Since embryonic stem-cell research (SCR) has produced no apparent desirable results and no successful clinical trials, its private funding has been disappearing. Just like failing public education, the results of unproductive embryonic SCR have paradoxically increased political pressure for government funding. Logic should dictate that if something is not working, it should not be financially supported. Money should be directed toward research that works.
 
The production of normal and cloned embryos will require enormous numbers of human eggs. Poor women will sell their eggs, and a black market may develop. With increased egg demand, women may have their eggs harvested under less than ideal conditions by people who are not even surgeons. This will put women at risk for deadly infections and other serious problems.

Adult stem cells can be harvested from skin, fat, and umbilical cords, placentas, and bone marrow. Adult SCR has shown significant success with many people treated having results that we would normally consider miraculous.

As adult SCR is not politically correct research, it will not receive the credit and the funding that it deserves, future productive research will be slowed, and people will suffer and die from diseases that might have otherwise been treated earlier. Ignoring research that is working and supporting research that is not working plays into the hands of those who oppose scientific thought and factual evidence.

The supporters of embryonic SCR are apparently not as concerned about meaningful scientific results as they are about political and ideological success. They have an agenda to promote embryonic SCR. They do not give the impression of being interested in curing illness or saving lives unless it is the result of embryonic stem cell therapy.

Scientific research should be driven by the intention to honestly discover facts and to legally and ethically follow the path where the results lead. There should not be a political agenda to insure the funding of embryonic SCR while attempting to conceal the very successful track record of adult SCR. Opening the Federal financial floodgates for the funding of embryonic SCR is not prudent or logical.

Politics, science, religion, morals, and ethics all meet head on in embryonic stem cell research. Laws, ethics, scientific integrity, honest scientific competition, and the free economic marketplace are best suited to determine which research to pursue and to fund. As embryonic SCR is producing no useful results, takes human life, and will endanger women, the alternative of adult SCR is the better choice.

You can read a longer version of this commentary here.