New Stem Cell Facility to Open in Jersey

It is estimated that the building will cost $150 million and should be completed by 2011. Standing at 18 stories, the new research facility is being built in the city of New Brunswick near Rutgers University. Interestingly enough, the building will also feature a Christopher Reeve, the first Superman, pavillion. Reeve promoted stem cell research after he was paralyzed in a 1995 horse riding accident. Reeve died in 2004 at age 52.

This is great news! Not Reeve's death, but that a facility is being constructed. New Jersey is the first state to have used public money to build a stem cell research facility.

Of course all of this good can't exist without opposition. Those against abortion have already filed suit, because embryonic stem cell research destroys human embryos. Next month voters will be asked to approve borrowing $450 million for stem cell research grants.

Here are some quotes by abortion foes...

Marie Tasy, the executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, which filed the lawsuit, charged supporters of state investment in stem cell research with "shamelessly exploiting the sick and infirmed with empty promises of miracle cures and false economic benefits."

Gunter Schemmann, a cancer researcher at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, held a sign during the ceremony that featured an embryo and read, "Even then you were precious."

"I believe human life starts at conception and to destroy an embryo to get stem cells is to destroy human life," he said.