Researchers at the University of Michigan announced over the weekend they killed more human embryos and created two new embryonic stem cell lines which have the genes of human embryos with genetic mutations.
Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing said, “It is a sad day when researchers triumph over the destruction of vulnerable, innocent human life.”
In 2008, Michigan voters were promised a plethora of cures with the passage of Proposal 2. The result is not what people expected, Michigan’s Constitution was negatively altered to allow for the destruction of human embryos. Researchers are now saying the cells they created by killing human embryos aren’t “necessarily going to drive us toward discoveries of stem cell replacement therapies, but will give us information we’ve never had before with regards to how the diseases form and progress.”
“Instead of providing the previously promised cures, researchers now admit they wanted to kill human embryos so they could do basic research on how diseases form and progress,” Listing added. “How many Michigan voters were manipulated into voting for Proposal 2 based on the illegitimate promise that allowing Michigan researchers to kill human embryos would revolutionize medicine? It seems researchers knew all along that the destruction of human lives would merely help them gather more information.”
The University of Michigan is also in the process of attempting to collect more human embryos with genetic diseases which they hope to kill for their stem cells.
Ed Rivet, Legislative Director for Right to Life of Michigan said, “If you look at the history of ethical research, we don’t destroy an individual with a disease in order to find cure for the disease.
“Human life starts at the moment of conception. Tiny human embryos have unique genetic blueprints that have already decided if they will be a boy or a girl and if they will have blue, green or brown eyes. These are facts that we cannot forget.”
Listing said, “We reject the taking of innocent human life to resolve the challenges of life itself.”
