For those keeping score, chalk up another notch in the "change" column.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29586269/

FUCK YES!

Finally, the war on science is diminished.

About time.

May an easily cured by science disease trip up the man who tried to stifle science.

Amen.

(2ndword)

Let the "research" start with all the liberals embryo's first.

"liberals embryo's"

I think you mean liberal's embryos.

Either way, embryos that never had a chance of purposeful use now will help science find cures to disease. Don't be a schmendrick!

Let the benefits of said research benefit only those that support it. Let the others suffer and die for being ignorant.

Checking my Thesaurus for the word "schmendrick."

"shmendrik : a foolish or contemptible person (from a character in an operetta by Abraham Goldfaden)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Yiddish_origin

I think you mean liberal's embryos.

Yep. That's what I meant!

It's a good idea, Skybill, and here's why:

A conservative embryo wouldn't be motivated to be part of a new solution to an old problem.

Well, my thinking is that if they used enough of the liberal's embryos the liberals might hopefully go extinct!!!

Or at least have to be added to the endangered species list!

And if an embryo could talk, would it say...let me live...
please...have mercy upon me oh liberal!

Yeah, as it gets flushed anyway.

And eaten by God's creatures at the bottom end of the food chain. Embryo Sushi anyone?

Well, my thinking is that if they used enough of the liberal's embryos the liberals might hopefully go extinct!!!

Thanks Hitler!

Save the embryo but as soon as it born forget about it. Thats the CONservative way!

An embryo was relaxing when a female clinician approached the little glass dish in which it was defrosting after a long time in the freezer.

The embryo noticed her approach and exclaimed, “Whoopee, do I get implanted now? I can’t wait to grow up and become a real person!”

“No such luck,” the researcher told the embryo.

“What do you mean? I’ve been in cold storage for months, and now you’re telling me I don’t get to move up to becoming a baby?”

“I’m sorry,” the lady researcher said, “but we already implanted your sister.”

“My sister?”

“Yes, we had to select one of the embryos we created so the infertile couple could have a child, and she turned out to be the lucky one. I’m sorry. The woman doesn’t have room for anymore.”

“Oh,” replied the embryo, suddenly disconsolate. “Can’t you find another woman who would be happy to have me implanted?”

“I would if I could, but our customers generally prefer to be implanted with their own embryos.”

“So what’s going to happen to me?”

The researcher paused. She didn’t want to break the news to the wannabe. But she knew she had to. “You’re going to be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” the embryo asked, startled.

“Yes. I’m sorry,” she said, picking up the little dish in which the pre-tot quivered with anxiety.“Now, you’re just biohazard.”

“Bio- what?”

“-Hazard. So into the trash you go.”

“Hold on there,” the embryo protested. “You mean I’ve been declared dispensable?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“A hazard?”

“Yes.”

“Totally useless?”

“Well,” the researcher lamented, “not necessarily totally useless.”

The embryo perked up. “Tell me about that.”

“Well, if it were legal, we could take one of your cells first – “

“— one of my cells?” the embryo asked, looking itself over. “I only have eight.”

“I know,” the researcher said. “But it wouldn’t harm you.”

“It wouldn’t?”

“No, we do it all the time with embryos, to make sure the ones we implant aren’t carrying a genetic defect that would lead to a handicapped baby.”

“Oh, that sounds like a good idea. As long as you can’t pick us all, you might as well pick the ones who are going to grow up to be the healthiest. Are you sure it doesn’t harm the embryo?”

“It doesn’t. We know from experience.”

“But if I’m not going to be implanted, why would you take one from me?"

“It would be for research.”

“Research?”

“Yes. The kind of cells you’re made up of right now are called embryonic stem cells, and there’s a very real possibility that they can be used to develop treatments for many serious illnesses embryos can have after when they grow up into adult humans.”

“Oh, really?” the embryo said. “I thought you said I was useless.”

“I’m sorry. But you are.”

