Explain to me again how stem cell research is *immoral*.
Thirty plus years ago my father watched as his parents slipped into the mist of time. Isn't that a pretty way to say that they went, as it was called then, senile?
They both had hardening of the arteries. First they would forget things. Nothing major, they still were able to live alone, together. I was only 3 or 4, and I only have vague memories of these grandparents. I remember (or think I do) that my grandpa was a big man. About the only clear memories I have of grandpa is sitting on the porch and listening to him tell stories about working on the railroad. I can't remember those stories, I just know that was what the stories were about. I can remember him singing "Old Dan Tucker", and I can remember walking down the block to the gas station to get a soda pop. My sister would get a grape soda, I would get an orange soda and Grandpa would get a root beer, and he would always tell us not to tell grandma, cause she didn't approve of *beer*. I must have spent all my time at their house with grandpa outside, cause I don't have any memories of being inside with grandma.
But slowly their forgetfulness became worse and my father had to place his parents in a rest home. He didn't want to, but had no choice. He didn't have the money to hire home health care, and our house wasn't big enough to take them in. He had three children and a two bedroom home. Thankfully my father will be spared losing himself to *the mists of time* because when he was in his 60's his doctor discovered he had morbidly high chloresterol. Not just high, his was past that designation, and chances are so were his parents. My dads number was 430. No that is not a misprint 4 (four) hundred and 30 (thirty). Medication and diet has brought his count down and his arteries now at age 80 are *clean as a whistle*.
Asthma runs in our family. Severe asthma. Asthma that mimics cystic fibrosis. Asthma that causes high fever and so much mucus that mucus plugs form and cause you to choke and gag for air. Constriction that sends you into dry heaves and delirium from oxygen deprivation. My dads grandmother died 3 yrs (to the day) before he was born from an asthma flare. When my dad was 8, his 15 yr. old sister died from asthma as well, following a burst appendix. Because of medical advances my son survived his asthma (at least he has to age 24) and my neice survived a burst appendix last year.
Last May my dad set by the bedside of my mother as she finally lost her fight with ovarian cancer. After 7 yrs of fighting, after 4 operations, after countless hours of chemo, my mom took her last breath and went home to God. Leaving dad alone, at age 80, after 46 yrs of marriage to carry on alone. She also left him to face their oldest daughters cancer and death alone as well. The same day as my mom had her final surgery, a week before she died, my sister was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that has metasticized into 4 lung nodules and 12 lymph nodes.
Not too long ago I sat in church and listened as my priest explained how we as catholics have a responsibility to make sure that medical advances are ethical. How using embryonic stem cells for research is not ethical, because those cells come from potential life. My thought was and is: explain to me what is ethical or moral about allowing people to suffer, go through torture, and die when we can prevent it? Who are we to decide that the ways and means that God has given us to try and prevent this is *unethical*. Why is it ethical and moral to allow the already living to die, because of refusal to use cells that have the *potential* for life? And please explain to me how it is ethical to allow others to go through the torment of watching loved ones suffer and die when we have the ability to use stem cells to prevent this? Because I just don't get the reasoning. It doesn't seem either ethical or moral to me.
I guess I just have to accept that different people have different views of what is and isn't *ethical*, but I am not sure why in a country that holds as one of its highest principals, the separation of church and state, we are so willing to allow religious ethics and morals to make medical and scientific decisions.
http://ladyliberal.blogspot.com/
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