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Jewish World Review May 31, 2005 / 22 Iyar, 5765 ‘Pro-life’ — with limits By Clarence Page
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It could have been easy. In an unexpected expression of good sense and sound judgment, the House passed a bill to expand federal funding for stem-cell research. But President Bush wants no part of this outburst of reasonableness.
Bush, who up until now has never met a spending bill he wouldn't sign, vows to exercise the first veto of his presidency if Congress moves ahead with the bill, even though it would only extend public funding on stem-cell research to new embryos that would otherwise be discarded at fertility clinics.
Fifty Republicans defied their party's leadership to vote for the measure. Polls show most voters are eager to explore the potential of this research, which could lead to cures for spinal-cord injuries and many diseases such as juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
So Bush played the baby card. In a media event to defend his position, Bush surrounded himself with adorable babies and toddlers who had been produced from frozen embryos and adopted by other parents.
"The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo," he said.
If only that were true. Unfortunately, that statement is about as accurate as the title of the administration's "No Child Left Behind" education law. Fertility treatments to help couples have children leave too many excess embryos for all of them to be adopted.
Besides, spare embryos are a fact of nature whenever fertilized eggs fail to adhere to the walls of the womb, preventing pregnancy.
Does each of them have a soul? That's a religious question. Everyone is entitled to answer it as he or she sees fit. We should not elect politicians to interpret what G-d knows. When that happens, we have a theocracy. This country's founders wanted us to elect a president, not a pope or an ayatollah. I'm sure Bush agrees, even if his pronouncements sometimes sound like they are based on faith more than facts.
"This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life," he said in his stem-cell event. "Crossing this line would be a great mistake."
Not if you appreciate the message in a later photo-op on Capitol Hill. Bush's fellow Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, offered a sight that tugged at our heart strings in a different way. His hair was gone, all of it lost to chemotherapy as he fights Hodgkin's disease, a life-threatening condition for which stem-cell research might hold out some hope for a cure. He was not surprised that people had a hard time recognizing him, he said, adding when he looked in a mirror, he had a hard time recognizing himself.
Denying people like him the best possible medical care "is simply atrocious," he said. Standing with him and three senior Democratic senators were fellow Republican Sens. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Gordon Smith of Oregon, both pro-life social conservatives. Hatch, who by his own account does not "take a back seat to anybody in the right-to-life community," pointed out that it is quite possible "to be both anti-abortion and pro-embryonic stem-cell research," if you believe that life begins not at fertilization but at the implantation of an embryo in a woman's womb.
But, alas, Congress' new bipartisan stem-cell coalition won't get far if conservative hardliners have their way. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who is considering a presidential run in 2008, threatened a filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), another possible 2008 presidential contender, declined to comment right away.
Then there's Bush's veto threat. Unfortunately, the president refuses to trade those little-bitty unwanted embryonic stem cells for a chance to save the lives of the fully born. He consistently argues that it is downright immoral to trade one form of life to save others— except, of course, when he is talking about the death penalty.
"I happen to believe that the death penalty, when properly applied, saves lives of others," he said as recently as April 14. "And so I'm comfortable with my beliefs that there's no contradiction between the two." Nope, as long as you don't believe there's contradiction, you're not likely to see one.
That's our president. He's consistent, all right, even when he's consistently wrong.
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Comment on Clarence Page's column by clicking here. © 2005, TMS |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
