Search: Advanced Reuters US scientists find flexible stem cells in placenta

Yahoo News reported Scientists looking for easier and less-controversial alternatives to stem cells from human embryos said on Friday they found a potential source in placentas saved during childbirth. They described primitive cells found in a part of the placenta called the amnion, which they coaxed into forming a variety of cell types and which look very similar to sought-after embryonic stem cells. With 4 million children born in the United States each year, placentas could provide a ready source of the cells, the team at the University of Pittsburgh said. It is not yet certain that the cells they found are true stem cells, said Stephen Strom, who worked on the study. But they carry two important genes, called Oct 4 and nanog, which so far have only been seen on embryonic stem cells.

But would the extreme left, that takes so much pleasure out of aborting babies, whether as embryos made for IVF procedures, to preventing them from being implanted (IU486), to killing them even as they are in the process of being born (partial birth abortion), be willing for cells to be used from material made available as a byproduct of the actual birth of babies?