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Today there's a story on the front page of the LA Times about embryos and stem cells. It continues on to page A12 which includes these paragraphs: For years, IVF has been practiced in the relative privacy of doctors' offices. But with a record number of Americans creating embryos at fertility clinics and with science creating new uses for them, public debate is growing about how human the human embryo is -- whether it is something like a person or more like a cluster of cells. The distinction is crucial to Jim Cordy. Thirteen years ago, at age 40, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which made daily tasks so difficult that he retired early from his management job at a Pittsburgh metals maker. But new research using embryos, he said, "is going to save my life." In that research, scientists dissect embryos and extract stem cells, a remarkable type of cell that gives rise to nearly everything else in the body: organ tissues, blood cells, neurons and the like. Scientists first isolated embryo stem cells only two years ago. Now, they are racing to figure out how to guide them to become new insulin-producing cells for diabetics, heart muscle for patients who have heart disease or brain cells to help Parkinson's patients like Cordy. The research has drawn strong opposition from people who say it is immoral to destroy embryos. They are pushing Congress to block a decision by President Clinton's advministration to fund the research. "I don't understand how people could oppose this," Cordy said. "A pencil dot -- that's what we're talking about when we talk about these embryos. We are not talking about half-formed fetuses." Mary Yost, 52, diagnosed 1990