Blogosphere Buzz
by Krystle Weeks
March 3, 2009
Here’s some of the buzz from the blogosphere.
- “Project Design Your Child,” Crystal Clear Conservative BBC News reported that an L.A. fertility clinic is allowing parents to select the hair and eye color for their children. I have to agree with the comment,”Every child is beautiful and is a gift from our Creator. In our image conscious society, I guess not.”
- “Hi, Sasha, Malia. Got a second?,” Moe Lane, RedState There are provisions within the Omnibus Bill that could threaten D.C. school vouchers.
- “New Research May Eliminate Need for Embryonic Stem Cells,” Conservative Belle
- “Catholics United and Abortion numbers: A Scholarly Look,” Tom McClusky, Kitchen Table Blog
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By: Chelsea | March 4, 2009 at 9:23 am
Question: why are no pro-lifers acknowledging the fact that, in the latest iPSC study that came out, the human skin cells that were used were fetal stem cells? I mean it did take me a lot of digging to finally find out where the stem cells actually came from, but is this not really a concern here? Admittedly I was not able to find out exactly where the fetal cells came from, but this was the explanation Wesley Smith gave me from a “scientist he trusts”:
“It was actually fetal skin cells (poor use of terms by the reporters & scientists) the short story is, since the 1960′s the prevailing view has been that fetal tissue grows better & is more pliable than adult (of course, recent years have proven that dogma wrong.) Nonetheless, the scientists in these 2 studies still started with fetal skin cells (both mouse & human) to do their iPSC reprogramming with the piggyBac transposon.
It will work just as well with adult; they just need to do the expt & publish”
The “poor use of terms” described here I think must be a reference to the stem cells being reported as coming from “human embryonic fibroblasts.”
I know that there is other iPSC research that does not involve the use of fetal cells. But, I’m just curious if, in this case, there is some conflict with pro-life values, or am I just overreacting?
Thanks!