WDRB Interview on Stem Cell Research

WDRB TV, Fox 41, did a story on the stem cell issue in light of President Barack Obama’s new policy.  I was interviewed for this report.  The video is available here.

The package by WDRB put a focus on John Swarts, a patient with Parkinson’s Disease, who is planning to go ahead with a surgical attempt to alleviate the disease’s symptoms.

The print version of their story includes these two paragraphs:

But surgery might not be his only option.  On Monday, President Barack Obama signed an executive order overturning an eight-year restriction on stem cell research.  “It’s so good to see that the country is moving in the direction now where there is going to be more experimentation with different procedures that might be able to help us.”

But Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has a different view:  “I see this as a tragedy.”  He supports stem cell research, but not the use of embryos:  “Anytime we take human beings at any stage of development and treat them as commodities, and in this case treat them as laboratory material for destruction, we’re really devaluing human life and every single human being.”

I certainly hope and pray that Mr. Swarts is healed of this disease or at least relieved of its effects, but this report implies that treatments for such diseases based in the use of human embryonic stem cells are just around the corner  — which is certainly not the case.  As a matter of fact, the use of adult stem cells is now leading to more direct applications of stem cell research.

The use of human embryos for medical research is immoral. There is every good reason to support research using adult stem cells or cells derived without the need for the destruction of the human embryo, but President Obama’s new policy opens the door for even more morally dangerous developments to come.