Not to cloud the listserv with my personal opinions, I'll just say that I am
exceedingly angry over these folks who don't understand that their actions
adversely affect millions of people who are already here, in favor of
imaginary people who are not here and never will be.

Thank you Ray, once again, for being the headlight on this train.

Rick McGirr


-----Original Message-----
From: Parkinson's Information Exchange Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of rayilynlee
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 9:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: "Enslaving" embryos

Group Accuses Obama of 'Enslaving' Embryos, Compares Policy to Holocaust
The National Association for the Advancement of Preborn Children is urging a

federal judge to halt Obama's plans to infuse embryonic stem cell research 
with federal funds.
By Mike Levine
FOXNews.com
Tuesday, March 31, 2009

A group opposed to abortion and embryonic stem cell research is accusing 
President Obama of violating the constitutional rights of a frozen embryo 
and "enslaving" it, like Nazis enslaved Jews during the Holocaust.

The group is urging a federal judge to halt Obama's plans to infuse 
embryonic stem cell research with federal funds. In a lawsuit filed 
Thursday, the group said it was taking legal action on behalf of "Mary Scott

Doe" -- described as a "U.S. citizen" whose life has been "suspended" since 
"she" was frozen in liquid nitrogen -- and thousands of other embryos just 
like "her."

"She is entitled to due process and the equal protection of the laws and to 
be free from slavery and involuntary servitude, as guaranteed by the 
Fourteenth and Thirteenth Amendments," said the lawsuit, filed by Maryland 
attorney Martin Palmer, who heads the National Association for the 
Advancement of Preborn Children.

In early March, Obama issued an executive order reversing the Bush 
administration's limits on embryonic stem cell research, in effect opening 
the door for an influx of federal dollars toward such research. Embryos have

to be destroyed to create stem cells for research, but many scientists 
believe it could lead to cures or treatments for serious ailments, including

Parkinson's Disease and diabetes.
"That potential will not reveal itself on its own," Obama said in announcing

his plans. "Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident.
They result from painstaking and costly research, from years of lonely trial

and error -- much of which never bears fruit -- and from a government 
willing to support that work."

The lawsuit filed Thursday said Obama is "treating human embryos, and, thus,

human beings as property" that "may be donated for use and destruction in 
federally-funded [research] ... without the consent of and against the will 
of the embryos themselves."

According to a 2003 study by the Rand Corporation, about 400,000 embryos 
have been frozen and stored for future use, but the vast majority of them 
are designated for future attempts at pregnancy. Only about 11,000 have been

designated for research.

Nevertheless, the lawsuit said any frozen embryos designated for research, 
by their inherent state, are "entirely incapable of giving an informed 
consent to their use," insisting that every embryo has "a will to live and 
develop into a fully-formed human being." Therefore, the lawsuit said, stem 
cell research is "a form of slavery or involuntary servitude in violation of

the Thirteenth Amendment."

The lawsuit compared the use of embryos in stem cell research to the human 
experiments Jews endured during the Holocaust.
"The utilitarian thinking underlying [President Obama's] proposed government

funding of human embryo stem cell research and experimentation is what led 
to the Nazi experimentation on concentration camp prisoners during World War

II," the lawsuit said, noting that after all the Nazi experiments on humans 
"not a single advance for medical science resulted."

The lawsuit is asking -- actually, "praying" in its words -- for a federal 
judge in Maryland to declare Obama's executive order "null and void," to 
rule that "Mary Scott Doe" and other frozen embryos are "persons" entitled 
to due process under the Constitution, and to order Obama to "cease and 
desist any and all plans to fund or otherwise facilitate, assist or 
encourage the undertaking of any human embryo stem cell experimentation."

This is the latest in a series of similar lawsuits filed by Palmer over the 
past several years.
In 1995, he filed a lawsuit to halt research recommended by the National 
Institutes of Health under President Bill Clinton. A federal district court 
and a federal court of appeals in Virginia dismissed the case after 
determining it had no legal standing, and the U.S. Supreme Court then 
rebuffed Martin's efforts to have the highest court in the land hear the 
case.

Ten years later, in 2005, Martin filed a lawsuit in California, arguing that

a 2004 law expanding state money for stem cell research violated the 
constitutional rights of a frozen embryo named "Mary Scott Doe." Its 
language, including the reference to Nazi experiments, was nearly identical 
to the lawsuit filed this week against President Obama. That lawsuit was 
dismissed.

Rayilyn Brown
Director AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
[log in to unmask] 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn