Relevant Quotes From Experts in the Field

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Stem Cells

"Maybe one day, rather than treating people with tablets, we'll just be treating them with their own cells. My passionate feeling here is that this type of therapy, [adult stem cell] cellular therapy, is going to revolutionize the way we practice medicine."

—Dr Anthony Mathur, London Chest Hospital

"The interest in embryonic stem cells has led to adult stem cells being very much neglected. And whereas I think for embryonic stem cells we're talking about a long time ahead before these cells are going to be in use, in our case we're thinking of clinical trials within this year."

—Professor Geoffrey Raisman, Institute of Neurology (London)

"The published scientific literature is now full of reports on the abilities of adult stem cells with as much or more promise of treating disease as ES cells have. Some of the past criticisms of adult stem cells have been that there was not a separate adult stem cell for each tissue; that they did not have the ability to make all body tissues; that they were difficult to isolate; and that they were present in the body in only small numbers and could not be kept growing indefinitely, so it would be difficult to get enough of these cells to actually treat a patient. Since 1999, all of those ideas have been disproved in the scientific literature."

"Thus adult stem cells have all of the advantages needed for regenerative medicine without the clinical negatives associated with ES cells and without the necessity for destruction of human life."

—David A. Prentice, PH.D. "The Biotech Revolution" in the book Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, Colson & Cameron, editors

"If embryos are human beings, then conducting stem cell research on them (during which their stem cells are extracted and they are killed) violates the Nuremberg Code. If, through therapeutic cloning, embryos are created to be used in experiments that would likewise be lethal to them, that too violates the Nuremberg Code. Would it matter if the extravagant claims of cloning and embryonic stem cell research advocates—cures for every human disease and every human aliment [sic]—could actually be realized? I will answer the question with another question. Would our judgment of the Nazis have been affected if they had found such cures? I do not think so. Surely everyone would agree that the imperative to conduct scientific research to "help people" must yield to the fundamental ethical norm expressed in the Nuremberg Code. Regardless of the good that might be produced by such experiments, the experiments are of their very nature an immoral use of human beings. In short, the end does not justify the means."

"...it is a mistake to separate being from personhood."

—William L. Saunders, J.D. "The Human Embryo in Debate" in the book Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, Colson & Cameron, editors

Cloning

"Implantation is no more human cloning then [sic] implanting an embryo created via IVF is human fertilization."

—Wesley J. Smith "Cloning Doubletalk" in the Weekly Standard, also see wesleyjsmith.com

"All human cloning is reproductive, in that it creates, reproduces, a new developing human intended to be virtually identical to the cloned subject. In point of fact, both reproductive and therapeutic cloning use exactly the same technique to create the clone, and the cloned embryos are indistinguishable. The process, as well as the product, is identical. The only distinction is the purpose for which the embryo will be used. Either it will be transferred to a womb in the hopes of a live birth, or it will be destroyed in the hopes of a medical miracle."

"Creating new human life solely to destroy it for the potential benefit of others is unethical. It turns human life into a commodity, creating a caste system of lesser humans for scientific sacrifice."

—David A. Prentice, PH.D. "The Biotech Revolution" in the book Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, Colson & Cameron, editors

"In the cloning debate, the desire to 'deny what everyone really knows' ... by finding language that would hide the facts about human life has been so convoluted that it would be amusing if lives were not at stake."

—William L. Saunders, J.D. "The Human Embryo in Debate" in the book Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, Colson & Cameron, editors

"Dolly the sheep was euthanized because of a lung disease, living only half the normal life span of sheep. Cloned mouse fetuses have a higher rate of abnormality, and the adult mice have a higher incidence of tumors than do normal mice. Are we willing to risk making babies with severe abnormalities and the corresponding mandate to abort or euthanize them?"

—Paige Comstock Cunningham, J.D. "Learning from our Mistakes" in the book Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, Colson & Cameron, editors

Use of Human Eggs

"Human eggs are so precious — why waste them to practice on?"

—Huizhen Sheng, Shanghai Second Medical University (note: Sheng is a proponent of human/animal hybrid research but this quote is still appropriate)

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