by Chris Bodenner
In response to the court ruling, Kinsley puts the views of its supporters under the microscope:
Of the tens of thousands of embryos discarded by fertility clinics every year, a few are used for stem cell research. Extracting the stem cells involves destroying the embryos, which would be destroyed anyway. True, the destruction of embryos used for research is purposeful, whereas the destruction of embryos in the everyday work of fertility clinics is incidental. But is that distinction really strong enough to support the difference between cavalier acceptance of tens of thousands of embryo deaths in fertility clinics and a legal ban on using a small fraction of these embryos to help develop ways to save lives? (Conflict-of-interest note: My life included. I have Parkinson’s.)
(Photo: A colony of human embryonic stem Cells is seen on a computer monitor the is hooked up to a microscope at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at University Wisconsin-Madison March 10, 2009 in Madison, Wisconsin. On March 9, 2009 President Barack Obama signed an order reversing the Bush administration's limits on human embryonic stem cell research. By Darren Hauck/Getty Images.)