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CNN Talkback Live

Interview with Ronald Green, Genevieve Wood

Aired November 26, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOIE CHEN, HOST: Actually, no, this here. But this is TALKBACK LIVE. Judy, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

CHEN: Quite a bit of enthusiasm down here on the TALKBACK LIVE set today. Want to stay on the news topic of the hour, and that is that press conference that you just heard. You heard the enthusiasm out in our audience. That is because in large part, our audience is made up of students, 4-H students, who happen to be in town and available to be part of our audience today.

Now, first I want to get a notion from you. How many in our audience today are students, high school, college-age students? How many of you?

All right. How many of you have had an experience like what we are hearing about in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where at your school there was some kind of threat. Show of hands, here. Holy cow. That is an awful lot of students. And it raises the question of what is going on.

We also want to talk about the legal issues. Our CNN legal analyst Roger Cossack is joining us today from Washington to talk more about what we've heard from New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Roger, I'm pretty surprised by the response here, the number of students who have had an experience similar to this, at least at some level.

ROGER COSSACK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, Joie, the sad part about all this of course, is this isn't the first time we've heard this story. And all of this, of course, goes back to the horrible day in Colorado a few years ago, which seemed like just yesterday, when Klebold and Harris killed, I think, 13 or 14 fellow students, and then also themselves.

So this is the kind of thing you take seriously. And it really -- the question really isn't legal here. The question really is, the activity and the forethought of the administration at that school, to get in there and stop this, whether or not these kids were really going to go forward or not. You just can't take the chance.

CHEN: Right. And here's the moral question from Tom in New Mexico: "I don't understand to this day why these kids are still trying to plot these massacres of students and faculty. Something is terribly wrong with these kids. Makes you wonder how this all happened."

Out in our audience there's some folks with legal questions for you. Roger, this is Matt. He's from South Carolina. What's your question, Matt?

MATT: I was wondering if the authorities were planning on charging the students as adults in this case?

CHEN: Is that what generally happens, Roger?

COSSACK: Well, they are all three minors. One is 17 and two are 15. But one of them, the fellow that we saw in jail, has already been charged as an adult. He's 17, and although I think the age is 18 in Massachusetts, you can charge someone who's under 18. I think he is the one being charged as an adult.

The two 15-year-olds, I'm not sure if they have made their decision. So far they have been charged as juveniles. And don't forget, we heard the administrators from the school say that there may be others involved. So what we know for sure is one will be charged as an adult. Two may be.

CHEN: Roger, this is from Wendy in British Columbia, sent to us on the e-mail: "I hope those individuals involved in a plot to bomb their school are prosecuted to the full extent of the law." As of now, Wendy, they are just accused, they haven't been convicted of anything. "This is a very serious crime, needs to be treated as such."

It does have the sense, though, Roger, that people are looking for very strong responses from law enforcement.

COSSACK: Well, look, is there anyone -- as I said earlier, is there anyone that can forget Columbine? This is no longer -- I suppose that students are no longer given that ability to sort of sit around and gripe about what they would like to do. Perhaps that was one of those things that students did and laughed about years ago, but that just isn't allowed anymore.

We've now seen too many times where students have taken rifles and weapons to school and shot and killed other students. And you know, those days of kidding around about that I think are just gone. And so when you have students who you believe, and you can prove in a court of law were going to go in and commit a massacre, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, as well, and I believe they should be.

CHEN: You just can't say, "I'm sick of school," anymore, and let it be done with that.

COSSACK: I think you can say, "I'm sick of school." I think it's the next step. "I'm sick of school and want to take out half the school." I think that's what gets you in trouble. CHEN: That's what gets you in trouble, particularly, I suppose, after September 11th. We do all have a greater sense of what is a threat and what is for real. Out here in the audience is Heather from Maryland.

HEATHER: I was wondering what the students could be charged with and what their punishment would be.

COSSACK: Good question. We don't know all the facts yet, but let me tell you a little bit about the law of conspiracy. is when you agree to do an illegal act. Whether or not you actually do that illegal act, conspiracy in and of itself is a crime. So let's think about it a second. They probably could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to possess illegal weapons. Conspiracy to possess bombs or rifles and ammunition.

