All the persons I know have a right to decide for themselves whether they
want to be frozen alive. I guess we now have to find a way to ask
blastocysts whether they want to be so frozen.
-Ken

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:46 PM, rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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]
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