Stem cell sayings
Embryonic stem cells...are in effect, a human self repair kit.
Activist Christopher Reeve speaking on CNN’s Larry King Live
The best that can be said about embryonic stem cell research is that it is scientific exploration into the potential benefits of killing human beings.
Tom Delay writing in the Washington Post (2005)
I am pro-life. I believe human life begins at conception. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported.
Former U.S. Senator Bill Frist, speech (2005)
An ethicist...told me that cluster of cells is the same way you and I, and all the rest of us, started our lives. One goes with a heavy heart if we use these, he said, because we are dealing with the seeds of the next generation.
President George W. Bush announcing stem cell funding decision (2001)
Imagine that instead of all these drugs, my body could heal my damaged nerves like it was healing a blister. That’s the kind of miracle I pray for every day.
M.S. sufferer Allison Steeves writing in the National Post (2002)
We cannot do things that are inherently evil to bring about a good...it’s making objects out of entities that are human. It’s reducing human dignity.
Suzanne Scorsone, former Royal Commissioner on Reproductive Technologies
It seems to me it’s better to do some good than no good. For instance, if you got embryos that are going to waste, the patient no longer wants and is prepared to donate them, rather than just destroying them, it is better to try to use them for some good for a patient, to convert them into embryo stem cells to treat some dread disease.
Roger Gosden, research scientist, Royal Victoria Hospital
It (the embryo) is a human being biologically... there is something special about the embryo and most people tie that specialness to the potentiality of it becoming a person, because it already is a human being. And that in recognition of that, we are going to hold ourselves accountable in terms of how we interact with, engage or destroy the embryo.
Francoise Baylis, ethicist, Dalhousie University
Researchers and biotech executives foresee the day when the effects of many catastrophic diseases can be reversed. The damaged brains of Alzheimer's disease patients may be restored. Severed spinal cords may be rejoined. Damaged organs may be rebuilt. Stem cells provide hope that this dream will become a reality.
George Wolff, The Biotech Investor's Bible
"Destroying an embryo is equivalent to abortion… Excommunication is valid for the women, the doctors and researchers who destroy embryos.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family
Stem cell therapies have the potential to do for chronic diseases what antibiotics did for infectious diseases. It is going to take years of serious research to get there, but as a neurologist, I believe the prospect of a "penicillin" for Parkinson's is a potential breakthrough that we must pursue. As in other areas of creative endeavor in science, the answers will come only with careful experimentation.
Joseph Martin, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard
Nuclear transfer technology, which allows you to create stem cells that are genetically identical to a particular patient, may be ... necessary in order to get the full value out of embryonic stem cells. This is the matter of taking the nucleus from a skin cell, putting it in a hollowed-out egg cell in a dish and growing it to the point where you can take stem cells out of it. It never enters a womb. Sperm and egg never meet. There's no pregnancy and yet the opponents of this research continue to cast this in terms of these are little tiny lives. In fact, these are specks smaller than a grain of sand in which we can derive stem cells that could have vast scientific and medical benefit.
Daniel Perry, PBS Online NewsHour (2004)