CHILL THOROUGHLY (via Mike Daley)

Stem cell allies divided over egg collection (Laura Mecoy, March 27, 2005, Sacramento Bee)

Ever since she championed the nation's first state law to authorize embryonic stem cell research, Sen. Deborah Ortiz has been a heroine to patient advocates and researchers.

In the past week, though, some of their admiration has turned to shock and dismay as they learned the lawmaker wants to impose a three-year moratorium on multiple egg extractions for research.

The Sacramento Democrat said she is trying to protect women's health by temporarily barring the use of hormone treatments to increase egg production for research until more is known about the risks.

But researchers and patient advocacy groups said Ortiz's proposed legislation would create enormous obstacles to therapeutic cloning, one of the promising forms of research scientists want to fund with the state's new $3 billion stem cell research program.

"It will have a chilling effect and be very damaging for the research," said Larry Goldstein, a University of California, San Diego, stem cell researcher who's worked with Ortiz. "It interferes with a woman's right to choose whether she wishes to donate her eggs or not."

So easy to pooh-pooh the slippery slope until the Death Lobby actually insists that the freedom to choose extends not just to the one fetus but to mass killing.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 27, 2005 11:32 PM