It’s amazing what some folks are saying about this veto. Many are comparing this to the war in Iraq. Some are asking how the President can allow the deaths of men, women, and children in Iraq, as well as the deaths of adult American citizens in Iraq, yet he won’t allow embryos to be used that would be discarded anyway. They call him a hypocrite.
These folks have missed the boat.
Nowhere has President Bush banned human embryonic stem cell research. There is no ban. There has never been a ban. President Bush has simply refused to allow our tax dollars to pay for this research. Research that has not been shown viable in the first place.
MKH pointed to a post by Captain Ed that explains:
Undoubtedly, we will hear plenty from critics that Bush has endangered the health of Americans through his veto, a conclusion bordering on the absurd. Putting aside the fact that we shouldn’t grind up humans to save other humans, this veto doesn’t ban any kind of research at all. It just makes human embryonic stem-cell (hESC) research ineligible for federal funding. It’s not a ban, and in fact that research has never been banned within the US.
The lack of federal funding should make little difference, if the science is sound for hESC. It’s not, or at least it isn’t commercially viable, which is why researchers want the federal government to pay for it. Pharmaceuticals won’t underwrite it because adult stem cells and umbilical-cord stem cells have had much more success. They have produced actual medical treatments, where hESCs have had little real success. California planned on spending $2 billion on ESC, and we have yet to hear of any breakthroughs from that research.
I also want to share with you Captain Ed’s scientific reason for believe that human life begins at conception:
I believe that life begins within minutes of conception, and that belief is based on science, not faith, although they intersect. Eggs and sperm carry 23 chromosomes, half of the genetic blueprint for human life. Even if other primates have the same chromosome count, the DNA encoding on human eggs and sperm is uniquely human. When the sperm fertilizes the egg, the separate DNA strands combine into 23 pairs of chromosomes and a unique blueprint for a unique human being. Once the cell divides on its own — usually within a half-hour — that being is alive, unique, and separate from, though dependent on, its mother.
Some have argued this point for decades. Phil Donahue, years ago, once said on television that a human being in the womb passes through stages where it becomes a fish, then a dog, and so on; this argument arises amongst the ignorant often. Science teaches us that this is folk-tale nonsense. Vertebrates in the womb all pass through similar stages of development, but we are encoded at conception as human, and human we remain from the moment of conception until our death. Our DNA and genetic composition is a fact, not a belief, and cell division demonstrates life, as any biologist will tell you. Facts. Not beliefs.
It’s silly that this veto is being used to portray Bush as a man who wants to set back research. That isn’t the case at all. If he wanted to do that he would attempt to ban stem-cell research. But again, the research has not been banned. Vetoing this bill did not ban stem-cell research. It simply refused to allow American tax dollars to fund it. And I have to agree with Captain Ed. If this research is so groundbreaking, then why aren’t private sources funding it?
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Tags: Stem Cell Research, Veto, President Bush
is an excellent explanation of why a Christian must support just wars. But while we support the war, the troops, our country, and our civilization, we need to remember to pray for the lost. That includes those who have vowed to kill us.
