Jan Ireland
Democrats need stem cell lies to last until November
By Jan Ireland
Democrats are doing with stem cell research, what they often do just before elections — slickly presenting an emotional, poorly understood issue to make election points.
They did a similar thing just before the 2000 presidential election, when the NAACP ran a highly inflammatory ad against George W. Bush, in a puerile attempt to boost votes for the Democrat.
This time they're playing on societal fears of Alzheimer's to accomplish the same thing. They're rashly suggesting that stem cell research could be the cure for all of our scariest ills, and the mainstream media is going along. They only need the lies to last until November.
One lie is that George Bush will not release funding for stem cell research. The truth is that funding already exists, in both private and governmental avenues.
The unequaled research and developmental vehicle that is the American private sector already spends millions. Federal funding, zero in the year that Bill Clinton left office, is up to $20 million under George Bush. As First Lady Laura Bush said recently, "George W. Bush is the only president to ever authorize federal funding for embryonic stem cell research."
But there is much more to the subject than lies about money.
Candidate John Kerry has effused "Stem cells have the power to slow the loss of a grandmother's memory, calm the hand of an uncle with Parkinson's, save a child from a lifetime of daily insulin shots or permanently lift a best friend from his wheelchair."
Do they really?
The public, lacking a thorough understanding of such a new subject, may not be able to judge easily.
Stem cells (http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/) simply, or remarkably, have the potential to "develop into many different cell types in the body."
Theoretically, they could repair. Theoretically, they could be unlimited.
Theoretically.
But then we come to the issue of destroying life, to extend other life. This is the issue that will divide the nation as the abortion issue currently divides us.
Alan Keyes, current US Senate candidate in Illinois, eloquently frames the debate.
"We are coming into a time when it's going to be critically important to the maintenance of our own liberty that we be able to think clearly in terms of moral principle."
Rather than be "characterized by our scientific breakthroughs" he continued, we should "understand that justice isn't just for some but for all; that the authority that stands behind the human claim to dignity is not just a matter of our decision, and convenience, and profit, and benefit, but that it rests on a transcendent will and judgment on which we all can rely — but which none of us, however numerous and powerful we may be, have the right to disregard."
No matter how we prettify it, that is what we are doing when we kill embryos to get their stem cells. And that is the lie that Democrats hope you won't notice before November.
If we allow that lie, Keyes continues, "We run a risk that we shall kill not just that life of cells but the very life and soul of our republic."
This article first appeared at www.opeds.com.
© Jan Ireland
Democrats are doing with stem cell research, what they often do just before elections — slickly presenting an emotional, poorly understood issue to make election points.
They did a similar thing just before the 2000 presidential election, when the NAACP ran a highly inflammatory ad against George W. Bush, in a puerile attempt to boost votes for the Democrat.
This time they're playing on societal fears of Alzheimer's to accomplish the same thing. They're rashly suggesting that stem cell research could be the cure for all of our scariest ills, and the mainstream media is going along. They only need the lies to last until November.
One lie is that George Bush will not release funding for stem cell research. The truth is that funding already exists, in both private and governmental avenues.
The unequaled research and developmental vehicle that is the American private sector already spends millions. Federal funding, zero in the year that Bill Clinton left office, is up to $20 million under George Bush. As First Lady Laura Bush said recently, "George W. Bush is the only president to ever authorize federal funding for embryonic stem cell research."
But there is much more to the subject than lies about money.
Candidate John Kerry has effused "Stem cells have the power to slow the loss of a grandmother's memory, calm the hand of an uncle with Parkinson's, save a child from a lifetime of daily insulin shots or permanently lift a best friend from his wheelchair."
Do they really?
The public, lacking a thorough understanding of such a new subject, may not be able to judge easily.
Stem cells (http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/) simply, or remarkably, have the potential to "develop into many different cell types in the body."
Theoretically, they could repair. Theoretically, they could be unlimited.
Theoretically.
But then we come to the issue of destroying life, to extend other life. This is the issue that will divide the nation as the abortion issue currently divides us.
Alan Keyes, current US Senate candidate in Illinois, eloquently frames the debate.
"We are coming into a time when it's going to be critically important to the maintenance of our own liberty that we be able to think clearly in terms of moral principle."
Rather than be "characterized by our scientific breakthroughs" he continued, we should "understand that justice isn't just for some but for all; that the authority that stands behind the human claim to dignity is not just a matter of our decision, and convenience, and profit, and benefit, but that it rests on a transcendent will and judgment on which we all can rely — but which none of us, however numerous and powerful we may be, have the right to disregard."
No matter how we prettify it, that is what we are doing when we kill embryos to get their stem cells. And that is the lie that Democrats hope you won't notice before November.
If we allow that lie, Keyes continues, "We run a risk that we shall kill not just that life of cells but the very life and soul of our republic."
This article first appeared at www.opeds.com.
© Jan Ireland
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