Pro-Life News Network 7-11-2000 Embryonic Stem Cell Research

The Life organization says the "pro-cloning lobby" has misled the public about the need to use human embryos for stem cell research in the first place.

"There is an alternative source which is morally unobjectionable," the group said in a statement. "To continue depicting the debate as a clash between science and misplaced scruples, the pro-cloning lobby has found it necessary to down-play the remarkable advances that have taken place over the last 18 months in the world of adult stem cell research."  

The findings, Life said, held out the possibility of medical advances "without the need to destroy embryonic human clones."  The international journal Science last year reported that stem cells from adults were "much more accessible and can develop into a surprisingly broad repertoire of cell types ... clearly, the more utility to be gleaned from adult stem cells, the less [ethical] concerns about embryonic cells will matter."

"In defiance of decades of accepted wisdom, researchers in 1999 found that stem cells from adults retain their youthful ability to become several different kinds of tissues: brain cells can become blood cells, and cells from bone marrow can become liver," the journal continued. "Scientists are now speeding ahead with work on adult stem cells."