The daily news, the weekly and monthly news magazines, and the daily radio and television have presented the lay public with detailed descriptions and analyses of the status of Human Embryonic Stem Cell research. But confusion reigns. Most people do not even differentiate between HESC in bone marrow transplants for sufferers of leukemia and lymphoma. The disintegration of the wall of separation between church and state has allowed the Vatican and fundamentalist Christian sects to launch a media blitz equating HESC research and therapy with abortion and use it as a wedge to overturn Roe v. Wade and declare all abortion (even when the life of the mother is endangered by the pregnancy) as illegal in the United States of America.

The Facts:
Stem cells from bone marrow are differentiated cells that can and do produce the three cellular components of blood red and white blood cells and platelets.
Unlike HESC, they are not pluripotential and immortal. They cannot mature into every one of the approximately 250 cell types of the human body and cannot divide indefinitely i.e. do not cease cell division after 50 replications.
HESC are obtained from a fertilized egg several days after fertilization while yet in a laboratory dish (in-vitro) without ever being implanted in a uterus.
Stem cells similar to HESC can be obtained with difficulty from adult tissue but are not pluripotential.
HESC can be used in the "Dolly" cloning attempts but so can any other cells of the adult body. No reputable researcher is interested in cloning as a means of producing a copy of an adult. There is no financial potential in it, no research funds available and no societal interest except for the bizarre.
HESC research does not involve destroying mini-fetuses. None of the organized religions of the world until this Pope claimed "humanhood" for a four day post fertilization zygote lying in a glass dish. Traditionally, "Humankind" ("ensoulment;" "quickening") in the Jewish, Moslem, and Christian faiths is said to occur after forty days' gestation.

In our faith it is forbidden to abort a fetus even before forty days, but it is not of the same magnitude of sin as post-forty days. A zygote that was never implanted in uterus has no claim to "humanhood" and may be studied in order to achieve life saving therapies for thousands or millions of sufferers.

The decision of President Bush to allow research only on stem cells already in tissue cultures, but not to initiate new cell lines even from left-over fertilized eggs from assisted reproductive technology now in the freezer and soon to be discarded imposes a religious dogma on our American democracy. It is a concession to right-wing Christians that breaches the wall of separation between church and state that is a major protection for minorities in the USA.

If new stem cells cannot be generated using the sufferers' own cells, then the great promise of HESC therapy cannot be realized. Foreign stem cells will be rejected as are organ transplants necessitating immunosuppressive drugs with their side effects that make the patients prone to infections and lymphomas and leukemias.

Research and therapy will continue in other countries that are now the leaders in this scientific endeavor: England, Israel, Sweden, etc. In the United States, privately funded companies will continue their research. By withholding US government support for this life-saving research, the world will proceed slowly and thousands will die who could have been saved.