We’re Not Anti-Science!
On the Wired science blog, Brandon Keim argues that Bush’s stem cell policy was neither anti-science nor crassly political, but rather followed from a legitimate ethical dispute.
Keim says that “there are plenty of examples of the Bush administration skewing scientific facts for political ends, the ban on stem cell funding wasn’t one of them.”, from which one must conclude that Keim himself is either willfully skewing the facts or simply has no idea what he is talking about. As opponents of the ban having been pointing out since its inception, Bush’s policy never made sense according to anyone’s values:
If the president deemed it moral to use cell lines made from human embryos that had already been destroyed, then why would he argue that other embryos headed inevitably for destruction couldn’t be the source of new stem cell lines?
In fact, if the president was so concerned about the fate of embryos, why did he not speak out to close infertility programs around the country that destroy embryos?
Given the utter incoherence of Bush’s policy, the obvious explanation is that he was simply pandering to voters too clueless to figure out that it did nothing to further their values.
Consequentially, ![[Photo of poster opposing stem cell research.]](http://wintershaven.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/antiescresearchposter.jpg)
pretty much everyone who supported this policy was skewing a lot of facts, either willfully or ignorantly. Consider the photo of a GenerationLife poster which accompanies the article. Unlike the fetus shown in the poster, the blastocysts from which stem cells are taken do not have hands, or faces, or even nerve cells.
Lastly, Keim seems not to comprehend that factual questions are of central importance to the underlying ethical debate. Most of the people who place such extraordinary value on embryos do so because they believe that embryos have “souls”. If believing in ghosts based on no evidence whatsoever is not anti-science, then what is?
Hi Jacob,
Yes, that “Generation Life” poster is extremely dishonest. In fact, I don’t see how it even conforms to their religious beliefs to lie in order to advance a cause.
I can’t believe I’m apologizing a bit for Bush, with whom I disagree on practically everything, but, for what it’s worth, I do believe that he was trying to “compromise.” Even though I’m pro-choice, for example, I see why hard core pro-lifers might write laws that allow “concessions” for rape or incest, if they believe that, overall, the law stop more abortions, by being more likely to pass. It seems like a political strategy.
That being said, they are acting irrationally because the stem cell lines are being made anyway. Wouldn’t it disrespect life” even more, to allow the discarded blastocysts to go to waste, rather than “at least” being made useful for something? People claim that banning use of future lines acts as some sort of deterrent….but what woman avoids IVF just because the discarded embryos now can’t be used for research? The embryos are being made anyway. Unless the SCR-opposers want to ban IVF- which I guess would be consistent with their beliefs, albeit a bit spooky for the rest of us.
Adina
due to modern advance in medicine, infertility could be a thing of the past.*’:
infertility is not really a big problem because of advances in health and medicine. “: