I've lived in Mtn Home since 1989, so that's...hold on...I'm thinking...WOW! Exactly 25 years! Boy, I think I can almost declare myself an Idahoan. But my family is British and I grew up in Louisiana around lots of other Brits so I still think I'm a little bit of a mutt. Those of you who have been around awhile may remember when I used to blog all the time. My opinions weren't very accepted and there was always an issue because I work for the county. That really wasn't fair because I NEVER blog at work! And I am still entitled to my opinions and thoughts about city and county issues, right? However, it stirred a lot of pots and those pots certainly can make a lot of noise! Since I'm a writer, I took what I wrote in my blog seriously so I spent a lot of time researching things which got exhausting to do when you're not even get a paycheck for it. So I stopped. That was a blessing to many! However, to this day, I still have people stop me and ask me why I wasn't blogging and t! hey missed it. I've missed it. Mainly because there are so many issues that come up and I have no voice except around my friends and I'm sure they are tired of it.

Justifiable means to an end.

Posted Monday, March 9, 2009, at 5:06 PM

STEM-CELL RESEARCH:

Pres. Obama reversed Bush's ban on funding embryonic stem cell research. This was an opportunity to make jabs at President Bush and religious beliefs He promised no scientific data will be "distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda."

I have been against this from the very beginning. Am I heartless? Why would I be against research that could potentially find a way to cure diseases and even grow new organs to replace bad ones? Well, I am not against that! I'm all for it! I am however, strongly apposed to the method that the scientist use. I feel that this is morally wrong for anyone to profit from the death of babies.

"Rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," Obama said. "In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering." At the expense of others! This sounds like the motto, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." He wants to profess some type of faith yet supports abortion at any phase of the pregnancy. Obama actually said that it was unfair to punish a young girl for the rest of her life for making a mistake. He wouldn't vote against partial birth abortions or late trimester abortions. It is justified to kill a fully-formed baby as long as the death occurs inside the womb. So in partial birth abortions, a fully formed baby is birthed feet-first and while the head is still inside the woman, the doctor inserts an instrument to remove the brain. But that is not murder cause the baby is still inside. This is a man of faith?

"As to diseases ,make a habit of two things --to help, or at least do no harm."

-- Hippocrates, The Epidemics --

There is a really good group of scientist and doctors called DO NO HARM --THE COALITION OF AMERICANS FOR RESEARCH ETHICS. They are people of conscience and faith who believe that cloning and embryonic stem cells are morally and ethically wrong. Their website has a wealth of knowledge but I will share the most important.

"Unlike embryonic stem cells, which are obtained by destroying live embryos, iPSCs are made directly from adult cells by adding a small number of factors to these cells in the laboratory. These factors remodel the mature cells and convert them into stem cells that are functionally identical to stem cells obtained from embryos. No human eggs are required and no human embryos are generated. Adult cells are obtained from a simple skin biopsy, 1/10th inch in diameter and about as painful as a blood draw. One study was able to produce an average of 10 pluripotent stem cell lines from a single skin biopsy. This approach can be used to generate stem cell lines from patients with specific genetic diseases to better study these conditions, and to provide patient-specific stem cells for possible stem cell therapies.

Professor Ian Wilmut, the scientist recently stated that direct reprogramming is "extremely exciting and astonishing", a scientific approach he finds "100 times more interesting" than cloning--so much more interesting that he will abandon cloning research and pursue direct reprogramming instead."

Why is embryonic stem cell research wrong?

1. Human embryonic stem cell research violates existing law and policy

For example: Documents such as the Nuremburg Code, the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki, and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights reject the use of human beings in experimental research without their informed consent and permit research on incompetent subjects only if there is a legal surrogate, minimal risk, and therapeutic benefit for the human subject.

2. Human embryonic stem cell research is unethical:

* Good ends (e.g., health) do not justify the use of unethical means (e.g., killing human beings).

