As of January, 2007, there are at least seventy-two (72) discrete therapeutic benefits for humans that have been developed from stem cells from adults; after over seven years of trying, there are zero, non, nein, nada, no therapies that have been developed from stem cells taken from human embryos.

"In response to passage of H.R 3, The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, Director of The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (CBHD) C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D., states 'Partisan politics has trumped ethical science. Not only is it unethical to kill embryos for their stem cells, it is unnecessary and undesirable.'

The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, which is virtually identical to a bill vetoed by President Bush last year, allows the use of Federal taxpayer dollars to support and thereby encourage the destruction of nascent human life for highly speculative research purpose.

In contrast, non-embryonic stem cells are being used to treat six-dozen diseases and conditions in human patients. Just this week the world received news that cells from amniotic fluid possess all of the desirable traits of embryonic stem cells but not the undesirable traits such as the proclivity for tumor formation that embryonic stem cells exhibit.

According to Mitchell, 'This study should have put an immediate stop to the pro-embryo-destructive stem cell bill.'

It is now evident that many of the byproducts of live birth-amniotic fluid, placenta, and umbilical cord blood-contain stem cells that may rival embryonic stem cells in their flexibility and usefulness.

True human flourishing is not a product of the destruction of the youngest members of our human family. 'Only through political sleight of hand may someone argue that human embryos are not human lives," says Mitchell, "for they are both human and alive.'"

Twenty-five years ago, economist Gary Becker argued that a division of labor between husband and wife makes marriage an economic bargain. While he documented how the rise of women in the workplace upsets that equilibrium-making marriage less attractive and divorce more attractive-two economists at the University of Toronto now document how another phenomenon of the past generation-the legalization of abortion-also reduces the economic gains to marriage for young adults, depressing marriage rates.

Using U.S. Census data, the researchers construct population vectors showing that the number of marriage-available men increased 46 percent, while the number of available women increased 39 percent, between 1970 and 1980. And using vital statistics, they construct bivariate distributions showing that the number of marriages between the years 1971-72 and 1981-82 increased only marginally, by 6.5 percent. Their bivariate age distributions further show that the average age of men and women who married increased between the two reference points, even as the average age of available men and women actually declined.

Then borrowing Becker's static transferable utility model of the marriage market, they estimate the net gain relative to not marrying for men and women, finding that 20-year-old women receive the largest gains when marrying a slightly older man and that 20-year-old men receive the largest gains when marrying slightly younger women. Yet in plotting the changes in marriage gains over the decade, they find "a sharp drop in the estimated total gain to marriage to young adults between the ages of 16 and 30."

To quantify the impact of abortion on this decline, the economists break down their results state by state, finding-in 1970 but not in 1980-lower gains to marriage in 12 "reform" states that had made legal abortion easier to obtain prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision relative to the remaining 38 states that had not. And the difference in the difference was concentrated among younger men and women: "The drop in the gains to marriage for same-age spouses, between the ages of 19 and 26, living in reform states in 1971-72 relative to those living in nonreform states is substantial."

Had the nonreform states also partially legalized abortion before 1973, the economists claim that fewer U.S. couples would have tied the knot in 1971-72. They estimate that for men, ages 16-25, that social change "would have lowered the total number of marriages in this age group by 4.2 percent, whereas among 16-25-year-old women, the decrease is about 3.6 percent." For men and women older than 26, the respective figures are 3.8 percent and 5.2 percent.

While recognizing that other factors also contribute to changing marriage patterns during the 1970s, these two professors nonetheless show that when judges or legislators claim to be granting new rights to women, they end up taking other things away, in this case the likelihood of living happily ever after.