{"id":1020,"date":"2008-03-07T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T10:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2011-08-22T03:48:56","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T03:48:56","slug":"blinded-with-science-stem-cells-the-root-of-all-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=1020","title":{"rendered":"Blinded with Science – Stem Cells: The Root of All Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

*originally printed in Red Shtick Magazine – March, 2008<\/a> (pdf<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Life, like breakfast, is best when it begins with an egg. The egg is one of the most common\u00a0reproductive formats. Even complex mammalian organisms such as humans have eggs\u00a0somewhere, so I\u2019m told. These mammalian eggs are only one part of the elegantly mysterious\u00a0equation describing the circle of life, which, in our world, inevitably results in babies \u2013\u00a0plump, tender, delicious babies.<\/p>\n

Babies, according to Wikipedia, come from mommies and daddies. These parental entities\u00a0created us, and our brothers and sisters, in some ritual learned through years of difficult\u00a0homework and chores, which eventually led to a trip to the hospital. Without going too far\u00a0into the mechanics of this ritual, with which I am wholly unfamiliar, there is a singular effect\u00a0of reproduction that is of some interest to science, and is, therefore, the subject of this article:\u00a0life \u2013 specifically, one of the fundamental particles of human life: the stem cell.<\/p>\n

Conception follows copulation, unless contraception captures the chromosomal carriers,\u00a0contradicting the circumstances most conducive to creating the commonly celebrated \u201cbun in\u00a0the oven.\u201d The climbing ratio of buns to ovens, and the overwhelming increase in unwed\u00a0teenage ovens, has influenced government to get involved in the standardization of oven\u00a0maintenance and care. The stem cell is the yeast that makes the buns rise in these ovens, and\u00a0some time ago, our elected officials found that this yeast can also be used to make beer \u2013\u00a0cold, powerful beer.<\/p>\n

Stem cell research is a field founded by Ernest McCulloch and James Till in the 1960s, a time\u00a0during which the biological sciences were considered \u201ctrippy\u201d and \u201cout there.\u201d Stem cells can\u00a0be found in adult cells and in blastocysts, which are more commonly known in Star Trek lore\u00a0as the troublesome Tribbles. McCulloch and Till retain plausible deniability of\u00a0foreknowledge of the trouble with Tribbles due to the fact that they are Canadian. Though\u00a0they may not have known it, during their march towards truth, these clumsy scientists stepped\u00a0on a crack that continues to break mothers\u2019 backs to this day.<\/p>\n

Stem cells represent a state of life that is a potential. Embryonic stem cells even more so,\u00a0because not only do these cells have the potential to become any kind of human cell, they\u00a0have the potential to be American cells. Politicians know that American cells can eventually\u00a0become votes.<\/p>\n

The embryonic stem cell has taken root in the ripe soil of American social hypocrisy. This\u00a0stem is growing into the trunk of a tree that I think it would be fun to hang a tire swing from,\u00a0so real kids can play on it and possibly hurt themselves, because we constantly neglect them\u00a0and focus on politics.<\/p>\n

The ethical and political problem with embryonic stem cells is their source. To even think of\u00a0gathering these living cells is truly an abhorrent use of the mind. It forces us to remember that\u00a0the source exists. So, due to the detestable nature of the source and its offense to our souls,\u00a0we ignore its utility to our bodies, the vessels of our so-often-offended souls.<\/p>\n

Whatever your views on the subject of embryonic stem cell research, that part is not funny.\u00a0The distinct unfunnyness of this conundrum results in people getting really mad at each other\u00a0and doing a lot of preaching, sometimes in the form of jaded attempts at satire.<\/p>\n

So here we are again, science on one side, religion on the other. The politicians are our\u00a0athletes and champions in the new spectator sport of ethics and morality, life and death, gross\u00a0and yucky. We cheer and boo at the arena, and then go home and live our lives. Daughters get\u00a0pregnant: some become good mothers, some poor; some have abortions, some miscarry. Not\u00a0funny.<\/p>\n

It is all so intensely not funny that we can, at the same time, forgive nearly anything and\u00a0forgive so very little. However, most of us just cheer and boo harder, and our politicians\u00a0make laws for us so they can keep their jobs. Some of those laws protect life; most of those\u00a0laws protect power. Central to all this turmoil and unfunnyness is a marginally funny fact:\u00a0The political debate over stem cells boils down to babies, who cannot vote.<\/p>\n

Rigorous scientific testing and analysis proves that babies eventually turn into us, and that we\u00a0were, at one time, babies. We are not babies now, and babies are clearly not us, so it is our\u00a0responsibility to see to it that they become us, or we may disappear, like Marty McFly fading\u00a0from a causality-defying photograph from the future.<\/p>\n

Babies have always been a problem in society due to their inherent cuteness and our irrational\u00a0desire to protect and care for them at any cost. In prehistory, we paid the price for their safety\u00a0in environmental risk, physical suffering, and mortal peril. Today we pay the price to protect\u00a0babies by hard work, difficult choices, and occasionally sacrificing our reason in favor of the\u00a0specter of setting a good spiritual example.<\/p>\n

If we accept the utility of embryonic stem cells, then we accept or tolerate the acts that lead to\u00a0their most heinous sources, but we already do that. So what do we do? We take care of babies\u00a0so that, one day, they can deal with these ugly choices and not us, because thanks to\u00a0generations of material success and assumed moral authority, we are irresponsible and\u00a0unprepared. Let\u2019s just hope that, unlike us, our babies eventually get tired of shiny toys and\u00a0turn their minds towards more profound thoughts about life. Mmmmm, babies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*originally printed in Red Shtick Magazine – March, 2008 (pdf) Life, like breakfast, is best when it begins with an egg. The egg is one of the most common\u00a0reproductive formats. Even complex mammalian organisms such as humans have eggs\u00a0somewhere, so I\u2019m told. These mammalian eggs are only one part of the elegantly mysterious\u00a0equation describing the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[39],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1038,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}