From the FLEE Newsletter

On his radio show, Al Franken’s been asking why Jenna and Barbara Bush don’t step forward to volunteer as birth surrogates for some of these fertilized eggs. One of his guests cleared up the mystery, pointing out that they wouldn’t want to be pregnant when they start military duty in Iraq.

I think Adam was a little harsh on this one. According to the article from SeattleTammy, Marlene Strege founded the Snowflake Baby organization and she did offer up her own uterus - nothing hypocritical there.

These are people doing something extraordinary (in the literal sense of outside the ordinary) because of a firm commitment to their beliefs. We shouldn’t ridicule them just because those beliefs differ from ours or because politicians and their backers try to use their story to make a political point.

Personally, I think it’s great that these people want to put these embryos to good use. But I also think, there’s no way they’ll ever clear through the 400,000 embryo backlog.

So I say Congress sets aside 50,000 of the existing stockpile plus the first 5,000 new embyos each year (as long as the stockpile is less than 100,000) for adoption, and let’s strart curing Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s with the rest of them. Everybody wins.

I have to say that I strongly disapprove of that organization’s name—they certainly do need to pick a new one!

I should think the perks of pregnancy would be enough to have thousands of women volunteering their uteri for temporary shelter. Why, at the Harris-Teeter there are the special parking spaces for the handicapped of course, but then there are ones for expectant mothers and even ones for people with small children.

I don’t see ANY for fat women over 40. Now THERE’S a cause!!!!!

So these “snowflake” folks will be all high-and-mighty and pay lobster knows how much money to “rescue” an embryo while thousands of actual living kids languish in the foster care system. These are probably the same people who say “oh, I’d NEVER get a cat at a pet store, there are so many at the shelter waiting to be adopted.”

waterfowler, then you should be 100% for gay marriage. I could try for decades and not knock up another guy. No abortion needed!

Sadly, many viable stem-cell donor fetuses went to waste in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the harvesting of donor cells from fetuses located within pregnant civilian women who bcame collateral damage in the War on Terror was simply a missed opportunity. After all, it’s morally wrong to harvest these cells from fetuses that are routinely discarded by fertility clinics, but there’s no moral issue with killing vast numbers of civilians if our cause is worthy and just.

Perhaps some pregnant Lebanese civilians (or visiting foreigners) would be willing to offer their fetal stem cells in the event of their collateral damagification.

I think that Citizens United in New Testament Solidarity should get together with Dedicated Idealistic Concerned Kingdom Seekers to conceive a solution that with months of growth and hard labor can give birth to a brand new paradigm.

Why stop at the embryo. The Association for Secure and Sacred Homes for all Ova in Love Everlasting to make sure all eggs have an opportunity.

This notion that a woman can unilaterally(sp?) offer the services of her uterus for 9 months without the permission of her husband and/or father and/or male employer is dangerous. Shame on you Adam for jeopardizing our precious way of life just so someone else can, you know, live.

John, I think there are a few Christians remaining in Syria and Lebanon, but I could be wrong. Of course, they’re not “white” to American eyes.

Re the National Foster Womb Program (NFWP), they are absolutely *not* getting my womb!

So black and white…

Not with the in crowd so pass this one if you don’t like to hear a different opinion.

Honestly I do have “religious” problems with this, but it is only something that I can honestly say that is ingrained in me from way back. Not the specific topic mind you, just an uneasy feeling about it. However I do think trivializing the whole matter is really not going to get many to really see your point. This is important to the aforementioned group, and who is to say that their view are more wrong than yours?

On a practical sense, this is a no brainer, I mean theses “potential tax payers” are for the trash, so use them, sure why not? However let me show you a long view. Let’s say that everything works out splendidly, and we cure many if not all genetic defects, because instead of mincing meat, that is in truth what we are trying to do. Would we not be trying to weed out “imperfections”? I say this because I have a brother that is “different” and what is to say that he does not have children that are similar to him. Will they have a place for themselves in this new world? Granted that is a little, if not a lot, doomsdayish, but to not consider the long term is something that we cannot afford to do. I just worry that in our tampering with God/Mother Nature/Lobster/ Intelligent Design (in no particular order, okay maybe there was…) that we may end up less the people that had imperfections that have really added to our lives.

