Bill Frist has fired yet another volley in what is now apparently a serious move to plan for the Republican Presidentail nomination, as he has just announced plans to support a bill that would ease current restrictions on stem cell research. True, this is obviously self-serving on his part, and an even more blatant attempt at political calculation than his recent foopah regarding the Terri Schiavo fiasco, for which he among others took a well deserved hit in the public opinion polls. But this is a welcome change, and may bode well for the future of stem cell research, and medical research in general. From what little I understand of the bill, it is designed to support with federal funds research to match adults with stem cells made just from them, and for them. That smacks of cloning. Cool. Maybe Frist can agree to an experiment using his own stem cells, then we can say Bush has been, eh, double-crossed. (Okay, yeah I know it's corny)
The thing I don't understand-(because I haven't yet really gone into detail in studying it) is what this has to do with embryonic stem cells. I'm just guessing here that if an adult has need of a stem cell, for medical reasons, then a frozen egg would be injected with the stem cell, and in much the same procedure as in vitrio fertilization, the adult recipient now has a matching stem cell that a doctor can utilize for the treatment of various illnesses. Hell yeah, that is therapeutic cloning, if that's what it is, the very thing Bush about went apopleptic over when the South Koreans announced they would soon do the exact same thing.
Good for Frist. He's finally done something in the political arena that I like and can actually applaud. I still say his motives are political. But then again, aren't the motives of all politicians, well, political?
