No Fetuses in Food!

Oklahoma Senate Bill 1418, introduced by State Sen. Ralph Shortey, would prevent anyone from manufacturing or selling food "which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients." The concern behind the bill, apparently, is with food companies which are in fact using tissue derived from aborted fetuses in research on the development of new product flavorings. (This is of course different from saying that such cells are being used as ingredients in food!)

The Onion, America's finest news source, has gathered some informed opinions on the issue.

Gingrich Would Ban Stem Cell Research, Regulate IVF

Newt Gingrich is telling conservative audiences in Florida that, if elected, he will ban all human embryonic stem-cell research, including research done on excess embryos from fertility clinics. He regards embryonic stem-cell research as "the use of science to desensitize society over the killing of babies." This is a reversal of positions he took in two different interviews in 2001, in which he expressed support for federally funding research on leftover fertility-clinic embryos which would otherwise be discarded. Over this weekend Gingrich also indicated that he would create a commission to look into the ethics of IVF: “I believe life begins at conception, and the question I was raising was what happens to embryos in fertility clinics, and I would favor a commission to look seriously at the ethics of how we manage fertility clinics....If you have in vitro fertilization, you are creating life; therefore, we should look seriously at what the rules should be for clinics that are doing that, because they are creating life.”

The roughly $125 million saved by cutting all of NIH's human embryonic stem-cell research funding could presumably be used to help offset some of the billions and billions of dollars required to create the new moon-base Gingrich says he wants by the end of his second term.