I have previously questioned the intelligence of Republican politicians since most smart Republicans go into business.That’s no reflection on those who choose politics after a successful career in business or a profession. Somebody has to do these things and Tom Coburn, or my former Congressman and friend, Ron Packard, have obviously made a sacrifice to contribute. As a general rule, Democrats see government as the most important component of our economy so they should attract a better overall level of candidate. They may not know much economics but many are very intelligent and well informed in other spheres I used to think Bill Clinton, whatever his problems with his impulse control and honesty, was one of them. That’s why it’s a bit of a shock to learn that he doesn’t know what an embryo is.
Clinton: I think – the answer is I think that we’ll work it through. If – particularly if it’s done right. If it’s obvious that we’re not taking embryos that can – that under any conceivable scenario would be used for a process that would allow them to be fertilized and become little babies, and I think if it’s obvious that we’re not talking about some science fiction cloning of human beings, then I think the American people will support this….
The embryos that are used in stem cell research are not fertilized !!!! ?
What the f**k does he think an embryo is ????
Tags: Bill Clinton, biology, stem cell
He’s just stuck on “fertilize”.
Why should it surprise you that the same people who are totally okay with partial-birth abortion are uninformed about what exactly an embryo is? I’m not surprised. Bill is just like Mao who never admitted that his absurd policies during the Great Leap Forward resulted in the starvation deaths of as many as 30 million people.
Did you read Krauthammer’s response to the stupid Obama lifting of the restriction on lines of embryonic stem cells? The most telling line is at the end where he quotes the scientist who discovered ESC,
“Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells, said “if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” Obama clearly has not.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/using_embryoswithout_limit.html
I’m telling you, Men without chests.
I agree with you, VL. In my mind, anyone who supports partial – birth abortion truly knows very little about the reality of just about anything that occurs after conception.
I thought Clinton was shooting off the cuff and it was surprising to see him almost sounding like the incoherent Steele.
VL and Dana,
Some people are informed about what happens in pregnancy, and still don’t support outlawing abortion. They look at the matter from a different perspective.
BTW, what do you all think about stem cells created from parthenogenic human egg cells? I have a story appearing tomorrow about a company that produces these cells by stimulating the egg cells to divide, creating cells that act like embryonic stem cells. The cells are diploid, btw, so they have the normal genetic complement.
I will post a link when it appears online and you can critique it.
Bradley,
We can agree to disagree about abortion. Though I’ve never heard your opinion on Partial-Birth abortion or late term abortions in general, or for that matter, what your opinions are on abortion on demand with no limitations. Or if you think there should be limitations, what those should be.
What I can’t abide are politicians who make policy for the rest of us on blinkered understandings of the issue itself. That Clinton holds forth on abortion and embryonic stem cell research without even the most basic understanding that an embryo is, in point of fact, a FERTILIZED egg is hubris beyond reason. This isn’t “he prefers red licorice and she prefers black.” This has to do with human life and he charges ahead without any understanding at all.
I don’t understand enough about parthenogenic human egg cells to give you an opinion.
However, at the risk of repeating previous conversations and bringing religion to a sciencey blog, my position on the sacredness of human life is outlined below. I believe the following:
-that life begins at conception and that, in a little bit of time, that fertilized egg becomes an embryo.
-that the humanity of the fertilized egg-embryo-fetus-newborn doesn’t grow with the viability of the child, rather it exists in an unchanging way from the start.
-that the needs of an ill/sick/diseased adult are not a valid reason to end an embryo’s life.
Given all of that, I need to study exactly what parthenogenisis produces.
I’m interested in your article, thanks for providing the link when you are done. I’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm for the potential curative powers of embryonic stem cells. What I have yet to see are actual cures. To be truthful, I kind of think that it’s a pipe dream. Sort of the way, in less informed cultures, some thought bathing in virgin’s blood would end aging.
Regardless of whether there were cures or not, I do not believe or think that it is a good thing to sacrifice the weak to soothe the strong. I think it does a great deal of damage to the culture that practices such things.
Hi Lycopene Goddess,
Mike K. provided ample evidence of Clinton’s ignorance of pregnancy.
I generally favor Roe. v. Wade, which is as best as I can think for a very murky issue. R v. Wade includes restrictions on late-term abortions, which should only be allowed for the health of the mother.
I view the development of human life as a continuum, from a one-celled fertilized egg to a baby. During this time, the structures that support individual human life — especially the brain — develop. As the fetus grows, it deserves more protection. So I would not be troubled by contraception that prevents implantation. Aborting a third-trimester fetus is another matter entirely.
I don’t favor banning so-called “partial birth abortion”. Why would it ever be performed, as opposed to other measures of abortion, were it not the safest for the mother? No opponent has ever explained that to me. Some make it appear as if “partial birth abortion” was done only to satisfy sadistic doctors who wanted to torture babies. Not very convincing.
If there are *never* any conditions where “partial birth abortion” can be the medically preferred form of abortion, then I will oppose it. Otherwise, my preference is to give the doctor discretion. Perhaps Mike K. will shed some light on the subject.
Bradley, D&X, the medical term for partial birth abortion, is a procedure that I cannot imagine a purpose for. The OB societies reflexively defend it as they defend abortion but only because all the medical societies do not want abortion to be argued by placing doctors in the middle, either outlawing such procedures and then prosecuting the doctor, or relying on the doctor to prevent it. The medical associations learned 25 years ago not to survey members on this topic. Medical society members are split about 50-50 on abortion if asked as a moral question.
The worst circumstances for medical complication of pregnancy, aside from pregnancy complications themselves like toxemia, would be mitral stenosis, in which the pregnant women goes into left heart failure as the placenta blood flow rises in the second trimester, or cancer that responds to hormones, like breast. Both of those occur about 20 to 25 weeks and both would justify an abortion. Neither would require D&X although it could start to approach viability of the fetus.
Mitral stenosis, which used to be common and I’ve seen some cases, is quite rare now. Normally, the woman is in trouble by 20 weeks as placental blood flow gets pretty high by then even though the baby isn’t very big. Breast cancer, those cases I’ve seen, is apparent in the first trimester.
My own most problematic experience was a young woman with melanoma. She had a level IV melanoma on her leg which has about a 50% prognosis for recurrence. I had had an experience with another young woman who had a melanoma recurrence in pregnancy so I warned her not to get pregnant. She was newly married to a man with a 12-year-old child and wanted children. I asked her to wait at least 5 years but two years later she showed up pregnant. Her OB and I watched her and by 20 weeks she had recurrent melanoma in her thigh. I did a local resection and she refused abortion. We watched her very closely and by 34 weeks or so, the baby was viable (that was 25 years ago with less effective neonatology) but she had lung metastases. We did a c-section and she had melanoma everywhere in her abdomen and on her chest xray but she got a good baby.
End of story ? No
We started her on chemo, expecting nothing, but over the next four months all the melanoma disappeared. Six years later she was still free of tumor. She is the second patent I’ve had who developed melanoma recurrence during pregnancy and it all went away post partum.
I am pro-choice but do not see any condition that would justify D&X. To make things worse, there is an abortionist in Kansas who boasts that he has done thousands. He does abortions at any stage and tends to get the ones turned down elsewhere.
Thanks, Mike K. You’ve settled that question for me
Last question: Why would physicians ever perform D&X, when other abortion methods are available? Does it get the doctor more money? Is it easier to do?
While we are on these questions, I have one – Once the baby is viable, why perform an abortion at all? Help me with this, cause it makes no dammed sense. None.
Here’s my parthenogenic stem cell story.
Bradley, they do them because the patent arrives 40 weeks pregnant and wants an abortion. I don’t understand why they don’t just induce labor and give the baby up for adoption. Tiller, the guy in Kansas, has now been charged and will be tried. I don’t know how effective that will be.
I don’t understand why they don’t just induce labor and give the baby up for adoption.
Mike K., I’m in the same spot regarding that question.
I agree. If the pregnancy is third-trimester, (What is 40 weeks, though — fourth-trimester?), giving up the baby for adoption would be an ethically better choice. It’s not as if there would be a lack of adoptive parents.
I also think the Octobabies should be given up for adoption. That butbag Octomom is clearly incapable of taking care of them.
I meant “nutbag”, not “butbag” about Octomom.
I don’t know, Bradley. “Butbag” has its own level of humor.
The whole abortion issue in this nation is much more about political perceptions than anything else. Roe v. Wade is a Solomonic division, based on what was known at the time.
The arguments against outlawing D&X follow the “slippery slope” meme, much as NRA supporters do not wish any restrictions at all on any kind of gun ownership. Surely, we can agree on a better alternative, like delivering the child and putting him or her (notice how people tend to say “it” under these circumstances?) up for adoption.
As for stem cells, I am pretty darned familiar with the field, since folks starting talking about it in the 1980s. Embryonic stem cells are well worked out in a mouse model…but no one has used them to “build” new organs (other than a bladder; the recent stories about “minilivers” are, um, an oversell). The stem cell issue has become entwined with politics, sadly. Hence the overselling. Sadly, I am old enough to remember many, many cases of scientists overselling whatever discoveries they have.
In science fiction, the saying goes: the future will be less dire than you fear, and less beneficent than you hope. The only sure thing is that it will be different than you expect *now*.
Be honest: in the 1980s, did anyone really expect the Soviet Union to go “poof”? That’s just a small example.
Mind you, research does wonderful things. But Vivian Louise states the correct question: at what cost? People are funny about this kind of thing. I don’t have the statistics, but I would bet cash money that PETA supporters are very much in favor of D&X and stem cell research and the like….which seems at variance with their feelings versus animals.
It seems to me (my opinion only) that our technology has far outstripped our ethos.
Dr. K., the melanoma story continues to fascinate me. But melanoma is a weird beast.
Speaking of cancers (and off topic), Dr. K., you should read about the very freaky Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease
The tumor cells are transmissible! Almost science fictional…
Buttbag. Octomom. LOL.
I’m going to pull a movie reference out of the hat because it fits so well. At the end of Serenity where Mal makes his “I aim to misbehave” speech addresses these issues, in a fictional way. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Oh, crap, that was Jurrasic Park. Anyway, you get the picture. I’m not saying that messing around with embryonic stem cells will get us a pissed of T-Rex in downtown LA or Reavers floating around space killing, raping and making decorative fashion accessories out of human skins. I just think technology, most especially when it becomes politicized, runs ahead and beyond morals and ethics.
No one ever stopped privately funded labs from working with embryonic stem cells. The lack of government funding might have made it a no go, but I wonder about that.
Oh, BJF – 40 weeks. Nope, it’s not the fourth trimester, it is the week inclusive of due date, the last week of the 9th month.