Texas stem cell center and taxes

The Texas House passed HB 153 without authorizing bond money for a biomedical research building at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The UT powers-that-be withdrew their funding request and the bill was amended on the floor.

The debate lasted only a few minutes. Several Democrats and Representative Wooley (author of the regular session's HB 1929, a clone and kill bill) stood to complain and assure us all that destructive embryonic research would be revisited next Spring, during the 80th Legislature.

The Houston Chronicle, the Austin American Statesman and the San Antonio Express News pretty much all gave the same report, quoting one of the proponents of destructive embryonic research as they praised "stem cell research."

And no one noticed that UT Houston already has a $200 million dollar stem cell research center: the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine. The $120 million dollar Serafim Research Center building is supposed to be open this month. Two researchers were awarded a grant to begin research on embryos produced by IVF. They're looking for a "universal donor stem cell." I very much doubt the usefulness of this research - the best they should be able to get is a universal tumor cell.

While I'm glad that the news is out that "prolifers" are a powerful voting block, it's a shame that the reporters let the Representatives get away with using the generic term "stem cells." I'm one of the "pro-lifers" they were talking about an I'm all for stem cell research, just not destructive embryo research.

After all, we know that embryonic stem cells do turn into any cell in the body. They did in you and me. You just have to use the original container.