ANNA IN THE NEWS!

ASSOCIATED FRENCH PRESS 

WASHINGTON, July 17 (AFP) - Holding small children born from frozen embryos in their arms, opponents of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on Tuesday made an emotional appeal against the experiments as supporters insisted it is the key to curing devastating diseases.  "Which one would you take?" demanded John Borden of House Representatives considering embryonic stem cell research, as he held up his twin sons Mark and Luke. "Which one of my children will you kill?"  Borden's question, at a House hearing at which his wife Lucinda testified on adopting and giving birth to previously frozen embryos in her protest to research on such embryos, underlined the emotion that is surrounding the issue here. 

Supporters of the research were also vehement. Laura Landre, mother of Anna, a two-and-a-half-year-old test tube baby who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, dared opponents to "look into my daughter's eyes and tell me it again." Embryonic stem cell research, she insisted, "is Anna's future." 

In the "in vitro" or test-tube baby fertilization process, extra Embryos are often created which are eventually destroyed. Proponents argue these embryos could be used to advance federally-funded studies in regenerative medicine. Those against insist the embryos are potential life that can be adopted by infertile couples. President George W. Bush is to decide whether federal funds should be available for the controversial research, even as private US researchers have admitted they have gone one step further, producing human embryos in laboratories to harvest embryonic stem cells for therapy studies.  "Human embryos are not commodities to be harvested and used for the benefit of others, and the administration should not put its blessings on such research by providing federal funding," said Virginia Representative Jo Ann Davis.  In contrast, she added, "adult stem cell research is a promising, and ethical, alternative," an argument many in the House Government Reform committee hearing agreed with.  But those who back granting of federal monies for embryonic stem cell research stated that by doing so the government could attract researchers while imposing certain limits, even though it could not interfere in privately funded research.  "This research should be funded through the (National Institutes of Health) to ensure that it will conducted with strict oversight and safeguards," insisted Representative Connie Morella, who represents Maryland, the state where the NIH is based.  "This critical federal support will ensure the most rapid success in the research," she said, adding that scientists believe that with the right funding, stem cell research could lead to substantial medical benefits in less than a decade.  Last week, scientists from the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Virginia announced they had created a five- to six-day-old blastula -- an embryo at the stage of development in which it consists of usually one layer of cells around a central cavity -- removing from it the embryonic stem cells they need for research purposes.  Until now, scientists had harvested embryonic stem cells only from aborted fetuses or fetuses frozen in clinics where fertility treatment was being carried out then designated as no longer useful.  The ethical firestorm surrounding the research has even split the normally solid anti-abortion, pro-life alliance.  "While I understand that many in the pro-life community will disagree with me, I believe that human life begins in the womb, not a petri dish or refrigerator," said conservative Senator Orrin Hatch.  "To me, the morality of the situation dictates that these embryos, which are routinely discarded, be used to improve and extend life ... It is my fervent hope that the President will agree."