Posted by
Garth Trekker on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 10:02:10 AM
Bush's veto of publically funded embryonic stem cell research is not only to be applauded, but our President should be honored as a man of integrity and respected as a moral leader.
Read Bill Buckley's column,
Let him live? and tell me I'm wrong.
Evidently,
Courting Destiny would say that I am.
Some good comments at
Courting Destiny, but we probably misused her comment section to carry on a political and issue oriented dialog that most likely should have been reserved for a post dedicated to this topic of stem cell research. As it stands, I would like to continue the dialog here and re-post one comment in particular as well as my reply.
Callen Damornen writes:
"I do not agree with Bush on stem cell research. These are unborn that were never going to be born in the first place. These are not the unborn that had a hope to be among the living. It is a situation of either throwing them in the trash or using them to help others. The priorities of the so-called pro-life movement is screwed up. If they are actually pro-life, do something with the living first and see to it those who are born will go to homes where they are wanted, otherwise they need to butt out of people's private lives."
Here is
my response:
Sorry to continue this political and issue-oriented topic during your summer break, but I've been following the comments and feel I need to address this last perspective voiced by Callen Damornen: "If they are actually pro-life, do something with the living first and see to it those who are born will go to homes where they are wanted, otherwise they need to butt out of people's private lives."
This is a red herring. I know of no pro-life person who isn't concerned with doing "something with the living" (I take it Callen means caring for the baby after she or he is born either by supporting adoption or supporting the parents, whether single or married). To accuse pro-life proponants of focusing on the pre-born child to the exclusion of infant and mother/father care is quite ludicrous.
A second implication in Callen's remark, however, is quite alarming, and that is that if a child is not wanted by her or his parents then that child can be destroyed ... and that the pro-life movement should butt out of this area of "privacy"! Excuse me?! Did you actually mean what you just said? That it is okay to kill your preborn child if you don't want it? Answer this first and then we can talk embryonic stem cell research. Simply agree or disagree: I can kill my child if I want.
Granted, blog host
Pia remarked:
"Lyn, I believe that Callen didn't chose her words carefully. I can't imagine that any rational person would argue that abortion should be for convenience."
I can appreciate that and do hope it was an ill-conceived remark. As for the issue of stem cell research itself,
MinTheGap makes two good points:
1. Just because they are preborn does not make them some other being - they are human with their own DNA. They are not "potential life" they are life. There have also been many discoveries with adult stem cells, and as far as embryonic being a "silver bullet" there's no evidence - in fact there's much to the opposite.
2. Why should someone who believes that you are killing life be forced to fund a procedure that in their mind destroys it? It's like saying in the Civil War that those opposing slavery must pay for the upkeep of the local auction block.
It's wrong to have federal funding whether you believe that the embryos are life or not.
To this I can only add, I agree. What can you add?
UPDATE: Comment from Beth -
Here's the thing - and it does veer a little from the idea of stem cells but it touches on something you said - abortion already is for convenience. As one who has worked for years in crisis pregnancy centers and tried to provide options other than abortion for women - more than 50% of the time, it boils down to convenience. On a more personal note, my best friend in high school had an abortion because, "I'd still be pregnant at prom and I don't want to go looking fat. I'd place for adoption if it didn't interfere with that." What aspect of that is not convenience. Those who cling to arguments of "what about rape or incest or endangerment of the mother's life" need to really look at the stats - cause those 3 combined are less than 1% of abortions. Abortion is all about convenience. And it's primarily
only about convenience.
As for stem cells - why do so few people publish the research reports that show the incredible leaps being made with ADULT stem cells? Because from what I've read, adult stem cells have been more beneficial than embryonic. Which leads me to wonder - do we want embryonic stem cell research simply because it allows us to "justify" killing millions?