-george

George (please note, I wasn’t making funny). On one hand, I don’t see any real harm making jokes about it here, because a) it’s so damn depressing sometimes that a little absurdity helps; b) it’s unlikely that this piece would be trotted out so as to convince opponents of the error of their ways.

That said, I have hopes that maybe stems cells could help diabetics (and those suffering from other conditions). The joys of our modern medical system meant that I wasn’t diagnosed until things were pretty far along - i.e., some permanent damage by them. I worry about problems with kidneys, eyes, neuropathy, etc. in my later years (you know, the years when there won’t be any social security or medicare to help me through). I try to take care of myself, but… a cure sure would be nice - or even a treatment that allowed me to get away from my pharmacopia somewhat.

There are ethical questions that need to be addressed, but as has often been pointed out in this debate: The work will go forward, but with private money. The government will have no say in the ethcal debate if they stay out of the arena altogether.

I have to tell you, in my deepest conspiracy-theorist mode, I wonder if this isn’t yet anyother sop to the pharmaceutical companies. With only private money supporting the research, the companies who make breakthroughs can corner the market on any treatments that come out of it. Or they can choose to supress treatments “pending further testing” if it interferes with their product lines. Imagine if Lilly or Glaxo (choosing names at random, not saying that they’re evil companies) found a way to use stem cells to rebuild pancreases and cure diabetes. However, that would kill the market for insulin - an expensive product that millions of us use every day, and will for the rest of our lives. So would they have some mixed feelings about finding their cure and distributing widely?

Ah yes, the oft made, “what if this gets abused or debases the value life” argument. I love that one.

But then, coming from the same side of the aisle as the administration that won’t release a vaccine to prevent HPV because it might “cause promoscuity” well…it’s hard to take that point of view seriously while women still die from cervical cancer.

But at least they weren’t promiscuous.

Wow.
Adam, I’m sorry if I high-jacked your thread too early, but when I first saw the info about Snowflakes, it was on one of those snarky, lefty, femmy sites I’m wont to visit. Snoflake organization is a faith-based org, so they get funding from our great leader. Then he gets to trot them on stage for his own dog-n-fetus show.

I’m sad to hear that the cervical cancer vaccine is being challenged in exactly the way predicted on one of them femmy sites. In the eighties this (HPV) was rampant and they had no clue how to cure a woman, it was regarded as a lifelong curse such as Herpes. This is a vaccine that could change the lives of women in ten to twenty years. Start counting the obits in your paper, how many young women die of cancers like this?

George, I appreciate your brother and your feelings about this. It’s a fine line between eugenics and helping people who are here. I have a friend who has been disabled from birth is married to a walker and schooled me in the finer points of why South Park having Christopher Reeves sucking the necks of unborn fetuses was so funny to her.

This is a huge topic of import to us all and i am glad to be able to discuss it here. The discussion made me think a long time before replying.

Thank you Adam for that place.

and why do we need to offer “solutions” to our objections. What’s wrong is wrong

wf - Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be. I mean, after all, the folks on the right are always criticizing the left for not offering solutions when they raise objections to what they see as stupid behavior, or poor policy, or total lack of planning, or whatnot.

If the left is required to offer solutions when objecting to the mess that the right has made of things, then the right should have the same responsibility.

Sorry Steve, I would respectfully disagree with your post. C.U.N.T.S. is hilarious and I thought the remark about not being able to type the full org name much longer was also funny.

Nato,
I can’t argue with your follow through, but yes, to not try is a bigger fault. I just worry about how far it will go, I mean if we didn’t have things to complain about (small things, Graves is hard core stuff man), then I think it will take some of our humanity away. Perfect people are boring. If you can go with me on this, give me some feed back, I’m not sure I am hitting the right cord for all to hear.

siobhan,
I’ll be honest with you, I am not representing the right side cause I believe that you guys are croaking smack, but because I enjoy a good conversation, and yes this little bit of internet dribble will not see the inside of any government proceeding, but eh it doesn’t hurt to dream right? As for the conspiracy theory, I would be hard pressed to believe that this exact thing has not happened already. And I know you weren’t making fun. =-)

Tess,
I guess I didn’t make the distinction, please excuse me on that. Not to further excuse me on that, but I wonder how many other people out there don’t know the difference. Even so I still can’t help a nagging thought that somewhere in a deep dungeon, some scientist with German accents (but in speaking in English) are celebrating the “perfection” of the human race.

ice weasel,
My argument was almost as simple as the way you trivialize others, so blue blooded of you.

