Bill O'Reilly has a piece saying that people are on two sides of a debate: those who think life begins at conception and those who don't; this is in regard to whether it's ethically okay to take embryonic stem cells and perform research on them. That's an interesting, black or white view. My view is that it's up to the parents who actually created that embryo whether they want to use it for research. Usually these are frozen embryos from in vitro fertilization (which, not so long ago, was ethically questionable behavior). What happens is that a bunch of fertilized eggs are made, and some are implanted, and some survive. Those that are no implanted are frozen for later use, or destroyed.

Bill is right in saying that we have no idea if ES cells will lead to cures for diseases; that's probably too optimistic. HOwever right now they are the best chance for moving forward in many fields, including cancer. ES cells have a large potential as research tools, but to utilize them, we'll need many cell lines, since cells don't last forever when frozen, and since as you grow them, they have a strong tendency to differentiate and destroy their totipotent nature.