ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Thanks, but No Thanks

A dear friend of mine, a friend of 36 years, and a cancer patient, Nacho, decided to take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that has been exploding around America in popularity. The challenge is to record yourself being the recipient of ice water dumped over your head, to raise money for the neurogenerative disorder ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) as a sign of your promise to donate to the cause, and then challenge others to do the same. He made the challenge onFacebook, and my comment in return was:

I am sure that most people participating have the best of intentions in support, and I have no problem with doing what we can to raise money through charities to fund research to eradicate the various diseases that humanity faces. The "ice bucket challenge" is a neat little gem that has emerged, and I am sure it is doing some good. I consider no ill-will towards those that participate, or those that contribute monies to the ALS charities. Thank you for having enough concern for a cause that you have taken time out of your day to do something. Since my son is a cancer survivor, my dear friends Audrey and Ignacio currently are battling cancer, and I have lost a long list of friends and family to cancer, I tend to be one that supports cancer research. That's just me. And yes, I am careful on how I contribute. That all said, I am pro-life, which means I believe life begins at conception, and that God not only knew us in the womb, but knew us before we were even conceived. The use of aborted embryos, embryos grown in fertility centers, or lab-grown embryos developed only for medical research sickens me. There are alternatives. We don't need to kill babies to find a cure to anything. And, unfortunately, right now the reality is that a large part of ALS research involves the use of embryonic stem cells, which in order to be extracted kills the embryo, and has produced no viable results in any way. I would love for science to find a cure for ALS, but embryonic stem cell research has been a dead end, and to continue to kill unborn children to perform failed research is not something I can support, or relinquish funding to.

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Granted, most of the research has moved towards adult stem cells, but until embryonic stem cell research is no longer a part of the ALS fight, I can't bring myself to provide funding to it. It is a personal choice. You do what you want, I will choose not to. The opposition to my stance will say something along the lines of, "So what? They used 4-day-old embryos to generate new embryonic stem cell lines. They are extra embryos from IVF clinics, where they have plenty to go around. The embryos are going to end up in the trash, anyway, we might as well use them for a good cause that may save lives." The term is "slippery slope." At what point will scientists demand more? Look what has happened with abortion. It began with, according to Roe v. Wade, that only first term abortions were federally allowed without State restrictions (even though the federal government has no constitutional authority on the issue). Now, we have the U.S. Senate pushing for full-term abortions, we have a President of the United States that voted against saving the lives of botched abortions gasping for breath on the table wanting to live, and we have people like Cass Sunstein suggesting that we abort children up to two years of age. A judge in Australia has ruled that incest is okay, now, because if there is an offspring produced from such a relationship, it can be aborted. That all began as something small, no big deal, we were told that to abort during the first term was fine and it would never become anything more. Now, I am being asked to have ice water dumped over my head to convince people to put funding into research that involves embryonic stem cells. "Don't worry, Doug," I was told. "It's no big deal. The embryos are not even human, and it will never become anything more." We have heard such arguments before. Darkness always appears as an angel of light. What's wrong with the viral 'ice bucket challenge'? A lot, say pro-life leaders- LifeSite Barbaric! 100% of Dem Senators Vote for Late-Term Abortion up to Nine Months of Pregnancy- Gateway Pundit Obama Supports Allowing Infants to Die- Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Sunstein: Fetuses 'use' women, abortion limits 'troublesome'- World Net Daily Sunstein: Government Must Fund Abortion- World Net Daily Obama Regulatory Czar Wants to Abort Babies Up To Age 2- GodLike Productions Judge: Abortion makes incest okay, incest like homosexuality- The Daily Caller Obama: Stem Cell Research- Political Pistachio Michael J. Fox: Stem Cell Research Not Producing Cure- Political Pistachio Worst Fears- Political Pistachio Judiciary Ruling Against Obama's Stem Cell Executive Order Right, But For The Wrong Reason- Political Pistachio Babies Clones, and Destroyed, for Science- Political Pistachio Liberal Left Proposes to Use Brains of Murdered Unborn for Research- Political Pistachio