama, a professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and at Arizona State University. "It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean symbolic performances -- it is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals."

The victims had had their hands bound behind their backs. The decapitated bodies appear to have been tossed, rather than arranged, on one side of the burial. The other two bodies were "richly ornamented" with jewelry indicating high rank.

"Whether the victims and animals were killed at the site or a nearby place, this foundation ritual must have been one of the most terrifying acts recorded archaeologically in Mesoamerica," Sugiyama said.

Teotihuacan reached its height around the same time as the early stages of the Mayan cities farther south, but the cultures were different and appeared to interact little.

Among the new findings was a mosaic human figure, a small figurine that intrigued the researchers.

"The mosaic figure was found on top of 18 large obsidian knives, carefully set in a radial pattern. Nine of these had a curving form, while the nine others had the form of the feathered serpent, a symbol of maximum political authority," Sugiyama said. "Evidently this offering in some way formed the central symbolic meaning of the grave complex."

Barb said...

LD, it's this very sort of thing that was going on in Abraham's day --which God hated. All mankind seemed to have the idea that blood sacrifice could appease the gods since the animal sacrifices were required of the first family in the garden after they sinned.

INdeed, God does test Abraham's loyalty, asking him to sacrifice his own child --but then spares him and provides a lamb instead and forbids such human sacrifice by the people of the Covenant.

Jesus stood up at the Passover feast and announced about himself, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

"Worthy is the lamb that was slain who takes away the sin of the world."

After Jesus' death,

Jesus appeared to Saul on the Road to Damascus in a light from Heaven; a voice was heard:

"I am Jesus,whom thou persecute --why do you kick against the pricks?' (The use of that word here conveys an image of fighting against the prods like a rebellious beast at the hands of its trainer/care-taker --as humans fighting against the God who would have us submit to His loving will.)

Saul had the good sense to believe --and becomes a marvelous unlikely missionary for Jesus --whom he had never met in the flesh. Saul, Greek name Paul, healed a man lame from birth --

he also recognized an enemy of the faith named Barjesus to whom he said, "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, will thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord"

"and now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season And immediately there fell on the sorcerer a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some one to lead him by the hand."

The man was a servant/sorcerer for Serigius Paulus a very high ranking Roman on the island of Cyrus

--Paulus converted seeing that the word of Paul was powerful and prophetic --as Paul demonstrated the power of the Holy Spirit in the temporary affliction He placed on the sorcerer.'

Hopefully, he, like Paul, would later say, (elaborated in the song) "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see"

"Amazing love, how can it be --that thou, my God, didst die for me!"

Never was their better news.

Barb said...

a few misspellings in my post --cyprus --not cyrus.

sergius --not serigius

Barb said...

Here is a post LD posted and has forgotten to delete, I guess. I'm reposting in case he deletes the original. As my previous post answers this post.

Grisly Sacrifices Found in Pyramid of the Moon

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 02 December 2004
04:40 pm ET



New discoveries at an ancient burial site near Mexico City suggest grisly sacrifices and a materialistic society, scientists said Thursday.

Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Moon was built by an unknown group of people about 2,000 years ago. The surrounding ruins, a master-planned metropolis sprawling over 8 square miles, is thought to have been the first great city of the Western Hemisphere.

A newfound burial vault contains the remains of 12 people, all apparently sacrificed. Ten of them were decapitated. The vault also contained a large variety of offerings and the remains of various animals of clearly symbolic importance, scientists said.

"What we have found in this excavation suggests that a certain kind of mortuary ritual took place inside the tomb before it was filled in," said Saburo Sugiyama, a professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and at Arizona State University. "It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean symbolic performances -- it is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals."

The victims had had their hands bound behind their backs. The decapitated bodies appear to have been tossed, rather than arranged, on one side of the burial. The other two bodies were "richly ornamented" with jewelry indicating high rank.

"Whether the victims and animals were killed at the site or a nearby place, this foundation ritual must have been one of the most terrifying acts recorded archaeologically in Mesoamerica," Sugiyama said.

Teotihuacan reached its height around the same time as the early stages of the Mayan cities farther south, but the cultures were different and appeared to interact little.

Among the new findings was a mosaic human figure, a small figurine that intrigued the researchers.

"The mosaic figure was found on top of 18 large obsidian knives, carefully set in a radial pattern. Nine of these had a curving form, while the nine others had the form of the feathered serpent, a symbol of maximum political authority," Sugiyama said. "Evidently this offering in some way formed the central symbolic meaning of the grave complex."

April 25, 2007 5:37 AM