* Scientifically, the international consensus of embryologists is that human beings begin at fertilization (or cloning)--i.e., when their genetic code is complete and operative; even before implantation they are far more than a "bunch of cells" or merely " potential human beings."

3. Human embryonic stem cell research is scientifically unnecessary:

* The use of a patient's own stem cells is even preferable to using embryonic stem cells because it avoids the problem of the body rejecting cells other than its own.

* The use of adult stem cells are proving to be successful.

Why must we allow funding for research that is unnecessary, unethical and unlawful? Is is possible that this decision to lift the ban on using dead babies for research is actually about opening the gate for something else? And here is another thing to consider. If embryonic tissues becomes a demand that brings a good price, wouldn't that create a need to murder more babies? It's an incentive. Not only will abortion clinics make money from scared pregnant unwed woman, but they can make a fortune off the dead tissue. People will allow this. Afterall, we have legalized abortion, right?

In 2005 (the most recent year for which there is reliable data), approximately 1.21 million abortions took place in the U.S., down from an estimated 1.29 million in 2002, 1.31 million in 2000 and 1.36 million in 1996. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S. (AGI). Read more at www.Abort73.com.

Justifications will be numerous and people will swallow it so that they can live with it. And as the once-moral nation turns a blind-eye, scientists will use embryos to further their goals. Once you can make people believe that death is an necessary evil, it won't be so hard to decide that it would be compassionate to put the elderly to sleep at a set age. Afterall, once you pass a certain age, life is just too hard. The unhealthy elderly are miserable and too expensive to maintain. Then it is only common sense that insurance and medical companies should use their resources and valuable time on the young and healthy. And what about those poor unfortunate souls suffering with diseases such as terminal cancer, or AIDS? Two states have already made it legal to assist in killing them off. The leaps to other justifiable homicides will prevail.

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I amy be wrong here but I thought I read some where that these cells can come from the after birth. Has anyone else heard of that?

-- Posted by keykeper on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, at 6:49 PM
(You forgot to mention, that unwanted pregnancy was up, as well as the instances of children being put up for adoption. And for the most part, the majority of these children will not be adopted, but bounced around in foster homes their whole life, abused, neglected and forgotten. Which can be more traumatic and damaging then not being born. But you wouldn't understand that notion.)

Yeah, a once moral nation?, that ignores international laws,past and present, in-order to wage illegal wars. But insists that other countries follow international laws. Your Government does illegal things every day and gets away with it, without punishment. Why would they care about embryo's? Tell Your Government to stop the killing of civilians in the name of power and commerce first, then you can work on the small things. Besides all that, the children are better off not seeing a world where profits are valued more then life. (Especially, considering the fact that most of these unwanted children will be born into poverty and treated as second class citizens by conservatives like you anyway.) And that is what America's foreign policy and moral ideals are, profits above life.

Americans are Hypocrites!

-- Posted by censored on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, at 7:07 PM
Censored, I'm sorry if you felt the need to attack me when you are mad at the world in general. Furthermore, I don't consider babies "small things" in the grand scheme of things. Life is precious. Babies all deserve a change to live. Who are you to think that they are better off dead. Better off dead? Have you ever been burnt? I'm sure, if given the opportunity to choose, you would much rather have your skin burnt off and die by fire within. Life is worse than that, I guess. Or would you have rather to have been torn limb from limb while alive to feel it. Life is pure pain compared to that. No, it is much better for you to have your brains sucked out of your head within your mother's womb than suffer the horrors of life! You shouldn't have been given the choice to live and grow and prosper. Justification can smooth over a wrong and make it right. If it makes you feel better, than live in that fantasy. And I doubt that you would have been better off dead than alive. I'm sure that you have touched someones life because you were born. There are people in this worl who would have missed knowing you.

You are right that this country does illegal things everyday. It grieves me greatly. That is free-will! People make choices everyday and others are affected by it. Sad but true. Doesn't mean anyone is better off never being born!

