A Breakthrough for Life

The potential advantages of adult stem cells over embryonic stem cells have long been recognized. Adult stem cells have already been used to treat diseases (more than 70 different diseases and defects), and they don’t involve destroying a human life. Yet embryonic stem cells have gotten almost all the press (and the big money).

Thanks to a recent stem-cell breakthrough by scientists in Wisconsin and Japan, however, the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way—in support of life. The scientific community was amazed when two researchers managed to “reprogram human skin cells directly into cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells.”*

Wendy Wright, a leading pro-life advocate and the president of Concerned Women for America, says, “This breakthrough allows scientists to further their research and develop medical advances while still honoring the sanctity of life.” She adds, “Policymakers can safely abandon the politically charged demand to fund the destruction of embryos to find stem-cell solutions.”

Wright is one of many Christians who see the ongoing battle over funding of embryonic stem cell research as “a proxy for the larger war over morality and God’s commands.” Now, she says, “In God’s great providence, He provided a way to produce what scientists claim they want, but without crossing any moral boundaries.”

* Researchers Turn Skin Cells into Stem Cells

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n2/breakthrough-for-life