This week, President Obama stepped into the medical and moral debate over stem cell research. Many people across the country hope the move will change their lives.
The president signed an executive order that lifts an eight-year ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. While some people hope it will lead to cures, others think it's a mistake.
In 1998, 57-year-old John Swarts was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease: "I couldn't believe it at the time -- it just shook my whole foundation."
Now he takes a cocktail of medicines to control the persistent shaking that is common with the disease. "When I am off, I'll just give you an example. I am literally shaking everywhere and it gets tiresome."
And unfortunately, the main medicine, sinemet, is becoming less effective. "After the sinemet stops working, there's not much I can do."
The disease keeps Swarts from doing things he enjoys like hunting and reading the paper. That's why he's moving forward with risky brain surgery: "I can probably improve my quality of life by going through this procedure. It's like a pacemaker for the brain."
But surgery might not be his only option. On Monday, President Barack Obama signed an executive order overturing an eight-year restriction on stem cell research. "It's so good to see that the country is moving in the direction now where there's going to be more experimentation with different procedures that might be able to help us."
But Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has a different view: "I see this as a tragedy." He supports stem cell research, but not the use of embryos: "Anytime we take human beings at any stage of development and treat them as commodities, and in this case treat them as laboratory material for destruction, we're really devaluing human life and every single human being."
But John Swarts sees it differently, and would like anyone who disagrees to try walking a mile in his shoes. "Maybe if they were going through this and they know the pain and the suffering that people that have this and their caregivers go through, maybe they would start praying to their God for some answers."
