[Canada 02]

unfortunately, whoever first developed human embryonic stem cells condemned the technology and the process to this debate, forever linking it with the pro-life, anti-abortion movement.

Had he called them pluripotent blastocysts or some other non-inflammatory name, the "quick to judge, slow to understand" would have never caught on. Reality is, embryos are never destroyed in the creation of pluripotent blastocysts because they are not embryos. They are pre-embryos (an important distinction), no more and no less capable of forming a human being than human umbilical vein endothelial cells, human amniotic cells, or adult cells of any tissue origin - all of which are readily available for medical research.

It's an important distinction to appropriately call them pre-embryos because, without scientific/medical intervention, these will never form into embryos. Conversely, with scientific/medical intervention somatic cells could be coaxed or manipulated into forming pre-embryos and embryos.