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Michigan Voters Mull Stem Cell Research

Posted on: Monday, 3 November 2008, 12:00 CST

Michigan voters will decide Tuesday whether to overturn a 30-year-old ban on destroying human embryos for medical research.

"I'd call it a religious-ethical friction," said Leonard Fleck, a Michigan State University medical ethicist favoring the proposal. "It's obviously related to the abortion issue. What gives it a different moral coloring, what we'd hope to accomplish with the embryonic stem cells, is the saving of human life."

Polls indicate Michiganites are pretty evenly divided on Proposition 2, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Extracted from embryos, undifferentiated stem cells can become cells for any body part. Some scientists think the cells' adaptability could lead to cures for genetic illnesses or regenerate damaged human tissue.

The proposal's opponents, under the umbrella group Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation, say destroying fertilized eggs equals murder, the Journal reported. Leaders of the Catholic Church, which supports stem-cell research as long as it doesn't destroy human embryos, accused proponents of playing on emotions suggesting a quadriplegic might walk again.

"There's been a great deal of hype about the embryonic stem cells that has distracted people and diverted resources from the things that actually help people," such as adult stem cell therapies, Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told the Journal.

Source: United Press International

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