I'm sure there are many things in the Massachusetts statutes that they could be charged with. And while I can't tell you exactly what the penalties are for the possession of illegal weapons, I can tell you that in most states, conspiracy to commit murder, if proven, can get you a life sentence.

CHEN: Roger Cossack, our CNN legal analyst, thanks for helping us. And thanks to our audience -- a lot of young students here with very good questions for you today.

COSSACK: Awful smart students.

CHEN: Very smart students, asking the tough questions of Roger Cossack. Thanks for being with us, Roger.

Up after the break, we're going to talk about the events in Afghanistan as they currently stand. General Don Shepperd, one of our CNN military analysts, will be with us to track the Marines and what they are doing in Afghanistan, right after this.

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CHEN: Welcome back. This is a very enthusiastic audience we have here on the TALKBACK LIVE set today. There are some 500 U.S. Marines who are now reportedly setting up operations in areas south of Kandahar, in Afghanistan. The Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark today said that they're part of the thousands of Marines sent into Afghanistan to try to pressure the Taliban and al Qaeda.

We're joined now by CNN military analyst, General Don Shepperd. Good to see you this afternoon.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET), U.S. AIR FORCE: Afternoon, Joie.

CHEN: General, is this a sign that things have moved into a new phase, the landing of the Marines? SHEPPERD: Well, I hate to refer to it as a phase, because as General Franks has reminded us, this is not phase to phase to phase. It's part of an integrated plan.

And basically, what they do by putting the Marines in there, is they establish a base where you bring in more forces, or you can use the people that are inserted to do all types of missions, including Kandahar, the search for bin Laden, interdicting roads, et cetera. And what they do is give General Franks, the commander in chief, many more options than he had before they came.

CHEN: Now, when you and I have talked about the idea of setting up a forward air base previously, part of the notion is that you might not necessarily be for military operation, it could be, for example, for humanitarian reasons. But the indication right now is that these M.E.U.s are there for the search for bin Laden, essentially.

SHEPPERD: Well, the secretary of defense, when asked that question, was very circumspect about telling us what they're there for. But again, they give the commander in chief all kinds of options. It's clear that although they could be used for humanitarian options, inserting them now in Kandahar is not likely what they're used for.

These are not your friendly guys coming over for dinner. They are there for serious military operations.

CHEN: General, we have folks out here in the audience who have questions for you about the operation, as it currently stands right now. Cyrus is from Wisconsin, General. Ask the general your question.

CYRUS: I was just wondering what kind of control we have over the mountainous areas of Afghanistan, and if we can expect to have a long guerrilla war, or if we have good control over those areas, and have the Taliban all cleared out of those areas as well?

CHEN: Good question.

SHEPPERD: I think we do not have control over those areas. Remember, we don't have very many troops on the ground in Afghanistan. We have special operations, as the secretary of defense has said, several hundred now. Up to 1,200 or 1,500 Marines, but that's not a lot of people in an area the size of Texas.

The Northern Alliance has taken control of about 75 percent of the country. Kandahar, the remaining portion. We have no intention of getting involved in a guerrilla campaign. It's important that you realize that what we are doing is making the al Qaeda and bin Laden react to us. We're not playing their games. We're not going to get involved in a guerrilla warfare like the Soviets did.

CHEN: All right, General, here's another question. This Andrew from Louisiana.

ANDREW: I'd just like to hear your long-term or, as it were, your short-term forecast for this fight. You know, with our military forces outside of what is probably the stronghold of the Taliban, when are they going to fall and what is going to happen?

SHEPPERD: Well, I think the Kandahar area, which is the last remaining stronghold, will be settled in the neighborhood of not more than a couple of weeks. Then you're going to find pockets all over the country that have to be repacified, taken care of, as fighting springs up around there. You'll also see people that have taken to the hills, performing guerrilla attacks on military operations.

Now, the real question is, where is al Qaeda and when are we going to get them, and when are we going to get bin Laden? I don't know the answer to that, and I don't know where he is. If I did, I would turn him in for the 25 million and split it with you. But on the other hand...

CHEN: Split it with me, General.

SHEPPERD: Yeah, well, I already promised it to Miles O'Brien this morning. We're going to have to split it four ways now. At any rate...

(AUDIO GAP)

SHEPPERD: ... is going to be over sooner, rather than later.

