NYT,pg1: From Stem Cell Opponents, an Embryo Crusade ("embryo adoption")

[DeepModem Mom]

From Stem Cell Opponents, an Embryo Crusade
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: June 2, 2005


Randy and Julie McClure had three children who were long out of diapers and no plans for more when they heard about a program called Snowflakes, which arranges for women to become pregnant with embryos left over at fertility clinics.

"We really felt like the Lord was calling us to try to give one of these embryos, these children, a chance to live," Ms. McClure said....(T)he McClures, who are in their 40's and live in Bellevue, Wash., decided to take 13 embryos from a fertility clinic in Austin, Tex. They had a son 10 months ago and became part of an unexpected alliance that conservative Christians have been forming with the world of test-tube babies.

That alliance was on prominent display last week when, to protest a bill supporting the use of embryos for stem cell research, President Bush appeared with the McClures and 20 other Snowflakes families, kissing the babies, some of whom wore T-shirts that said "former embryo," or "this embryo was not discarded." Federal and state lawmakers have held similar appearances.

People on this part of the political spectrum have begun calling the process "embryo adoption," echoing the phrase that Snowflakes uses instead of "embryo donation." The Health and Human Services Department has termed the process embryo adoption in certain grants. Bills that would formally call it "embryo adoption" have begun to filter into statehouses in California, New Jersey and Massachusetts, states that, not coincidentally, are at the forefront of legalizing and encouraging embryonic stem cell research.

The adoption terminology irritates the fertility industry, abortion rights advocates and supporters of embryonic stem cell research, who believe that the language suggests - erroneously, they maintain - that an embryo has the same status as a child.

But for some conservative Christians, that is precisely the point....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/national/02embryo.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1117720886-1t4SynK6wrC+sPlon7/zLw

[fishnfla]

1. "they've basically abondoned the child"

WTF? And only 35% of the embryos make it thru the defrosting process.

So these people are murdering more snowflakes then they are helping and denying viable medical care for tens of millions of living people.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

2. The article says they took 13 embryos...

And had one child. What did they do with the other 12?
After the Rightwingnuts make abortion illegal, fertility clinics is their next target.
They've been cultivating this school of thought ever since the USSC ruled in Roe vs. Wade, and it's finally starting to show some fruit, rotten as it may be.

[ktowntennesseedem]

15. Yeah, I caught that, too.

Maybe my math's a bit rusty, though. They've changed science so that creationism is the accepted norm, maybe they've changed the rules for math, too. :sarcasm:

I predict the day when fertility clinics become like used car lots. A childless couple will enter and be told that they cannot harvest any eggs or sperm because they no longer create new embryos, but they can gladly adopt some (one?) of the countless leftovers from the pre-theocracy era.

[rebecca_herman]

19. the other 12 failed

It says the child came from the last embryo after some died and some didn't implant.
They are still idiots.

[Zenlitened]

3. Yes, the men in this scheme really are showing courage and leadership...

... aren't they?

:crazy:

[Coventina]

4. I don't have anything against the idea per se.....

HOWEVER, having said that, I wonder why all these people who are hot-to-trot to adopt these embryos haven't adopted actual children in need of homes?

Oh yeah, that's because "right to life" ends at birth. Forgot. Oops, sorry.

[MountainLaurel]

5. Because those children who need homes

Are often brown skinned, or might have "problems" such as mental disabilities.

Can't dirty up their perfect little world with undesirables, now can they?

:sarcasm:

[endarkenment]

6. Huh: this is lunacy and the language is frightening

Understand how they deliberately misuse language to confuse and befuddle people. You cannot 'adopt an embryo', an embryo is not a human being, it is a clump of cells.

After they force the framing with their misuse of language they then use that confusion and ofuscation to build a mountain of bullshit. It is all part of their straussian program of deliberate deception and confusion used to manipulate the befuddled masses.

They depend on good natured people like yourself to look underneath their language-confusion and say "I don't have anything against the idea", to help move their nasty agenda along. PLEASE DO NOT PLAY THEIR GAME.

[Coastie for Truth]

7. They are not adopting an embryo

they are adopting a zygote. Doesn't become an embryo until implantation takes - which fails to happen 85% of the time.

