*subhead*The “adult” stem cell that isn’t.*subhead*

I wrote this piece weeks ago. It has just now been published online. I had no idea that the Center for Medical Progress was about to drop the bomb on Planned Parenthood and their participation in the market for aborted baby parts. In case you were wondering what some companies use aborted baby parts for, read my latest at the National Catholic Register:

“It has been several years since the height of the stem-cell controversy, where every day debate raged over the destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cells. These human embryos, conceived in a lab by the hundreds of thousands, are only days old but hold inside a mass of stem cells that scientists told us held the key to regenerative medicine.

These little lives, no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence, were deemed disposable, easily sacrificed to advance medical treatments for everything from paralysis to Parkinson’s.

In the great stem-cells wars, we learned that embryonic stem cells are immature and unwieldy, causing tumors in animal models. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are more stable — and therefore safer for treating patients. As the years have passed, we have heard more and more about adult stem-cell successes and less and less about the failure of embryonic stem cells to become the cure-all many promised.

But the stem-cell wars are far from over. There is a third designation of stem cells that is little known but is gaining momentum: the fetal stem cell. Human beings are called embryos for the first eight weeks after fertilization. After that, we enter the fetal stage, which is from nine weeks post-fertilization until birth. Fetal stem cells are stem cells harvested during the fetal stage of development.

Fetal stem cells, often procured from elective abortions, are disingenuously classified as “adult” stem cells simply because they do not come from embryos. Needless to say, this creates great confusion, even causing pro-lifers to tout “adult” stem-cell successes when the stem cells originally came from an aborted fetus.

Hockey legend Gordie Howe was in the headlines this year for his remarkable recovery from a stroke after a stem-cell treatment in Tijuana, Mexico. Former San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback John Brodie also received the same treatment. Initially, the reports indicated that Howe and Brodie were treated with “adult” stem cells. Pro-life news feeds lit up with the news.

But enterprising USA Today sports reporter Brent Schrotenboer revealed last month that the treatment Howe and Brodie received from Stemedica Cell Technologies included stem cells derived from an aborted fetus.”

Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>

Rebecca Taylor blogs at Mary Meets Dolly