CHEN: General, this is Aubrey from Delaware, right, Aubrey?

AUBREY: I'm watching the news and reading the newspaper. It seems that the United States is making so much progress every day. Sending in 500 Marine troops, is that going to seem like an overbearing presence? Are they overstepping the line or is this absolutely necessary?

SHEPHERD: That is really a very smart question on your part there. We have to be very careful about the insertion of our forces into Afghanistan where foreigners have traditionally not been welcome.

Clearly that number of forces is not an overwhelming presence. On the other hand, it's also important to realize that whenever we go in, we do with liaison, with the forces that are there, the government that's in control, which is now rapidly becoming the Northern Alliance and the opposition forces, and the transitional government.

We do not go in as unwelcome visitors, so we're not an overwhelming presence, but we do have to be very careful about that.

CHEN: General, we've got a vet here in our audience. This is John from Georgia and from the Army as well.

JOHN: Yes, sir. I was wondering, a German news report stated that a Marine or soldier had died in the riots in the jail. Has Washington confirmed it or denied it?

CHEN: That's Mazar-e Sharif. SHEPHERD: Yes, it's Mazar-e Sharif. It's actually calijing - oh forget it. I'll mispronounce it anyway. It's an area about 30 miles west of Mazar-e Sharif, the former headquarters of General Dostum.

The Pentagon has said we did not have any uniformed personnel killed there in the operation or the uprising that took place; however, there was reports of one American killed. The Pentagon won't say who it was or what agency he was with.

There also have been five Americans injured in an errant bomb strike that's termed fratricide. Something went wrong with the bombs we dropped during that uprising, and injured five American soldiers, probably Special Operations forces seriously. They've been evacuated to a hospital in Germany.

CHEN: But General, you talk about what the Pentagon says it's not. Is it at all clear? Could it be a CIA operative or what?

SHEPHERD: I suppose it could be a CIA operative. It could be a contractor. It could be from another NGO. We're going to have to let that agency, whoever they are, confirm that.

CHEN: All right. This is James on the telephone line from California. James.

JAMES: Hi, how we doing?

CHEN: Good. What's your question for the General?

JAMES: Well, I work down on base down here at Pendleton, the Marine base down here in Southern California. And my question was really, you know, we don't get that much information about where our boys are on the ground, you know what I'm saying, over in Afghanistan.

We were wondering if we, you know, how we can go about getting that type of information. And, we were wondering why George Bush gets to sit up there all snug in his little White House, and all our boys get to get blasted up in Afghanistan, you know what I'm saying.

SHEPHERD: I do know what you're saying and let me give you several answers there. First of all, you're not going to be told where the guys are over there. You're not going to be told what they're doing until it's all over. That's part of what we call OPSEC, or Operations Security.

The reason the President is in this country is to lead us and our military forces, and to act as Commander-in-Chief. We have soldiers and Marines out there that go and do the work on the ground. That's what the military is for, and that's what they're doing. You can be real proud of them, but you're not going to get any information on where they are until they're probably victorious, as a matter of fact.

CHEN: General, I'd also gotten a message from somebody in the live chat before the show. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was saying, you know, do we know - she's got somebody who's in the 15th MEU. Do we know when they're going to get back, and I guess nobody can answer when they're going to get out of there.

SHEPHERD: No, the 15th MEU from Camp Pendleton, California was one of the elements of the Pelalu (ph) flag ship that was inserted. They will be back when their mission is done.

CHEN: When they're done with their mission.

SHEPHERD: When General Franks sends them home.

CHEN: General Don Shepherd, thanks very much for being with us this afternoon and answering questions from our audience, and some very good ones today. Thanks for being here General.

We'll take a break and take up another subject right after this break on Talkback Live.

CHEN: Coming up here.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you start allowing all these labs all over the place to create human clones, that it's only a matter of time before somebody tries to bring a baby to birth.

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CHEN: Scientists say it won't happen. They won't do that. Do you believe them?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The use of embryos to clone is wrong. We should not as a society grow life to destroy it, and that's exactly what's taking place. And, I have made that position very clear. I haven't changed my mind, and this evidence today that they're trying to achieve that objective to grow an embryo in order to extract a stem cell in order for that embryo to die is bad public policy. Not only that, it's morally wrong in my opinion.

