Mcneil: Was Bush right to veto embryonic stem cell research bill?
Posted: Monday, July 24, 2006
On the right with Michael McNeil
Ethics and politics. The stem cell research debate is infused with these elements now that both sides are posturing for the moral high ground. Common sense and a law of logic (the law of non-contradiction) dictate that opposing views cannot both be correct. So, who’s right?
Last Wednesday, President Bush issued his first veto by rejecting Congress' bid to lift funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. The president’s position is that this veto demonstrates his valuing of human life and demonstrates the “compassionate conservative” message he campaigned on. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin called the veto "a shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy and ignorance.”
It may be helpful to clarify the battleground. There is bipartisan agreement on stem cell research. However, the two sides divide faster than an amoeba on “embryonic” stem cell research. Many conservatives regard embryos as human. The liberal view is they are less than human.
Doctors at Auschwitz justified their medical experiments on Jews and Russians claiming certain races or ethnicities make someone less than human. Many liberals say the embryo is less than human because of size, location, or ability. Oh, really?
Senator Tom Harkin once commented it would be morally wrong to oppose funding of ESC research in part because the embryos in question are no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence. Does size matter? Is a toddler less human because it is considerably smaller than an adult? What about those with dwarfism? Are premature babies less human because they are smaller than their full-term counterparts?
I’ve heard supporters of ESC research rationalize that we’re not really taking a human life because it resides in a Petri dish, test tube, etc. If humans are found on the playground, the nursing home, the womb, or a test tube, are we more or less human because of our location?
A favorite argument of these advocates is that of ability. Because of their inability to have full awareness/consciousness, embryos are not human beings. Following this to its logical conclusion, we can take the life of an elderly person with severe Alzheimer’s or someone knocked out cold after an auto accident because their unawareness makes them less human.
What kind of embryo is at the heart of this debate? A dog embryo? An elephant embryo? No, it’s a human embryo. Bio-ethicist and lecturer Scott Klusendorf makes an obvious, yet profound, statement. “Embryos do not contain human life, they ARE human life.” Just because an embryo is a human in its earliest stages of development does not mean we can strip it of its stem cells when it is 14 days old (thereby killing it) even if doing so could advance medical research. Can we take the life of a toddler in the name of science because it is at an earlier stage of development than an adult? There are different names for humans depending on their stage of development n adult, adolescent, child, newborn, fetus, and embryo. Because their names are different does not make one less human than another.
Which side holds the ethical high ground? The one that says all human life has intrinsic value or the other that says you must first meet the size, location, and ability requirements. A compassionate person must side with the president and his veto.
Michael McNeil is a free-lance writer from Dakota City, Neb. You can write to him in care of The Journal or at lvrcomments@hotmail.com.
Ethics and politics. The stem cell research debate is infused with these elements now that both sides are posturing for the moral high ground. Common sense and a law of logic (the law of non-contradiction) dictate that opposing views cannot both be correct. So, who’s right?
Last Wednesday, President Bush issued his first veto by rejecting Congress' bid to lift funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. The president’s position is that this veto demonstrates his valuing of human life and demonstrates the “compassionate conservative” message he campaigned on. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin called the veto "a shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy and ignorance.”
It may be helpful to clarify the battleground. There is bipartisan agreement on stem cell research. However, the two sides divide faster than an amoeba on “embryonic” stem cell research. Many conservatives regard embryos as human. The liberal view is they are less than human.
Doctors at Auschwitz justified their medical experiments on Jews and Russians claiming certain races or ethnicities make someone less than human. Many liberals say the embryo is less than human because of size, location, or ability. Oh, really?
Senator Tom Harkin once commented it would be morally wrong to oppose funding of ESC research in part because the embryos in question are no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence. Does size matter? Is a toddler less human because it is considerably smaller than an adult? What about those with dwarfism? Are premature babies less human because they are smaller than their full-term counterparts?
I’ve heard supporters of ESC research rationalize that we’re not really taking a human life because it resides in a Petri dish, test tube, etc. If humans are found on the playground, the nursing home, the womb, or a test tube, are we more or less human because of our location?
A favorite argument of these advocates is that of ability. Because of their inability to have full awareness/consciousness, embryos are not human beings. Following this to its logical conclusion, we can take the life of an elderly person with severe Alzheimer’s or someone knocked out cold after an auto accident because their unawareness makes them less human.
What kind of embryo is at the heart of this debate? A dog embryo? An elephant embryo? No, it’s a human embryo. Bio-ethicist and lecturer Scott Klusendorf makes an obvious, yet profound, statement. “Embryos do not contain human life, they ARE human life.” Just because an embryo is a human in its earliest stages of development does not mean we can strip it of its stem cells when it is 14 days old (thereby killing it) even if doing so could advance medical research. Can we take the life of a toddler in the name of science because it is at an earlier stage of development than an adult? There are different names for humans depending on their stage of development n adult, adolescent, child, newborn, fetus, and embryo. Because their names are different does not make one less human than another.
Which side holds the ethical high ground? The one that says all human life has intrinsic value or the other that says you must first meet the size, location, and ability requirements. A compassionate person must side with the president and his veto.
Michael McNeil is a free-lance writer from Dakota City, Neb. You can write to him in care of The Journal or at lvrcomments@hotmail.com.
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