Making Choices on Stem Cell Research

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s support of embryonic stem cell research is laudable (Oct. 19). The direction the national debate over this matter has taken seems misleading. Since when do religious beliefs trump scientific facts? Embryonic stem cell research is better for us all. Hopefully the cures found because of it will trump all else.

Blake Howard

Silver Lake

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Wunderbar! I almost fell out of my chair reading about the governator’s endorsement of stem cell research. I bet somewhere Christopher Reeve, Ronald Reagan and many others are smiling, and if the research manages to pan out, my daughter, who has muscular dystrophy, will smile too.

David Forster

Lomita

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Re “Stem Cell Debate Focuses on Morality and Money,” Oct. 17: I was raised Catholic, and I take the sanctity of life seriously. But the stem cell debate is ridiculous. If George W. Bush and other opponents of embryonic stem cell research think it is destroying a life to use frozen, unwanted embryos from a fertility clinic, then why is it not destroying a life when those very same embryos are “discarded”? And for that matter, why are fertility clinics allowed to mess around with embryos at all? This is a bizarre double standard that defies logic.

Apparently the “sanctity of life” folks believe it is more important to give hope to couples who want to have a child than to give hope to already-born children -- children suffering from such destructive diseases as diabetes and cystic fibrosis. How dare Bush choose the “life” of a frozen clump of cells over the life of my diabetic child.

Colleen Dunn Bates

Pasadena

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In support for stem cell research, in California, you recommend a “yes” vote on Proposition 71 (editorial, Oct. 17). I am all for stem cell research, and I will gladly send a “Bronx cheer to the Bush administration for its foolishly restrictive policy on stem cell [research].”

However, the better cheer is for all those who support stem cell research, nationwide, to vote for John Kerry. For me and many others, four more years of restricted stem cell research is too depressing a thought and something to fight against. Only defeatists should vote for Proposition 71.

D.A. Papanastassiou

San Marino

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I know the potential for stem cell research to find cures for many devastating diseases is a powerful lure to all of us. I too want my friends and family to be free of these terrible horrors. But still, I have to ask myself: Do I want the state, with its history of unbalanced budgets, overruns on most state bid projects, inability to fund and control our schools and road maintenance problems, mismanaged funds and top-heavy bureaucracy, to be in charge of our bond money for stem cell research? My answer is no. I think private enterprise is better equipped to do that research. I’m voting no on Proposition 71.

Joyce Peyton

Los Angeles