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CHEN: No doubt about it, the President is making very clear where he stands, and there's a lot of agreement out here at the TALKBACK LIVE audience.

Welcome back. We're going to talk more about this notion of the creation at least of the first steps of a human embryo. Yesterday, a company called Advanced Cell Technology in Wooster, Massachusetts announced it had done just this, creating the first human embryo through cloning.

Now before we talk about why this technology scares people, let's find out exactly what it is. Ronald Green is with us. He's Chairman of the Ethics Advisory Board for Advanced Cell Technology, and Director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth University.

Also with us today is Genevieve Wood. She's spokeswoman for the Family Research Council.

But Ron, I need to begin with you and talk about exactly what this company did. There is sort of this feeling that an embryo was created, but this is very, early in the process. Is it really called an embryo at that point?

RONALD GREEN, ADVANCED CELL TECHNOLOGY: That's right, Joie. This is a six cell, very early (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that is not the product of human fertilization. There's no sperm and egg meeting here.

So we've had long debates in our board as to whether we should even term this an embryo. We like to use the term an activated or a cleaving egg, and it was only allowed to develop up to a few cell stage, maybe some more cells in order to produce the stem cell line. We don't think of this as a human life in a protectable sense here.

CHEN: A stem cell wasn't even formed here?

GREEN: That's correct. The researchers were unable to get to the point of stem cell production. That's the next step in this research.

CHEN: And what happened after the six cells were created? How did they stop the process, or would it have naturally stopped at six cells?

GREEN: They apparently spontaneously stopped themselves. One of the implications of this research is how difficult human cloning is. I hope the lesson that some of those irresponsible people out there who want to clone a baby will take from this, is that human cloning is a hazardous, risky activity, and should never be used at this time to produce a human being.

CHEN: And it is quite clear that company has said already that it is, it's not intentioned to clone a human life, a human being.

GREEN: That's correct.

CHEN: Just to make that clear. All right. Genevieve, let's talk to you a little bit about this. Ron has told us six cells is what this company is now talking about. Does that qualify as a reason for concern from your viewpoint?

GENEVIEVE WOOD, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, it absolutely does Joie, and the reason is, is because they were hoping it would obviously go beyond six cells. They were hoping that it would get, that it would continue to grow and get larger, and that it would be able to produce stem cells.

The fact is, regardless of how it was exactly created, the components of a human being are there, and unfortunately even though Advanced Cell Technology will say "hey, we don't know when this actually becomes a human being," the truth is, they're willing to do research on it and extract stem cells from it, up and to a point where I guess we as a society step in and say "this is a human being. You can't do this."

And look, science has given us a lot of great research. It's given us a lot of great cure for diseases, but sometimes different groups, in this case the science community can get carried away. And maybe a noble community but they can get carried away. And I think we, as a society, have to step in and say "here's where we draw the line folks. You can't create human beings and then try to destroy them in an effort to try to help other human beings" which is exactly what's going on here.

CHEN: Erica is here in our audience. She's from Pennsylvania and has a question.

ERICA: Which officials or departments in the government have the power to determine legally how far scientists can go with this issue?

CHEN: Ron, can you talk to that question?

GREEN: Well yes. At the present time, there is no prohibition against this research. Much of the discussion this summer concerned Federally funded research, what is done with your tax dollars.

This is entirely done by a private organization, and I want to signal here. You know, we as Americans have different views about when life begins. I certainly respect Genevieve's position on that, but millions and millions of Americans don't agree with that.

This is a private company reflecting the views of some people that this very early entity, these clusters of cells that have no differentiated form, no bodily form, do not have the claims of the children and the adults whose lives can be saved by this research. That's the -

WOOD: Ron, I guess my question is then, do we only classify them as human beings once we can tell that a head is forming, or once that we see an arm? I mean the bottom line is, all of us from Day One, are the human beings we are today from the moment we were conceived.

Yes, I'm a lot older today, but all the basic elements that make me the person I am were there Day One.

CHEN: But there wasn't s a conception here. I mean, isn't that part of the argument. There wasn't actually conception here, Ron.

WOOD: Well there wasn't conception, but the same elements are there because of the way they scientifically formed the embryo.

