Why has The Palm Beach Post (along with the NTTimes, the WashPost, etc.) backed off its fantastical promises for stem cell research? The editors had told us it would bring healing on miraculous levels.
Of course, they used to echo Nancy Pelosi's belief that it "holds the biblical power to cure," and John Edwards' revivalist preaching that it would make Christopher Reeve "Get out of that wheelchair and walk again," or Senator Arlen Specter's statement that it had the potential to "conquer all known maladies," or Rep. Anna Eshoo's, "We stand on the brink of finding the cures to diseases that have plagued so many millions of Americans..." and on and on.
But that was when it was about embryos. Which means it was about life, and hence, the abortion issue. And abortion is about sexual autonomy. Always has been.
Now that the game has completely changed (adult stem cells hold the same potential, so no killing of embryos is needed, and the abortion debate no longer matters) no one's seeing a need to issue such ridiculous promissory notes. Truth is, as First Things quotes a New York Times science writer in an honest moment, "Such accomplishments are more dream than reality." Now that we don't have the life/abortion issue involved, Scientific American has apologized for itself and the media, for raising false hopes.
Embryonic stem cells are not a miracle cure. The science said otherwise, but denial is apparently a team sport when sexual autonomy trumps science.
http://branthansen.typepad.com/letters_from_kamp_krusty/2008/12/maybe-i-should-stop-reading-the-paper.html
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