Has anyone heard this meme from the Religous Right or is it new?

[DanCa]

Hey guys as most of you know I was in DC earlier this week and I saw in interesting protest sign. The sign said "Death to the Embryo Brokers." I have been trying to figure out what the heck they were talking about. Has anyone heard this term before or is it a new one? Thanks all for your time Danny.

[niyad]

1. new to me, too. opposition to stem cell research--or are they talking

about the "snowflake" babies?

[DanCa]

2. No that's what they were calling us. "Embryo Brokers."

:Sarcasm: bless their fundie hearts for them to brave the cold so that the could insult a bunch of disabled people who want a cure. :mad:

[obxhead]

3. Welcome to DC....

That's one crazy town... (coming from a local of 13 years)

[DanCa]

5. No offense but how can you afford to live there :)

Of course I stayed at the Holliday Inn on the Hill but even your Mcdonalds is higher priced than ours. :hug:

[obxhead]

6. Well I say a local...

but I lived about 30 miles south.... Much of my party time and work time was spent in the area.

Up until the housing bubble (yeah that's my belief) You could afford it with the higher scale wages the area paid. Now.... Not a chance unless you are somebody that knows somebody and works for a company that knows other big companies. :)

One crazy town though. Hookers and drug dealers on one side of the street, Wall street type on the other.

People of ALL walks of life everywhere, almost all of them vocal....

[Hekate]

4. Just another pro-life call to kill the opposition

:eyes:
It's a new one on me, and I find it rather obscure, thankfully. Could be referring to stem cell research, or the snowflake babies, or...

Hekate

[WatchWhatISay]

8. What are snowflake babies?

Edjukat me pleez!

[anitar1]

10. Embryo's that are in deep freeze. 60 Minutes had a

segment about it last Sunday. Seems the unused embryos are kept and frozen. Then can go to others who are infertile, or can be sed by the donor , if they wish. The fate of the embryos is up to the donor in most cases. Of course this makes money flow for Drs. in that business. so that must be what they are protesting.

[Hekate]

11. IVF procedures usually result in a lot of fertilized eggs...

...if the couple is lucky, there might be a couple of dozen, even more. Since trying to get pregnant this way is very, very expensive, and a whole lot of hope is invested in the process, the "left over" fertilized eggs can be (and usually are) frozen so that some can be used later on. At that stage they are really just a cluster of cells -- anything as complex as an embryo would die from the freezing process. Physically, that is what they are; the hopes and dreams of infertile couples ride on them, even though at that stage they are blueprints of humanity.

In Britain they are kept for only 5 years before being automatically discarded by the clinic. In the US the tendency has been to leave it up to the couple in question, which can make it hard on them emotionally even if they feel their family is complete, because they invested so much physical and emotional effort, not to mention money.

So-called pro-lifers think they are all babies. Real babies. It's the logical extension of their obsession with even the earliest abortions -- my fundie neighbor, for instance, believes the US has been making a Holocaust of babies -- he believes that I, for instance, condone the murder of babies because I am pro-choice.

So these frozen little clumps of cells, these blueprints of babies that might possibly come into being, are now called "snowflake babies" by pro-lifers. They want them to all have a chance to be born, so they have tried to talk women into "adopting" them. I don't think they've had a lot of success -- it is very rugged to be hormonally prepped to have a fertilized egg implanted, and there's actually a high failure rate.

In my opinion, pro-lifers fantasize about fertilized eggs to such an extent that they don't see the real babies out in the world -- the already-born who need diapers, and formula, and vaccinations, and later on good schools... "Snowflake babies" are so much less trouble to deal with.

Hekate

[Maru Kitteh]

17. We should send a bunch of them to those zealots with

some Crème Fraiche and toast with a fine champange?

Too harsh? :shrug:

[RagingInMiami]

7. A "pro-lifer" advocating death?

What a surprise

[FatDave]

9. Embryo brokers?

Who comes up with this shit?

Seriously though, our opposition is pretty good at coming up with negative terms for things they oppose and getting them to stick. This is a game we should learn to play.

"Corporate welfare" was a good one for our side, but they're better at it than us.

I'm doing what I can to popularize the term "Christian hate".

[NMMNG]

12. Hey, I have a question

How is it that stem cell advocates/researchers are "Embryo Brokers",

yet people who profit by performing IVF, particularly those who use eggs harvested from other women, are not?


Explain it to me like I'm a five year old please.

[DanCa]

13. Well in fundie land I think I got a promotion.

Last year I was an Embryo Farmer. Now I am an Embryo Broker. I wonder when I'll be promoted to an Embryo CEO? :D

[NMMNG]

14. When you make a huge contribution to the Republican Party

So Dumbya will pass a law allowing Stem-cell research by your mega-corporation.


Don't you know that's how business gets done in today's Amurka?

[DanCa]

15. Actually I thnk theres one more step beyond that. :D

The repuke party also rewards you if you dress up as a cowboy and smear war heroes.

[NMMNG]

16. Brownie Points!

:patriot:

[Telly Savalas]

18. The embryo brokers will use their ill-gotten gains

to genetically engineer an ungodly army of human-animal hybrids.

[Toucano]

19. No doubt it's about animal human hybrids. n/t

[Hekate]

21. Are Freepers annoying the sheep again?

Just asking.

Hekate

[in_cog_ni_to]

20. Dan...I have no clue what that means, but tell me how your trip went!

Did you get to bend the ears of Obama and Durbin...did you tell Dick how much I love him? :* How was the trip??? Did you get any new info on the stem cell research issue?