<>

I am a diabetic and I see this opposition to stem cell research as a wish (or prayer) on the part of the Rapture Right that we diabetics would just go away silently, silently lose our vision and limbs, and silently prematurely die.

After all - as we diabetics age we are more expensive to care for, and we drive up the cost of health insurance for the Rapture Rightists. - Maybe if I become a Rpature Rightist God will help me break my addiction to Metformin.

[kskiska]

8. Maybe it's time to throw a 1-yr. birthday party for a 3-mo.old child

And S.S. numbers can be assigned to each embryo. Maybe we can take out insurance policies on embryos and give them inheritance rights.

[KittyWampus]

11. Can We Adopt An Embryo & Keep It In The Freezer F/ A Low Maintance Child?

[David__77]

9. You cannot adopt an embryo or a sperm or an egg.

It's the same thing. Haven't they ever heard "don't count your chickens until your eggs hatch?"

[KittyWampus]

10. Using An Embryo For Stem Cell Makes It Immortal & Expands Its Existance

it does not destroy it.

[reprobate]

13. Excellant thought!

[bunkerbuster1]

12. If the Dems can't frame this as "Bush [hearts] eugenicists", pronto

we'll really have missed an incredible opportunity to show the American public what a heartless, evil creep this man really is.

I mean, come on--who WASN'T at least a little creeped out by how light-skinned EVERYONE on stage was with Chimpy for his "I hates me that stem-cell research" press conference?

Combine that with an existing national queasiness over Fundie assholes controlling access to birth control, and fire at will.

come on, Dem "leadership", you can do it!

[DoctorMyEyes]

14. eugenics is good

another "front" to counter on is take the argument right back to the beginning - in-vitro fertilization. If these zygotes are "life", then how dare people create so many more than they can use. Suggest that couples be COMPELLED to attempt to give birth to every one of them.

They have no right making all of those extra homeless, parentless children in the first place.

It's just a whacky enough argument that it may make a lightbulb or two go off in people's heads. The right never cringes from using "whacky" to further their agenda. Let's not be so squeamish - embrace the zygotes! Demand their implantation!

[bunkerbuster1]

21. whoa, you had me going with that subject header

figured it was another soon-to-be-deleted post!

Yeah, while you may be a bit extreme in what you propose, it is worth asking loudly and often why these folks aren't forced to implant the unused embryos, if they are, after all, "human life."

Most people are very queasy about assigning babyhood to something as ridiculously undeveloped as this. And if we continue to trot out the stats about when most elective abortions occur--only 22% are after 8 weeks' of embryonic development, for christsakes!--we can regain this ground.

[matcom]

16. THEY MURDERED 12 CHILDREN!!

13 embryo's
-1 child
______________

12 embryo's tossed in the garbage

;)

[Sin]

22. Theres only one thing that can be done

Some one start making embryo coffins and charge them $200 bucks a pop for them and $100 for a plot for it to get a proper Fundie send off if they start getting them in bulk they will go bankrupt right quick. :)

[booksenkatz]

17. Hey, I'm a former sperm. And a former egg.

I'm sick of this "save all of the embryos" shit on the basis that "we were all once embryos." We were also all sperm. We were also all eggs. An embryo is no more alive than a sperm or an egg, it merely changes form. So are we supposed to rescue every egg and every sperm out there? This crap is out of control.

[bunkerbuster1]

20. I guess technically we were all former erections.

can't waste those erections, can we?

[northzax]

18. here's an interesting idea

can they sue the biological creators of these zygotes for child support?

[HockeyMom]

23. Case going through courts now

of a "anonymous" sperm donor being sued for child support. So, I would guess the parents of the frozen zygote probably could be sued too.

Interesting that the freepers were blasting Brook Shields for undergoing 3 years of IVF treatments and killing "thousands" of her babies in that process. But it is ok for them to adopt 12 snowflake blastocysts to get one pregnancy? Don't they know that every time they conceive naturally they may be killing their babies too because in the majority of instances they don't implant either? What the hell is the difference? Doesn't implant from IVF. Doesn't implant from natural intercourse. What idiots.