Even With Petey Gone, the IFI found just as big of a wanker

Just to start:

But unlike single issue pro-life voters, Fox’s interest in the topic is completely altruistic. That’s right, it’s wholly self-centered.

Playing for the sympathy of the electorate, Fox manipulates the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease to promote stem cell research while at the same time bashing pro-lifers who are opposed to human embryonic stem cell research.

Yes, that’s right. By speaking on the issue and appearing as he is, he’s manipulating the symptons of Parkinson’s disease.

Even better, he just gets the science wrong. From the Wash U piece on stem cell research (which clearly does differentiate between types of stem cells and explains why there is such interest in embryonic stem cell research):

Embryonic stem cells are strikingly different from adult stem cells because they are pluripotent?they can differentiate into any type of mature cell. The possibility is strong that they could replace diseased or deteriorated cells and heal different parts of the human body.

To understand SCNT, one must first understand how the process differs from the early-stage human reproductive cycle. Several days after normal fertilization occurs in human beings, and before implantation in the womb, a pinpoint-sized ball called a blastocyst forms. The structure consists of undifferentiated cells including embryonic stem cells. Once the blastocyst implants itself in the womb, its cells begin to differentiate into various organs and structures. SCNT, however, is different and has nothing to do with the process and products of conception.

What somatic cell nuclear transfer offers medical researchers is a way of generating embryonic stem cells without a sperm fertilizing an egg. (The word somatic applies to all the cells in the body with the exception of sperms and eggs, which are called germ cells.)

Teitelbaum explains the SCNT procedure (see graphic at right): “The nucleus of an unfertilized egg is replaced with the nucleus from a somatic cell, such as a skin cell, from the patient who will ultimately be transplanted with the appropriate differential cells. It becomes a structure that looks similar to?but is very different from?a blastocyst produced by a sperm and an egg. Within it are embryonic stem cells but?and this is critical?they are unable to undergo the genetic reprogramming that, after sexual reproduction, permits the development of a healthy baby. And these SCNT-generated embryonic stem cells (ESC) have nothing to do with products of abortion and nothing to do with a sperm fertilizing an egg.”

Because the cells produced by SCNT contain the patient’s own DNA, there is a strong possibility that they will not be rejected after transplantation, even without the use of anti-rejection medication with its severe side-effects.

Equating undifferentiated cells of a blastocyst with a fully developed human is exactly the kind of misleading argument Smith thinks he is attacking.