I didn't want to belabor the subject here either, but that is the truth.
There are no babies "killed" for stem cell research.    The way some folks
see it, they should be having a funeral service every time a woman
menstruates, as some potential baby "died" ..... or for nocturnal emissions
too when a million potential babies "died"...

I am all for doing everything possible to save actual real babies.   But a
tiny clump of cells frozen that early in the game cannot rightfully be
called a baby.

If they are to be destroyed, consider "their" contribution analogous
to signing your organ donor card.  

I hate wedge issues.  And the funny thing is, Bush is patting himself
on the back for his contribution:  78 stem cell lines, 3/4 of which
are unusable; most of which are contaminated with mouse "feeder"
cells.  Top that off with a baseless war in Iraq and I worry about
*my* country!!! (I AM Canadian).  IMO, it's "simple":  separate church
from government and don't create an industry that rewards the parents
of the embryo.

Darryl.
An atheist (and agnostic around my SO ;-)

"Dennis P. Harris" <NO_SPAM_TO_dpharris@gci.net> wrote in message

Yeah, that's an excellent plan to make certain we have lots of providers of
medical services.  I know I really want my pharmaceuticals manufactured by
people who are *made* to produce them.

I've a friend from the UK; his best friend waited something like sixteen
months for a hip replacement.  I believe the same woman now is in the early
stages of liver failure -- a liver transplant is not mentioned, because she
is (just) over the cut-off age the UK National Health Service has for this
rationed medical care (she's in her fifties, I believe).  She is not told
that a liver transplant would save her, but she doesn't qualify -- they just
tell her nothing can be done.  I remember a British television show that
aired on the local PBS station a few years ago -- Penelope Keith as a
newly-elected Labour MP.  One episode involved a disabled constituent who
felt he needed some perk the NHS regulations said wasn't allowed.  The
constituent complained to his MP -- he was a supporter of hers, he said, and
shuld get what he needs.  The compassionate Labour MP obligingly pressured
the NHS to violate their rules to provide the perk.  This -- making getting
medical service a matter of political patronage -- was presented as a good
thing.

They don't waste their time - they waste their patients' money.  Only
nowadays it's seldom directly their patients' money -- I'll bet your parents
paid the doctor for that house call.  Patients don't care what the doctor
charges, or if the price is jacked up by huge malpractice insurance costs,
because it's their employer, or the government, or some other third-party
directly paying it.  The third party's interest, of course, is in spending
as little as possible -- and that will not change if the third-party payer
is the government -- the only thing that will change is that if the payer's
efforts to restrict service to economize become intolerable, there will be
no alternative insurer to turn to.

I took my father to a podiatrist appointment Monday, to have is toenails
trimmed; took maybe five minutes. He has no interest in the invoice given
him, of course, nor do I, beyond casual curiosity, since we're not paying
it -- Uncle Sam is.  The bill was for $183.  For toenail trimming.
Medicare, as I understands it, currently rations the frequency of this foot
care to about once every two months (rather less than he could really use
it). At some point, some 'damn insurance bean counter' (it will be a
*government* insurance bean counter, not a company bean counter, and
presumably that makes it all right) is going to have to decide whether this
takes precedence over some other sort of care, unless the government
insurance provider agrees to an ever-spiraling increase in health
expenditures.

Limiting the ability of the patient to collect for malpractice by the doctor
is a fine and noble approach to cost-control, and no doubt would lower the
bill a bit. I suppose we could conscript doctors, force them to work for the
public welfare (and this won't have any effect at all on the *quality* of
doctors we get, no sir), and hold the line on costs that way.

Hear, hear!  Now, come November, let's all remember to vote for the ticket
that includes the millionaire personal-injury lawyer, to fix the broken
system!