For the record, Censored, I am not a Conservative. I am a Mother of five, wife, sister, friend, Christian believer and lover of democratic freedom. I have never in my life treated someone as a second class citizen, though I have been treated that way. Anyone who knows me would laugh at the thought. I have never felt superior to anyone nor do I think that anyone else is better than me. I am faithful and forgiving. I am compassionate and flawed with human error.

I am sorry that you have been hurt or mistreated by someone. I'm sorry if your life has been some kind of hell that you think babies are better off being killed. However, the truth is that many great human beings have come from poverty or feeling unwanted. They had the free will to make choices about how they were going to deal with the short-comings of their childhood. Many of these so called second-class citizens have provided the world with great things because they rose out of their negative environment. They decided that the crappy childhood would not be their excuse for having a crappy adult life. I believe that most of us who came from humble backgrounds live better lives; become better people because of adversity.

Every child can suffer and many do. Is the solution to just kill off a generation? Yes, I agree that there are so many children who are born to those who don't deserve it. But there are also so many adult couples who would love to adopt. Many who are jumped from foster homes all of their lives. Yet, still they have life and choices. They have every chance to make a difference. Each life touches another and we can never know what significance another person has in our lives if they were never born. We don't have an angel to give us a look back. We may never know how we have affected others but I have every faith that we have made some difference.

So with that mentality, we are justified to never do anything. Death and/or suffering occurs because of food poisioning so we should all stop eating. Or the pollution is so bad, we should all stop breathing. Ya know, there are so many injuries and death by car accidents, we should stop driving cars. And what about this thought...teens are gonna drink so we should just not have a legal drinking age. Or to heck with illegal drugs cause the addicts will find a way to get it anyways. Just let em have whatever they want. My child burned his mouth on hot choco the other day so I think it should be banned from the shelves. But if I had just aborted my 5 kids, none of them would have had to suffer. Looking back, I could have saved them from so much heartache and pain. How heartless was I that I gave them life!

-- Posted by kimkovac on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, at 9:48 PM
I wasn't attacking you per-say, you we're just collateral damage.

But it still doesn't give you people the right to tell someone they can or cannot have an abortion. Or mandate science from your christian fascist armchair. The fact of the matter is, in regards to research and human experimentation, that groups of unethical doctors and corporations do human testing without telling the people the full ramifications of their test until these individuals have died or contracted other diseases from drugs infused with viruses/bacteria that aid in making the drug attach itself correctly to the cells they need to destroy. They kill one thing but in turn kill the individual with another thing. So just let scientist do what they need to, to grow a knew leg or liver or vanquish alzheimer's. You want to end suffering, let them do stem cell research. Besides, they can extract stem cells from the umbilical cord now anyway. And that doesn't kill the baby. All you've done, with your little diatribe against stem cell research, is add ugliness and misinformation on the subject. So, I added ugliness towards your conservative lies that you repeated from a conservative media outlet.

-Stem Cells can be taken from the Umbilical Cord, without harming the baby. They do not take them from the frigging brain.-

You are a conservative.

-- Posted by censored on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, at 11:21 PM
I did my research. Read from the website, DO No Harm. And I didn't say they take it from the baby's brain. That was in reference to the partial-birth abortions. If you read what I wrote, at that point of my blog, I was talking about the fact that abortions of fully formed babies was murder. I am in favor of stem cell research, just not embryonic. The research I did showed that there was no need to use the stem cells from babies. There are scientist who have used adult stem cells and been very successful. That is where our tax money should go. It's that simple.

I didn't add ugliness, the scientist who use embryonic stem cells did that. I didn't spread mis-information. Everything I wrote was fact and I gave the reference to where you could read it yourself. The truth is that millions of babies are aborted at all phases of growth. The truth is ugly. Go look at the pictures of babies. Look at the little bodies burned from chemicals. The fully formed babies that have had their legs and arms severed from their bodies. I'm sorry if that is ugly, but it is the truth. Abortion is ugly!

