Five from The Weekly Standard on the stem cell cheat

Did you know that human embryonic stem cells have yet to demonstrate any therapeutic use whatsoever- and that the entire argument that they ever might is purely theoretical?

There's more. Here is an article on the exaggerated claims for the prospects of fetal stem cell therapy, and on other experimental approaches to treating degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's which also offer hope, and arguably more realistic hope. But you don't hear much about them, because their general acknowledgment would deliver too great a blow to the case for killing embryos in the name of a mere theoretical possibilty.

Some of these are already being used successfully to treat certain illnesses; if fetal stem cells ever lead to an effective treatment for any disease, it probably won't be for years or even decades. And it is by no means certain that such a day will ever come.

Here is an article about a new pressure group- Scientists and Engineers for America, or SEA- dedicated to arguing that politically incorrect positions on scientific issues are ideological rather than scientific, whereas politically correct positions on scientific issues are scientific rather than ideological.

Here is and here are a pair of articles about the failure of that "breakthrough" whereby fetal stem cells were supposed to be removed from the embryo without harm to the embryo.

And here is a critique of Ramesh Ponnuru's new book, The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media , the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life, which gets to the bottom of the whole intensely ideological ethical mess.