GREEN: Well I don't think that point is correct. We know now with advanced embryology that during the first ten days or two weeks of development, the embryo can split in two or three, where two completely separate clusters of cells can combine again to form one individual. So I don't think you can say we are there. It's not clear yet until at least two weeks of development, and what we have insisted upon as an advisory board is that none of these organisms be sustained beyond two weeks development. That is the international standard. That's what the British are doing. That's a view that many people can adhere to.

WOOD: What happens Joie when we find out that if we just let them grow for a month or for two months, we can get a lot more benefit from it? Then what do we do?

GREEN: Well, I think we...

WOOD: Then we say, "well, let's reconsider this." I mean that's the question. This is like Frankenstein Road and people need to realize that they're saying it's fourteen days right now, but what happens next month? What happens next year when they find out they can get a lot more the longer we allow them to grow and develop?

Those are very scary questions the public needs to consider today, not next year when we're faced with it.

CHEN: And certainly why we want to talk to folks here in our audience about that. Andrea is from Minnesota.

ANDREA: Right. I think that part of what I'm looking at with this issue is that there's just so much unknown with it, and how far do we push that line? How far do we go? And maybe even more importantly, how much of that is actually communicated to the general public.

Sometimes should we let the scientists do their thing, and then decide where to go? But, there just seems to be too much unknown with this in my opinion right now.

CHEN: In a certain sense Ron, the scientists are going to do it anyway, whether it's in this country, whether it's with public funds or not.

GREEN: Well, I think you simply can not prohibit everything that scientists want to do. You'll drive them overseas and whatever. I think the best stance is to identify through ethics discussions and reflections the appropriate lines of research and then hold them to that.

For example, to say we shouldn't be producing a baby right now, and put criminal penalties on that, we have to draw some lines. I don't dispute that. But I think the lines should be where we can foster research that saves human lives, not drives it underground or offshore.

WOOD: Well I think we can draw the line by taking it to Congress. I mean the House has already passed the ban on human cloning, in fact this summer. The Senate can do that right now and then we can have the national debate. But let's not take a step further before, as the audience member said, before the public has a chance to decide what we're dealing with here.

CHEN: All right, well just looking over here at the live chat underway, Gary asking, what is Gary's question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Doesn't the person have a right to clone his own cells for medical reasons, and why not?"

CHEN: Interesting question. We'll have to take a break here, but we'll come back and talk about that further with our guests, right after this.

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CHEN: A lot of excitement and interest in the topic we are taking up this hour, and before we get too far away, we want to take up the online viewer vote about human cloning. Should it be allowed under any circumstances? Let's look to the poll numbers. No, we're not getting it there? Too bad. Sorry, we'll try to check it before the end of the hour and see how that is going with our online viewer vote.

All right, back to our visitors with us, our guests today Ronald Green and Genevieve Wood, talking about the subject of where this company has gone so far and where things are going next.

I want to talk to folks in our audience about what they're thinking and feeling about this. This is Jessica, one of our viewers and guests here in the audience. She's from New Jersey.

JESSICA: I just wanted to know what the possible benefits that could outweigh this medically, outweigh the ethical questions that people might have.

CHEN: Ron, I think you should speak to that.

GREEN: Yes, well I think we're really on the first steps of a new era of medicine. It's called regenerative medicine, where literally you could produce tissues or even whole organs that are genetically matched to you or to your child without rejection.

And that would start with the cloning technology, but eventually we would learn how to reprogram the cells in our body back to their youthful, infantile state so that you could produce a new insulin system for a youngster with Type I Diabetes, or a new spinal cord tissue for somebody who's been paralyzed.

That's where this research is going.

CHEN: Yes, we have actually Brendon on the telephone line. He's from Connecticut and I believe Brendon has Diabetes. Brendon.

BRENDON: Yes. Hi, good afternoon.

CHEN: Yes.

GREEN: Good afternoon. BRENDON: I am a Type I Diabetic and I've been listening very closely to your chat, and I am absolutely for any kind of research that will find cures, be it to cloning or otherwise for curing such diseases as Type I Diabetes, Parkinson's, maybe Cancer and others.

I think it's very foolish of us to, you know, no pun intended to throw out the baby with the bath water when we have a chance to cure millions, and I really feel that the opinion of our President and of some of the remarks so far are extremely pompous and sanctimonious.

