I have always favored stem cell rsearch, although to be honest when it's discussed in detail, I feel somewhat queasy about it, a funny feeling in my feet that makes me want to think about something else.
More below.
For me, it's been the same sort of feeling that I had when my wife and I were having medical consultations for infertility (we would up adopting from overseas) and they were pushing us to do in vitro at $14,000 per monthly pop (8% likelihood of success!) and describing how they'd implant 6 embryos, and if too many of them "took" we could always abort one or more, by inserting a needle . . .
For me, the idea of knocking off a couple of 'em in utero after trying to hard to have a (second) child in the first place Just Wasn't Right. So we decided against in vitro.
Anyway, for the millions of Squeamish Stem Cell Research Supporters out there, great news! It seems that in Australia, and (I have to say this delights me) using research dollars provided in part by the Catholic church, researchers have found that they can grow adult stem cells from cells taken from the human nose.
Apparently, researchers are highly optimistic that such cells will meet a broad range of treatment and research needs, while reducing dependence on embryonic stem cells, and the ethical concerns many people have concerning the latter.
This of course is a huge issue, and to be able to do the desirable, critical research while sidestepping the ethical difficulties seems a happy development indeed.