He misinterpreted your question, you misinterpreted his answer.
The balance of the world is restored.

I think you missed my point here - what I was saying was that the age at which the embryo must be for harvesting they would be resultant from the morning after pill rather than a surgical procedure. The problem here is not an ethical one but a purely mechanical one as retrieving the 8 or so cells that at that stage comprise the embryo would make the needle/haystack analogy look like a simple afternoon's work.

The term "abortion" is wrong in this context.

Which is why I brought it down to whether you are pro- or anti-fertility treatment. That is the context and direction here.

Following this I'd invite you to re-read my comment - I don't take a moral stance either way therein and certainly wasn't arguing or attempting to change your mind. You brought the word abortion into the debate. My intent was to point out that abortion doesn't come into embryonic stem cell research, that the source is elsewhere. On a matter as (clearly) emotive as this it is imperative to be accurate. I'm aware you consider the right to life starts at the moment of conception and I wasn't challenging you on that.

There are many people who don't realise that fertility treatment routinely involves the disposal of viable embryos. It's a whole other issue along the lines of whether the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few as to whether it is acceptable to create more viable embryos are needed to ensure the survival of a smaller number and one that would utterly derail this thread, but if we're going to talk about the source of the cells it needs the right context.

I did, and if you read what I wrote you'll see that I was saying at present there are enough embryos from fertility treatment for the research. Although I didn't state it outright you must be able to conclude that this knocks the cloning discussion on the head - why go to the expense and possible retribution of cloning when there is currently a source of the materials that exceeds demand.

In the same spirit, look at the 9th paragraph in my comment. It is no longer necessary to destroy an embryo to harvest stem cells and in time adult stem cells will be the stem cells of choice.

All the way through I was trying to move the debate on from the erroneous use of the term abortion. At the same time I was echoing your own questions of morality, just from a different vantage point.

Addressing your question, the way you pose it the answer is no - there are limits to what is acceptable so "regardless" opens things up far too wide. But at the risk of seeming to put words in your mouth if you meant it to mean "are the current methods used acceptable" I'd have to say yes. The embryos used are a bi-product of something else and there is no possible moral objection to their further use if they are ultimately going to be disposed of anyway - better that they are used for some positive purpose.

But all that then does is shift the discussion to another area (whether the methods employed in fertility treatment are morally acceptable) which is very much off topic - but possibly a good subject for another thread.

You'll have seen my other remark by now, but no - that's not what I did at all. Far from it. Clearly now you did misunderstand.

I used your comment as a starting point to clear up some points - points that are relevant to the discussion.

Firstly abortion is not a part of embryo stem cell research.

Secondly there is no call for cloning at this stage because of where embryo research is currently at.

This was not me choosing to express my opinion about abortion or take you up on a debate - it was me clearing your emotive (and by the admission of this comment unnecessary) dragging of the concept of abortion into a discussion that does not encompass or employ it.

The embryos that are used for embryonic stem cells aren't harvested from a woman; typically, eggs are harvested and mixed with some sperm in a petri dish (but not always, if they are doing nuclear cell transfer) to make an embryo. These are then frozen. If the woman has a successful pregnancy (as this is done as part of fertility treatments), the embryos are destroyed... or given to researchers.

The embryos cannot even accidentally become a person without implantation. (and even if they are implanted, there's no guarantee; different conversation).

Additionally, cloning in this context is not the same. The most common method of creating a 'clone' line is through somatic nuclear cell transfer... which requires no fertilization. (see hereif you want to read, here for the diagram...second on the page).
But the more they do this, the more the cells tend to break down naturally, and not be as good for research.

I think the discussion behind using cloned embryos is almost irrelevant, since there is so much more energy, time and possible error involved in cloning, and this can be avoided by using new/different embryos. If by some chance it were efficient to clone embyros for stem cell harvesting, I'd support it. So many embryos are created and destroyed for fertility treatments, I don't see the problem in artificially creating one that will possibly yield something useful.

It could be argued that stem cell research, and the scientific advances that may go with it, will be required as more and more people have children (these individuals wouldn't contribute to population growth without fertility treatments).

I thought this was a big move forward, many other countries have been exploring stem cell research and I think it will be valuable for us to make future advancements in treating our own ailments :)

If anyone has any opinion on stem cell research (and is an American), tell the government how you feel here.

Awesome author Neil Gaiman explains why in his blog post here. Worth the read, at least.

I heard last week that we've discovered that stem cells are in our wisdom teeth too. Like the stem cell gold mine. Anyone else heard about this? I forget where I heard it.

The milk teeth stem cells are a little different than embryonic stem cells. Embryonic can turn into any tissue in the body, where dental pulp stem cells can only turn into certain things, like bone, cartilage and fat. But, it opens up some doors, like there may be more stem cells somewhere else in the body that we haven't found. Also, the dental tissue can possibly be used to repair vertebra discs, treat arthritis and other degenerative diseases of the bones and joints. Pretty cool stuff.

Maybe they could use it to research treating osteoporosis and bone cancer? Just a thought.

The ban Clinton signed prohibited the creation of embryos especially for stem cell research. It did not ban the use of existing ones.

Dumb law in my opinion because they don't need a viable embryo to harvest stem cells, just a human fertilized egg that has advanced to less than a dozen cells.

Like I said, I'm not really up on this.

If it cures disease, helps children live a normal life...I'm fer it.

There was no "ban".

The only thing "banned" was federal money for new lines.

There have been hundreds of new lines made since the "ban" but they just can't use federal dollars.

The only difference is that now they can.