Comments on: O Solo Veto

By: This so-called culture of life | Zen Strawberry

This so-called culture of life | Zen Strawberry — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 05:02:38 +0000

[...] Andrew Hinton writes a thoughtful and passionate post about George Bush's first veto that will prevent the use of frozen embryos for stem cell research. In his post, Andrew questions where life starts, where life ends, and who decides it. [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:01:55 +0000

I too was was disappointed with the veto, but one clarification is in order:

The legislation is about *federal funding* of such research, not about allowing the research itself. Even with the veto, researchers are still free to use those embryos that would have been discarded, if the donor agrees – and if their research programs are not backed by federal funding. Whether this is a theoretical distinction I have no idea – are there many (any?) stem cell research programs out there that don’t receive federal funding?

I don’t think Bush acted out of fear from divine retribution. (The wingnut senators you cited are another story!) He just felt that using human material in this way was crossing a line, and that the ends, however promising, do not justify the means. And like it or not, a lot of Americans agree with him. Withholding tax dollars was an unfortunate, but defensible, stand for him to take.

PS: You may have been thinking of 4 representatives who invoked God’s name in defending their votes recently – but it was about gay marriage, not stem cells:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071801336_pf.html

Chilling stuff.

By: Antonella

Antonella — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:28:04 +0000

I couldn’t have said better (really, I could not have).

You have captured the mix of rationality, emotions, ethical questions, and straight dogmatic manipulations around the issue.
I have an additional reason to be mad when it comes to such discussions: I always feel that all this defense of life (only embrio life, as you hinted: full formed children or adults seem to be outside of any “pro-life” considerations, given that many of the same people who are horrified by stem cell research don’t have any problem with capital punishment or war) is a reaction to the disconfort with the femaie power of generating and nurishing new lives.

By: David Fiorito

David Fiorito — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:59:50 +0000

As always I find myself impressed by your ability to break through the bluster and nail the essentials.

Even though I personally believe that a soul is created at the moment of conception I find the argument that if a life is going to be ended that it is somehow breaking God’s law to use the biological remains for the purpose of saving lives and ending suffering. If the tiny frozen embryo is going to be thawed and discarded then isn’t the harvesting of stem cells the same as signing up to be an organ donor? Isn’t that a virtuous thing to do?

I think everyone in Government who claims to be acting for God should read Matthew 25:31-46 and ask themselves if they are a sheep or a goat.

On the logical/scientific side of the equation is one facet that you and many others have not mentioned – economics. We will lag behind if we do not allow our scientists to study medicine on the cutting edge. We are hobbling ourselves over a false sense of righteousness.