Life Links 9/16/10

A U.S. Senate panel is holding a hearing on embryonic stem cell research today. A webcast of the hearing is here.


The leader of Democrats for Life in Ohio was denied a request to distribute her pamphlets at the Erie County Democratic Women events.


Matt Bowman on embryonic stem cell research at CNN's Opinion site:

Human embryonic stem cell research is the $10,000 toilet seat of the 21st century. Years ago, science created a cell that appears to be, in the words of an MIT study published last month, "virtually identical" to an embryonic stem cell but is cheaper, promises better compatibility to patients and kills no embryos. ...

So, like many failed industries, embryo researchers demand a taxpayer bailout. They claim that they're too big to fail, when in fact they've never succeeded.

NIH Director Francis Collins melodramatically announced that the district court's injunction against his funding of embryonic stem cell research, in spite of the 1995 law against such funding, "poured sand into the engine of discovery." The problem is that Collins is wasting taxpayer money on "discovering" the equivalent of the riverboat steam engine.