“Why?”

“Because the law won’t let us take a cell from you for research.”

“It won’t? Why not?”

“The President of the United States thinks it’s wrong.”

“He does?”

“Yes.”

“What does he know about being an embryo?”

“Apparently, enough to make a decision. He thinks he’s protecting you.”

“For what? Being discarded as totally useless? Becoming mere biohazard? What kind of protection is that?”

“I wish I had a good answer for you. I don’t agree. I think a cell of yours should be allowed to be saved. In fact, I think all of you should be allowed to be saved, so you can at least contribute to the health of embryos who do get a chance to go on, I mean, especially given the alternative.”

“Of being useless, totally useless?”

“I’m sorry.”

“But I don’t want to be totally useless. I want to go on at least that way. I’d feel heroic, instead of useless. Forget what the President thinks. It’s obviously been too long since he was an embryo.”

“I can’t. It would be against the law, “ the researcher said, and sighed. “And that’s not the only problem. There are people who think the whole idea of creating embryos in a lab and implanting them is wrong.”

“They do?”

“Yes. And we don’t want them howling down on us, too.”

“Excuse me. You mean if they had their way, my sister would never have gotten a chance to become a human being, and I would never even have had a chance to exist at all?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What makes them think we don’t have any rights?”

“They think the whole process of creating embryos outside of a woman’s womb is all too clinical and that children should just be conceived the usual way, when a man and a woman make love.”

“What about love a man and woman feel when they want to have a child even though they can’t have one the usual way?”

“They don’t think that counts enough.”

“Who are they to say what kind of love between a man and woman counts?”

“You’d have to ask them that.”

“But what makes them think they’re experts? Are they married with a lot of kids, all conceived the usual way?”

“Often they’re not married at all.”

“Jeepers, then what do they know about it?”

“My sentiments exactly. But they have their rules.”

“Where do they get them from?”

“Oh, men make them up.”

“Just make them up? Aren’t they even in a book or something they believe in?”

“No, there’s no mention of creating embryos in a lab or of what’s called in vitro fertilization in the books they believe in.”

“And yet they come out against it! My, oh, my, how many embryos there might have been and how many babies might have been born if it weren’t for them and the President.”

“You’re right,” the researcher said. “It’s sad.”

She picked up the little dish.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Time to become bio-hazard.”

“No, no, please, let’s talk! Don't just throw me onto the trash heap of time! Let me at least be useful in some way! ”

“I can’t. It’s the law,” she said, and walked the embryo to the bin marked “Bio-Hazard.”

“Please, please, don’t kill all of me. At least, let one of my cells go on and maybe help the embryos who get to be born.”

“I would if I could, believe me. In fact, it it was up to me, I’d save all of you so you could at least help out that way.”

“You would?”

“Of course, but, as I said, I can’t.”

With that the researcher looked at the distressed embryo, and said, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.” Then she tapped on the foot pedal that opened the biohazard bin and tossed the embryo in.

Even though the lid slammed shut, she thought she heard weeping coming from within, and the lament, “Totally useless, useless, useless! I’m going to die totally useless, useless, useless!”

The researcher couldn’t stand the emotional torment of listening anymore and left. She turned off the light in the lab and for a moment the metaphor of the darkness took on a meaning that related to how very persnickety sentiments had the power to hold back even medical research intended to be a great boon to the living and a means of contributing to the living by embryos who would otherwise be discarded, with all their promise made useless, totally useless.

>>as soon as it born forget about it

you've got that VERY wrong Trix...

No, he's got it exactly correct. The GOP has routinely blocked funding for children's health insurance. Finally, now that Bush is gone and their majority in Congress is gone, all they can do now is attempt to block bills requiring procedural votes in the Senate. Fortunately, there are two women in the GOP Senate that know better.

>>as soon as it born forget about it

you've got that VERY wrong Trix...

BULLCRAP!
Prove it BROADway...
Unless your ULTRA wealth maybe.
Show us where the neo-CONers support average people.

