Anyone that knows me knows the recent announcement that tax payer money will be used to fund Embryonic Stem Cell research has cut me to the quick.
I am amazed at how many people, even politicians, are in the dark about Stem Cells. The difference between Stem Cells and Embryonic Stem Cells? The cells are the same blank canvas that may lead to cures; however, embryonic means they were taken from a killed embryo-an embryo that would have been a person had it been implanted in a uterus, or not taken out of one. Regular ol' stem cells? Taken from Cord Blood at no cost of life. The same research can be done, the same cures found, just no one has to die, and tax money doesn't have to be used to support cutting up little embryos.
As I watched the news, one politician in a wheelchair claimed that now he had hopes of walking again. DUDE, Embryonic Stem Cell research has always been legal-it just wasn't TAX MONEY paying for it. It wasn't MY MONEY. If private people wanted to fund the research, then they could, out of their own pockets. Do you think if anyone had stumbled upon ANYTHING promising they wouldn't be out getting funding and support? And still, should my money be used to kill babies? I consider them babies, and I don't feel it is right that my tax money be used to now kill them.
BESIDES, you will get TONS, BILLIONS, more stem cells from CORD BLOOD than you ever will from an embryo. If you want a good amount of stem cells to research with, do it with the stem cells you get from having a baby born. It is the same, wonderful blank cells that can *possibly* be used to find cures to all our ailments, but no one has to die to get them.
My husband and I donated the cord blood from both of our babies to research and others needing transplants to fight leukemia or other ailments. If the hospital you are delivering at or your OBGYN does not offer cord blood donation, check here to see what you can do. Search around a few months before you are due, too, because everything does need to be set up to occur right after birth so the cord blood cells are viable for transplants or research.
The only way now, it seems, to fight the death of embryos is to offer another source of stem cells, and that my friends, is Cord Blood.
