Joe Pitts: “the demise of once-renowned South Korean embryonic stem cell researcher, Hwang Woo-Suk, has been well publicized. Once…”

“the demise of once-renowned South Korean embryonic stem cell researcher, Hwang Woo-Suk, has been well publicized. Once the darling of the research community, Dr. Hwang has since been disgraced, his research exposed as fraudulent, his methodologies shown to be unethical. The fact that Dr. Hwang fabricated much of his research made big headlines. What was less noted, though, was that he coerced female members of his research team to donate their eggs for experimentation. This brought attention to a relatively unknown fact about embryo research. It requires an enormous amount of human eggs, and the likelihood of women being exploited is great. This issue has brought together a coalition of pro-choice and pro-life women who are taking a stand against the exploitation of women by the biotech industry. They point out that the egg extraction techniques required for this research can lead to infertility and even death. They are right to take such a stand against such exploitation, and we ought to stand with them. ____________________”