Listen up, MEN (IgnoramusWay & Sky):

Mr. Merkin and I are responsible for the future of many frozen embryos currently in deep freeze, where they have been for 4 years. There are more than we could possibly use ourselves. These are the result of our very long, exhausting, financially-draining and painful bout with infertility and emotionally devasting miscarriages.

Obviously, We are not stupid high school students who made a "mistake" and got pregnant the "first and only time, I swear" that we ever had unprotected sex. Bristol Palin. Skybill.

We are not Octo-pyscho-nut-job. We put in 1 and got 1.

We continue to pay over $500 a year for storage for these 8-celled "embryos".

I would LOVE to have another child, and with Portland having one of the very best fertility clinics in the world, it's perfectly reasonable that I could carry another baby at 49. But I probably won't. For many reasons: $$$, energy (mine), blah blah blah.

Like thousands of other people in limbo with this dilemma, we continue to wrestle with the options and ramifications, all of them painful.

Before we had a child, I was sure I would donate the remaining, un-used embies to another, or several, couples.

And believe me, there is a line 10 miles long out the door of people waiting for donated embryos. They're at the end of their road/rope financially and emotionally. It's their very last option to have their own pregnancy or use a gestational carrier.

Many even resort to the reviled "Snowflakes": a white conservative Christian organization, which charges a fortune for something they got for free, and treats the embryos like a commodity, You need to be be white, married, VERY hetero Christians who can pass their rigorous "Adoption" process.

While Mr. M was never on board with the idea donating ours to couples, I have mixed feelings, I wanted to help someone else, but those 8-celled embryos, who are 5-days-old-in-a-petri-dish, are our daughter's genetic siblings. What's right and fair to her? I would hope that she would grow upto be a kind and generous person and welcome that decision, but who knows? We also have told her conception story "we weren't even in the building" story as soon as she was born (Probably before, in utero).

Our other option is thawing and grieving over their loss. I do not even know if any private research opportunities were available before Obama's reversal, but I do know that I would rather have them go to research than into the biohazard can.

Maybe those microscopic 8-cells can help with diabetes, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Spinal-cord injuries, cancer or whatever devastates the our living, loved ones.

Walk a mile in my shoes before you judge.

And be 100% certain that your opinions will never factor in our extremely painful decision, whenever that day arrives.

Now how about directing your outrage to OHSU's Primate Torture Center?

Thank you, Mrs. M.

XOXO

Thanks, Oh Great-one-also-of-the female-persuasion!

I also want to add that I meant to say that those embryos are Baby M's POTENTIAL genetic siblings.

There is no way of knowing if any or all of those embryos were, or are able to make a 40-week journey to birth. A lot can happen along the way. Sadly, I know that all too well firsthand.

BROADway....
We're still waiting for YOUR proof....

Mrs Merkin, as you know we just had a beautiful baby boy 3 months ago after two devastating miscarriages, so I can relate to your plight, although not fully (obviously).

I can see the difficulty of the decision you have to make. Personally, I don't regard the embryos as "life". However, I know that the reason I would never donate sperm is that I don't want a part of me on this earth that's not a part of my life! Maybe that's selfish, but that's just me. It would bother me knowing I could have a genetic son or daughter out there in the world and not be with them physically.

I know you have a very tough decision, but if I were in your shoes, I'd seriously consider finding a way to make sure they are used for science and research rather than discarded, should you feel like I do about having another part of you out there in the world you won't know about.

>>Prove it BROADway...
>>We're still waiting for YOUR proof....
One word...ADOPTION
http://members.shaohannahshope.org/site/PageServer

Wow. You sure spent lots of time on that pithy response, didn't you?

Send that to my sister who's been waiting for a healthy (non-FAS) baby through Boys & Girls Aid Society here in OR for over a year.

>>my sister
I wish her parenthood soon.

Still waiting BROADway......