Pfizer is providing the financial backing required to transfer the treatment from the laboratory to a usable form. Surgeons predict that the procedure could take about one hour, and may be available within the next six to seven years, potentially even as an outpatient procedure.

A 2004 study from the Archives of Ophthalmology estimated that 1.75 million U.S. residents suffer from the symptoms of AMD, with a forecast that the number would increase to 3 million by 2020, due to longer life spans. Scientists estimate another 14 million people suffer with the disease throughout Europe.

The AMD advancement would mark the first major proven treatment using embryonic stem cells, and begins to address criticisms from the religious community that adult stem cell research has generated more practical advancements than research using embryonic stem cells.

Why did this advancement occur in London instead of Madison? Scientists in the United Kingdom have benefitted from a more wide open philosophy regarding public funding of stem cell research, using surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization. Finland, Greece and Sweden have similar policies. In the meantime, scientists in the United States were only able to engage in extremely limited study, as funded by a token August 2001 decision from then-President George W. Bush to open only existing stem cell lines for federally funded research. Legislation was passed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in 2005 and 2007 to expand the limitations on federally funded research on new stem cell lines, but both attempts were vetoed by Bush.

Just last month, President Obama signed an executive order removing restrictions on federal funding for new lines of embryonic stem cells, using cells taken from discarded in vitro fertilization treatments, for example. Human embryos still cannot be created solely for research purposes, as limited by an amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009.

Based on these policy changes, it is more likely that the next major advancement using embryonic stem cells will originate from within the United States, rather than Europe. But going forward, the bioethical dilemma related to this type of science will transition from Washington, D.C. into the waiting rooms of hospitals and clinics around the country.

Since the artificial membrane created by the British scientists would contain transformed embryonic stem cells, many of the millions of people who are unable to read, recognize faces or drive a car, might be unwilling to undergo the treatment, due to a self-imposed bioethical and religious dilemma.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of human embryos that are left over from in vitro fertilization treatments are eventually destroyed, representing a monumental waste of potential positive outcomes for millions of living, fully developed human beings. Nobody denies that human embryos have the potential to become a human life. But even using the broadest definition of self-sufficiency, that potential is not realized until many months after fertilization. A successfully implanted embryo does not develop a heartbeat until the fifth week of pregnancy, and it doesn't develop detectable brain activity until a month after the heart starts beating. As many as 14 days after fertilization, an embryo can split to form two embryos (identical twins), or two embryos can merge to form one. Considering this state of flux from newly fertilized eggs, it's difficult to see how such blastocysts could be viewed as scientifically viable human lives.

For example, I have the scientific potential to win the Boston Marathon. To make this happen, I would only require a well-constructed bicycle to ride from the starting line to the finish line. In other words, my potential to reach my goal is limited by my ability to receive outside assistance. Just as I will never win the Boston Marathon based on my own running abilities, discarded embryos will never reach the finish line of becoming a self-sustaining human life without a willing, living, host uterus to facilitate their own successful completion.

Without the self-fulfilling potential to become something more, the cells that make up a human embryo are comparable to skin cells or any other cluster of non-viable cells. Faced to choose between the scheduled destruction of that clump of cells, or the use of those cells to improve the life of an elderly person who is gradually losing their vision through AMD, the choice is obvious.

As Americans, we need to move beyond the painstakingly manufactured religious argument against embryonic-based research and treatments, and start to apply more common sense logic to bioethical debates. This latest advancement serves as a good reminder that embryonic stem cell research doesn't only exist to lure opposition voters to the polls on election day. It now has a proven potential to improve millions of lives.

(Tim Schilke is the author of "Growing up Red" and lives in Grafton. His column runs Wednesdays in The Freeman.)