MEPs vote to support stem cell research Stem cells come from embryos, umbilical cords, even baby teeth. Britain allows harvesting of stem cells from 'supernumerary embryos' - ones that are the result of in vitro fertilisation (IVF). We also allow the "creation of human embryos for stem cell procurement". I have this mental picture of scientists circling women with their petri dishes out, waiting to scrape us and our babies to 'harvest' the cells they need to do their experiments. Read Spares by Michael Marshall Smith. A story that takes human farms to its logical conclusion. If there are scientific (and financial) gains to be made from women doing IVF (all those lovely embryos to butcher into stem cell sausages), will women still be encouraged to wait, to try natural methods to get pregnant? Will this affect the decision on whether or not IVF should be offered on the NHS? We must always be vigilant to those who use our pain to profit. Women who want to get pregnant are vulnerable and to offer them a Hobson's choice of one whole live baby in exchange for 10 unborn babies (the 'supernumerary embryos') is trully macchiavellian. Until women reclaim procreation as our domain, until we take control over the decisions being made, we leave our wombs in the hands of people who do not respect them.

Someone asked the csr-chicks mailing list: do we need charities? I don't think charities should be needed in a truly democratic society. People should be committed to looking after everyone in their society and funds should be provided to do that, either through taxation or other clever ways of funding (e.g. disadvantaged people earn money collectively to fund their particular needs). Charity lets the government and the people off the hook, preying on the good will of some and letting others get out of their social responsibilities. It turns the recipients into passive observers rather than active participants in society and often fails to recognise that everyone is equal. It relies too much on the capitalistic view that you must be successful, fit, healthy and wealthy to be happy and anything else is lesser. Surely it is better to value the insights and perspectives of people in all the forms that they are in life rather than trying (and failing) to make everyone the same. Charities that raise money to look for cures to disease may also not have the same rigour and independence as a government review and be subject to the manipulations of business (e.g. I wonder why the cancer charities pay so much towards pharmaceutical research to come up with a drug to treat breast cancer when it is plain that drugs are causing the cancer to begin with and women should stop taking them. But telling women to stop taking drugs doesn't make any money, so instead they come up with a new drug to combat the effects of the old ones..meanwhile people themselves are caught in between. Do the cancer charities have the strength to see through the people advising them?) Oh and don't get me started on the cost of advertising and fundraising...