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I know that if I am smart I'll keep my mouth shut and just let Walt go on. But no, I have to have my say. "Aw come on, you don't really believe that."
"You're damn right I believe it." Says Walt. BresaGen of Australia, ES Cell International of Singapore, and the University of Wisconsin owns the copyrights to our stem cells. Celera Corporation, CuraGen, Human Genome Sciences, Gene Logic, The National Human Genome Institute, and that limey outfit the Sanger Centre, all think that they own the rights to our human make up."
"They are working on it." I reply, "but so what?"
"So what?" says Walt. "No one should be allowed to own our blue print. Hell, if you can't legally sell your soul on Ebay, why should some company be able to say that they own the human blue print? It scares the hell out of me, when I think about get'n genetically engineered."
Instead of just listening, I reply "Genetic engineering might not be all that bad. We could isolate the genes that causes Alcoholism, Cancer, Diabetes, Parkinson's and eliminate them in our children."
"Yeh," says Walt. "And they can engineer people to stop passing gas and voting Democrat too. We have no business allowing some company or some government to play God with the human race."
I am about ready to agree with Walt when Mary walks into the room and says "And they're killing babies to make those stem cells." She is carrying a mug of coffee, and a can of beer; followed by Claudia and a tray of cinnamon rolls.
Claudia sets the tray of rolls down, and looks up at Mary and says "No they're not."
"Oh oh," thinks I. "Just when Walt and I are about ready to agree on something.
"You don't kill babies to make stem cells." Says my wife.
"Oh yes they do" replies Mary. "They kill those babies, just so that they can heal rich people. The Holy father condemned it, and by God we believe it's immoral.
"That's right" Pipes in Walt. "It's immoral, and our Church is against it."
My friend Walt hasn't been to mass since Vatican II, but he can be very religious when it suites his need. "It's a crime and a sin that these people are allowed to murder babies for the sake of a few rich people." Parrots Walt.
Claudia has listened to all that she cares to and gives me her "I'm afloat in a sea of ignorance" glance.
"Mary! Walt!" enunciates Claudia. "Stem cells are not made from dead babies. They can come from a number of sources. They can even come from adults".
"That's where they get babies," says Mary with a smile. She starts to pass us some of Claudia's rolls.
"We have stem cells in our own body, in our bone marrow". Continues Claudia. " Blood stem cells continually replenish our blood cells throughout our entire lives. The stem cells that scientists want to use are produced in a laboratory. They do it using IVF. That stands for In Vitro Fertilization. In vitro means in glass."
Walt is interested. "How do they make babies in glass"
"They don't make babies." Replies Claudia. "They take an unfertilized ova and they artificially fertilize it in the laboratory. The ova starts dividing until it forms a blastula. That is a hollow sphere less than one millimeter in size. They then take the inner cells from the Blastula. These cells are called Pluripotent stem cells. They are cells that can be grown into most any tissue in the human body."
"How does she know all that stuff?" Asks Walt.
I reply; "Claudia does lots of reading. Besides she did her graduate work at OHSU." (I added the last part to impress him; as if her studies of thirty years ago would qualify her to know about stem cell research).
Mary wipes sugar from off her mouth, and takes a sip from her beer. "I heard that they take aborted fetus's"
"They can get stem cells from miscarriages," replies Claudia, "but Pluripotent stem cells can never become babies. They don't have the outer mass to form a placenta, even if they were implanted into a human womb. On the other hand, they
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