SeattleTammy,
Ditto from me too Tammy, Adam is a wonderful writer. And it is a great topic, usually I just read and laugh and cry quietly to myself, this one and a couple of others have really gotten my attention. Thanks again Adam (and that is genuine!).

Ann,
Not sure where you were going with that either, but for myself my brother has enriched my life. He tries as hard as he can, and then I look at myself and realize that I can do even more with less effort. A great moment in realizing my abilities was watching him at a special olympics. I’d say try it, but I may just be putting my own foot in my mouth as I know very little about you.

-george

I want a counting house! All I have is a pole barn to store all my crap in. George, I agree with Ice (or should I call you Mr. Weasel?); I say go for the cures. If anyone wants to feel special by living with diabetes, spinal injuries, the heartbreak of psoriasis or anything else that we could eliminate, that should be a personal choice, not one inflicted upon him or her by an administration that’s decided to stick its collective head up its moralizing ass. Er, arse. So sorry (and I guess that should have been collective ass to go with the collective head . . .).

Stem cells aren’t going to be a cure-all for everything, but they will hopefully go a long way for at least some illnesses and injuries, which I think is a more important step forward for us as a species than invading Iraq or making rainbow terror threat level charts ever was.

With regards to the idea of everyone being perfect, how many kids do you see running around these days with cleft palates, saying “Gee, I’m so glad I opted not to get surgery!- it’d suck to be like everyone else and have to rely on my personality and other general characteristics to not be like everyone else!”? Probably as many as you will have running around some day saying “Gee, I’m so glad I opted not to get my diabetes treated!- it’d suck to be like everyone else and have to rely on my personality and other general characteristics not be like everyone else! Say, did anyone see my toes? I think they rotted off, but I can’t find them since going blind. Thank god I’m different!”

Thanks Nato, you made my point much more clearly. It’s nice that George feels enriched by the presence of his brother, but the notion that we should decline to alleviate suffering because of its potential for enrichment is horribly patronizing!

And Steve, I disliked the acronym too. It’s an ugly, hateful word—sort of “the N word” for women.

Ok, enough on this. Anyone for some vanilla ice cream?
Remember, best way is in a bowl, stirred. Then take it outside somewhere, and eat it slowly with a spoon. Finishing by bowl licking is appropriate and encouraged.

George,

I always have a problem with the “Acting like God” argument. (This argument is not directed at you, but at the others who use it).

A. What if I don’t believe in God?
2. Who says that God wants us to live with diseases and not use the brain he gave us to discover cures.
iii. Any one who demands to stop others who are “acting like God” are themselves acting like God. When God himself tells me what he wants, I’ll listen. In the meantime don’t bother me.

This argument boils down to what you think life is.
Is sperm sacred?
Are eggs?
Once fertilized is this sacred life? Or does it need to be implanted in the uterus (medical definition of pregnancy)?
Or does this process need to develop and have brain waves to be called a separate individual?

I believe the latter.

Why do right to lifers fight so hard for the unborn and wash their hands at birth? Why are fetuses so much more important than the people they become?

Death by a horrifying and debilitating disease is God’s punishment for the sins of the flesh and unclean living. If the death of a child or any human from a painful, protracted illness is God’s preordained will from the very beginning of time, then so be it. Repent, and do not use your fallible mind to help “science” change the course of events that God has so carefully planned. Don’t listen to reason, listen to me, dammit, and put some money in the plate when it’s passed to you. Amen and amen. Jesus loves you and I’m trying.

And one more thing.

Snowflake Babies. What a pathetic, half-hearted, futile and flaccid movement. Why aren’t all these christians clamoring for the release from frigid captivity of all these “youngest human lives”? Where is the indignation? Where are the cries of “playing god” to the couples who created all these “pre-born humans” and only used one? How can anyone who decry the use of ESC possibly not be equally as outraged at the IVF procedures which “conceived” these tens of thousands of potential right wing voters?

Oh, did I give it away at the last part.

Shit.

IVF is not something that welfare moms are doing to get more children. I don’t remember who’s comment that was, but that was dead wrong.

Having a sister that needed to go the IVF route due to many medical complications……. they don’t let you just pull 1 egg and 1 sperm to throw in the little petri dish. ALso, it is not something that insurance or the gov’t pays for…. it is out of your own pockets.

First off, pulling only one of those tiny suckers would be a challenge.

