It's interesting to me that all of the moral disputes concerning use of human embryos for stem cell research centers around the question of whether it is more moral to use the large number of frozen embryos for research rather than discard them. In my mind, the real issue is whether these embryos should ever be produced at all. We have couples who are unable to have children allowing their sperm and eggs to produce human embryos in test tubes. Many more of these are produced than are necessary for these people to have a child and that's why we have an excess today that will either be discarded or used for research to possibly find cures for diseases that are untreatable today.

If life begins at fertilization of the egg, is it moral for this practice to continue? The real culprits in this whole issue are those couples who allow their sperm and eggs to be used to make "test tube babies" not the scientists who want to use their waste products for life giving research.

-- Paul Browning