-- Posted by kimkovac on Tue, Mar 10, 2009, at 8:05 AM
You still lose, Fascist.

-- Posted by censored on Wed, Mar 11, 2009, at 1:56 AM
CENSORED, Your last comment was you lose, fascist. Well, I had to go look that word up because I wasn't real sure what the true meaning is. People use it nowadays like a dirty word or insult. So I assume that was your intention.

"Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist ideology that aims to create a single-party state with a government led by a dictator who seeks national unity and development by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or race." Wikipedia Dictionary

Sorry, but I disagree. I am not in favor of a nation led by a dictator, hence the reason I am against socialism. If you read anything I have written previously, you would see that. I am for democracy and freedom and morality and truth. I want less government involvement and more people involvement. My belief in the wrongness of abortion has nothing to do with fascism. Thanks for making me look that up, though. It was an interesting read.

I also want to say thanks for the lively debate, per say. I respect you and appreciate that you took the time to express yourself. Most people don't. That is what these blogs are for. The only thing that I can say right now is: Good information and truth will set you free.

It is in my heart to say to you again, that I'm sorry that you feel such anger towards me. I feel no anger but I feel alot sadness. Everyone probably knows someone who has had an abortion. It causes damage within the soul of that person. Some never get over it. Not to mention the millions of men who have been devastated by the fact that they were part of ending their child's life. Many lives broken with the guilt and despair of a past mistake. They are the ones whom my heart aches for. Some of these women go on to forgive themselves and live a changed life; one that is blessed with good things. Others, however spend their lives fighting the pain and using anger to cover it. If I had the training, that is the type of therapy that I would concentrate on. Helping women find peace and forgiveness. I would focus on helping women who may have had bad childhoods and regretful mistakes. And sadly, nobody talks about the pain and guilt that men feel over the loss of a child. Granted there are plenty who don't know or who could care less. But I do know there are a large number of men who are overlooked. I've read a few of their stories and they feel guilt too. Unexpressed guilt can shape the character of a person's life. That is the unfortunate fall-out of this horror. I feel such grief for these victims. My heart goes out to all people who have been affected by abortions. And I am sorry if anyone is offended by that.

-- Posted by kimkovac on Wed, Mar 11, 2009, at 6:40 AM
http://www.kumc.edu/stemcell/escrvideo.html

-- Posted by censored on Wed, Mar 11, 2009, at 11:03 PM
You are a fascist because you advocate taking peoples freedoms of choice. And fascism has nothing to do with socialism. They are two separate political ideals. Wikipedia is not a valid source of information, it's whole base of definition is based on public opinion. Which in most cases are way off in their definitions because the ones contributing have not studied each individual subject.

Christ, a convict could go on that site and write up his own definition of "criminal" persuading other criminals that they are law abiding citizens.

And in most cases of abortion, it is usually the Man who helped fertilize the woman, that convinces the woman to abort the child. And a woman should not be demonized for making a choice or being forced to make a choice. If you believe in God and christian teachings, you would understand that we are given freedom of choice by God and that "we" are not put here to judge others for their actions. And we are not here to tell people what they can and cannot do. That is Gods Job.

So, yet again you are a fascist, for advocating the theft of peoples freedom of choice. (oh, hey I'm a hypocrite for judging you. But, you want to take freedoms, so I will judge you.)

And you've got plenty of time to take counseling courses, if you really care about helping people.

-- Posted by censored on Thu, Mar 12, 2009, at 7:44 AM
my only comment is that it is a fact that a woman will not give birth to every egg that she possesses. So why not use them for some good? That is not to say that one is aborting them. There is other potential embryos. I find that those who incorporate the religious argument into this are generally lacking in scientific knowledge and need a crutch to lay upon.