Secondly; not all of the sperm and all of the eggs pulled actually survive the procedure.(Kind of like in real life, real time fertilization…… there ain’t just 1 sprem in there trying to win the race; nor does every egg a woman produces get fertilized…. Am I a murderer simply because I have a menstrual cycle?? No more so than the masterbating male side of the population.)

Thirdly, it is an expensive and uncomfortable (at least on the female side) procedure. Why do it more than once if you don’t have to?

In her first IVF, none of the 3 implanted fetuses (actually at that point they are still in the zygote stage I believe…… ) ‘took’. Second time, they popped in 3 ‘viable’ blobs, and she got 1 child. 2 years later, they decided to go for a sibling; they input 2 more of the blobs (all of these are from the initial ‘batch’), and poof! Both ‘took’, so she has 3 beautiful children all together. (out of 8 zygotes used. You can see why they make a small ‘batch’? Also, it isn’t as if they are making hundreds and hundreds of zygotes for each IVF treatment, but they are making up enough that based on the natural failure rate they should get at least 1 or 2 kids)

All of this took considerably LESS time, and signifigantly less money than adopting even 1 child, much less 3.

Why would people choose IVF over adopting the children in orphanges the world over? Hmmmmm……. Let’s see….. there is:

1. Prohibitive costs. Adopting 1 child will cost $12,000 - $25,000 before you ever even get to hold that child in your arms.

2. Red Tape. Oceans and Oceans of Red Tape. The number of forms and documents etc. that some countries require is staggering. Just when you think you have them all done, there are more, or they ‘misplaced one’ or….

3. ‘Loosing a Child’. Especially in the US, the birth parents can change their mind right up to the very end. Even after all is said and done, all of the assessments have been completed, all of the home studies have been done, all of the paperwork is ready to file, the prospective parents have turned their entire lives upside down and inside out getting ‘ready’, and at the last minute the birth parent says ‘no’ and the prospective parents start back at square one, looking at 12-24 months before they can potentially have a child, after going through all of the new home studies etc. Even in adopting from other countries, I’ve known friends who have gotten right to the final steps and are on their way halfway around the world to get a child only to arrive and find out they are going all the way back to square 1. I have 1 particular friend that did an ‘open adoption’ 7 years ago. She and her husband got the girl when she was about 18 months old (teen mother, lots of troubles). The adoption wasn’t ‘finalized’ for over a year (during which time the birth mother could have changed her mind, and almost did right before the papers were signed when the little girl was 3.)

4. Health concerns. Because the child is so far away, you can only rely on the reports from the orphanages and the adoptions groups. You many have a child that has serious health issues that you are never told about, and only discover too late. And yes, I know that a ‘healthy’ child is not a given in nature. However, if you are told that you are addopting a healthy child, and are suddenly in a position of having a child that has medical issues beyond what you are capable of caring for, or beyond the expenses that you can take on, what do you do? I know people that have spent every dime they had, to cover the adoption costs, only to discover that they were looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical issues that had not been disclosed.

Personally, I would much rather see Stem Cell research continue with the backing of both private and public resources. Yes, there is always the possibility of knowledge being used for evil rather than good, but I think that the possibilities of helping or curing so many of the debilitating maladies that are out there today outweigh the risks of being overrun by blue-eyed blonds. Besides, I live in Minnesota….. 3/4 of the state population are blue-eyed blonds…. I’ve never seen a problem.

Katie

I just wanted to point out that “embryo” and “fetus” are not interchangeable terms. My understanding is that a yet-to-be-born human isn’t considered a fetus until 8-10 weeks post-fertilization. Google “define: fetus” and see for yourself.

The proto-humans (in the developmental sense, not the evolutionary one) that are used for IVF and embryonic stem cells are EMBRYOS, not fetuses. Tiny blobs of as-yet-undifferentiated cells, no more than a few days old, indistinguishable from the embryos of other deuterostomes. In fact, by the time the fetus stage is reached, cell fates have been set and it’s not really feasible to generate actual stem cells, for the same reason that adult stem cells aren’t as medically useful as embryonic ones.

Whether or not you believe that human life is sacred from the moment of conception, I think it’s important to use terms accurately. Saying that fetuses are destroyed to create embryonic stem cell lines is misleading. No doubt that deliberate(?) misuse of terms helps inflame the right-to-lifers, though.