Let's help people here. We have the chance to help millions of individuals. Let's give it a try and not jump to conclusions.

CHEN: Genevieve, I think you need to speak directly to Brendon.

GENEVIEVE: Sure. Hey look, I adamantly support funneling a lot of money to trying to find cures for diseases, but what we should not do is say "well because we think this might work" and let's be clear here, there's no evidence yet. We don't have anybody cured from any stem cells that were taken from embryos.

We have seen adult stem cell research work and cure some folks, but we haven't seen anybody cured from embryonic stem cell research, so we need to be clear about that.

All this right now are maybes. So we can go down this road and find out that none of it works. But even if it does, Joie, do we have a right to kill somebody else, and that's what we're talking about here, because we think we're going to be able to cure someone else?

How do you weigh that? We ought to be funneling, as much money as we can and doing all the cutting edge research we can do that doesn't compromise someone else's life. I'm for everything else, but we can't take one life to help another.

CHEN: This is Erin. She's come to us from Washington State and is really concerned about a slippery slope.

ERIN: Well what I'm worried about is, from what I understand the rules of the embryo is that it is considered a human if it has brain waves or heart waves or breathes. That's what's considered a life.

Now we know already that through machines that we consider people alive who can't breathe on their own, because we have people who are in the hospitals on machines.

And from what I understand, embryos at a few weeks already have brain waves and at only a couple months already have a heart that beats. My thought is, that probably what could happen is that first we start out with cloned embryos and quite a matter at a particular age. What would keep them from taking unwanted babies and then from there, just going ahead and having kids that are already alive.

CHEN: Ron, I think she's really concerned about a slippery slope here. GREEN: Well I worry about slippery slopes as well, but I point this out often to my students, that life is a matter of choosing how to draw the line on slippery slopes.

We already take organs from people who have some systems that are alive, and we made that decision that that does not risk the rest of us. So we have to draw some lines. I agree with that.

My view is we draw the line at this 14-day stage that is the international consensus, well before any kind of differentiated tissues are available, and we hold that line in the future. And I'll be among the very first...

Wood: Joie.

GREEN: ...people to fight for that line.

CHEN: Go Genevieve.

WOOD: Well how about all those - let's not forget the stem cell debate that we just had, what three or four months ago, just this past summer. And the whole thing was, well we'll hold the line if it's 68 or 69 stem cells that already exist.

The truth is they've already decided that that's not enough. They don't have enough stem cell lines to do all the research they want to do, so now they're saying "well now let's increase it so that we can make cloned embryos and we'll have 14 days to work with."

I mean we're three months away from that line and they're already pushing it forward. Why do we think that six months from now it won't be another push? I think the audience member was absolutely right when she said, "this is a slippery slope.

We need to be very careful before we take one foot down it," and we ought to have a national debate before private companies in this country can make that decision for the rest of us. Congress has an obligation and they have the ability -

CHEN: All right.

WOOD: ...to stop it.

CHEN: I need to get a quick word from Coty.

COTY: Yes, I just had a comment. I agree there are several ethical issues here as well. But the that was raised is, whose responsibility is it to set that standard, and it is our responsibility to do that, and I just believe that when we have this information, and just to throw it out and say that we're not going to at least do more research with this, is just not acceptable to me personally.

CHEN: Ron, last word from you, a real quick one.

GREEN: Yes, I would just want to say that, this is not a costless decision. There are lives out there that are in jeopardy and risk. Yes, we have to draw lines. My own preference is to draw them on the side of saving lives, helping people restore their health, and protecting our moral values at the same time, and I think that's what this company and what this board has tried to do.

CHEN: Genevieve, your last word.

WOOD: Well I think that we all want to try to help save lives. The questions is, are there some of us who are willing to destroy life in order to do that? I think we as a country have to say the answer is absolutely not, and that we need to look at other ways and other medical technologies that we can go about finding those cures. They're there. We've just got to find them.

CHEN: Thank you both for being with us this afternoon and all of our audience with very good questions on a subject they really do seem to care a great deal about. We are unfortunately all out of time today. We thank all of our guests for joining us, our studio audience, and those of you joining us from home today.

TALKBACK LIVE, AMERICA SPEAKS OUT will return tomorrow afternoon, 3:00 Eastern.

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