-- Posted by twilcox1978 on Thu, Mar 12, 2009, at 11:25 AM
METHOD FOR ISOLATION OF AFTERBIRTH DERIVED CELLS

WIPO Patent Application WO/2008/109816

A method for extracting cells from afterbirth tissue, including placing the afterbirth into a perfusion circuit prior to exsanguination, extracting the cells from the afterbirth with digestive enzymes and mechanically recovering cells from the digested afterbirth tissue, and isolating the cells from the perfusate and digestion mix. Also disclosed is a cell line derived from afterbirth using the two-step pulsatile perfusion extraction method.

Research on adult stem cells has recently generated a great deal of excitement. Scientists have found adult stem cells in many more tissues than they once thought possible. This finding has led scientists to ask whether adult stem cells could be used for transplants. In fact, adult blood forming stem cells from bone marrow have been used in transplants for 30 years. Certain kinds of adult stem cells seem to have the ability to differentiate into a number of different cell types, given the right conditions. If this differentiation of adult stem cells can be controlled in the laboratory, these cells may become the basis of therapies for many serious common diseases.

The history of research on adult stem cells began about 40 years ago. In the 1960s, researchers discovered that the bone marrow contains at least two kinds of stem cells. One population, called hematopoietic stem cells, forms all the types of blood cells in the body. A second population, called bone marrow stromal cells, was discovered a few years later. Stromal cells are a mixed cell population that generates bone, cartilage, fat, and fibrous connective tissue.

Also in the 1960s, scientists who were studying rats discovered two regions of the brain that contained dividing cells, which become nerve cells. Despite these reports, most scientists believed that new nerve cells could not be generated in the adult brain. It was not until the 1990s that scientists agreed that the adult brain does contain stem cells that are able to generate the brain's three major cell types--astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, which are non-neuronal cells, and neurons, or nerve cells.

A. Where are adult stem cells found and what do they normally do?

adult stem cells have been identified in many organs and tissues. One important point to understand about adult stem cells is that there are a very small number of stem cells in each tissue. Stem cells are thought to reside in a specific area of each tissue where they may remain quiescent (non-dividing) for many years until they are activated by disease or tissue injury. The adult tissues reported to contain stem cells include brain, bone marrow, peripheral blood, blood vessels, skeletal muscle, skin and liver.

Scientists in many laboratories are trying to find ways to grow adult stem cells in cell culture and manipulate them to generate specific cell types so they can be used to treat injury or disease. Some examples of potential treatments include replacing the dopamine-producing cells in the brains of Parkinson's patients, developing insulin-producing cells for type I diabetes and repairing damaged heart muscle following a heart attack with cardiac muscle cells.

-- Posted by keykeper on Sun, Mar 15, 2009, at 2:08 AM
I don't demonize women! I believe I posted that my heart aches for them and I have always been compassionate with anyone. People are people and as such we all make bad mistakes. I'm sorry that you feel so combative towards my belief that abortion is murder. I don't condemn the person just the action. I don't hate anyone because I know that within us all, we are horribly flawed. We make bad choices. My arms would go around anyone in compassionate warmth.

Furthermore, I don't think that it is a freedom to committ a crime against God and man. With your argument, we take people's freedom all the time. We take your freedom to yell "Fire!" in a crowded building or "Hijack" on a plane. We take away the freedom to take someone's life for their possessions or out of anger. WE take the freedom of speeding, stealing, walking naked inpublic, peeing in public, and on and on. It is ridiculous to accuse me of wanting to take someone's freedom of choice. People choose to commit crimes everyday and I'm not the one who made those laws. It was those people who decided that we should live in a society of law. There must be law but it needs to be of the people and by the people. Taking the life of a defenseless infant within the womb is just as much murder as when China discovers a mother has hid her second child and kills it. Shocking but true! Taking the life of innocent babies is not a freedom! Just as taking the life of an elderly frail person or a person suffering from a disease or killing a severly handicapped child...that is not a freedom, it's a crime against God and man.

-- Posted by kimkovac on Sun, Mar 15, 2009, at 9:57 AM

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