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Rarely has a president -- so vilified for a moral stance

Tigermike

By Tigermike
in Political Smack Talk

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Tigermike Founding Father

Tigermike 3,055

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Celling Vindication

Rarely has a president -- so vilified for a moral stance -- been so thoroughly vindicated.

By Charles Krauthammer

“If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” — James A. Thomson

A decade ago, Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific breakthroughs since the discovery of DNA: an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem cells.

Even a scientist who cares not a whit about the morality of embryo destruction will adopt this technique because it is so simple and powerful. The embryonic-stem-cell debate is over.

Which allows a bit of reflection on the storm that has raged ever since the August 2001 announcement of President Bush’s stem-cell policy. The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president — so vilified for a moral stance — been so thoroughly vindicated.

Why? Precisely because he took a moral stance. Precisely because, as Thomson puts it, Bush was made “a little bit uncomfortable” by the implications of embryonic experimentation. Precisely because he therefore decided that some moral line had to be drawn.

In doing so, he invited unrelenting demagoguery by an unholy trinity of Democratic politicians, research scientists and patient advocates who insisted that anyone who would put any restriction on the destruction of human embryos could be acting only for reasons of cynical politics rooted in dogmatic religiosity — a “moral ayatollah,” as Sen. Tom Harkin so scornfully put it.

Bush got it right. Not because he necessarily drew the line in the right place. I have long argued that a better line might have been drawn — between using doomed and discarded fertility-clinic embryos created originally for reproduction (permitted) and using embryos created solely to be disassembled for their parts, as in research cloning (prohibited). But what Bush got right was to insist, in the face of enormous popular and scientific opposition, on drawing a line at all, on requiring that scientific imperative be balanced by moral considerations.

History will look at Bush’s 2001 speech and be surprised how balanced and measured it was, how much respect it gave to the other side. Read it. Here was a presidential policy pronouncement that so finely and fairly drew out the case for both sides that until the final few minutes of his speech, you had no idea where the policy would end up.

Bush finally ended up doing nothing to hamper private research into embryonic stem cells and pledging federal monies to support the study of existing stem cell lines — but refusing federal monies for research on stem cell lines produced by newly destroyed embryos.

The president’s policy recognized that this might cause problems. The existing lines might dry up, prove inadequate or become corrupted. Bush therefore appointed a President’s Council on Bioethics to oversee ongoing stem cell research and evaluate how his restrictions were affecting research and what means might be found to circumvent ethical obstacles.

More vilification. The mainstream media and the scientific establishment saw this as a smokescreen to cover his fundamentalist, obscurantist, anti-scientific — the list of adjectives was endless — tracks. “Some observers,” wrote The Washington Post’s Rick Weiss, “say the president’s council is politically stacked.”

I sat on the council for five years. It was one of the most ideologically balanced bioethics commission in the history of this country. It consisted of scientists, ethicists, theologians, philosophers, physicians — and others (James Q. Wilson, Francis Fukuyama, and me among them) of a secular bent not committed to one school or the other.

That balance of composition was reflected in the balance in the reports issued by the council — documents of sophistication and nuance that reflected the divisions both within the council and within the nation in a way that respectfully presented the views of all sides. One recommendation was to support research that might produce stem cells through “de-differentiation” of adult cells, thus bypassing the creation of human embryos.

That Holy Grail has now been achieved. Largely because of the genius of Thomson and Yamanaka. And also because of the astonishing good fortune that nature requires only four injected genes to turn an ordinary adult skin cell into a magical stem cell that can become bone or brain or heart or liver.

But for one more reason as well. Because the moral disquiet that James Thomson always felt — and that George Bush forced the country to confront — helped lead him and others to find some ethically neutral way to produce stem cells. Providence then saw to it that the technique be so elegant and beautiful that scientific reasons alone will now incline even the most willful researchers to leave the human embryo alone.

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AURaptor Founding Father

AURaptor 1,126

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So what's the administration's excuse now for not funding stem cell research?

Huh? :blink: This administration is the first to fund stem cell research. Where are you getting your info from? Bush has spent more on stem cell research than all other Presidents combined.

This is the classic case for the misinformation that the biased Left wing media puts out and a gullible public, trusting that they're getting all the relevent information on the issues, gets lead down the path of ignorance. Bush has NEVER been against stem cell research, and has said so time and time again. The only thing Bush doesn't agree with is that spending of Federal $$ for Embryonic stem cell research, which still can be done by private or state ( See California ) funding. Bush has NOT 'outlawed' ESC funding, but only wants to limit where the Federal $$ goes. It's a completely valid and sensible position, imo.

Join us in the 21st century, please.

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RunInRed Founding Father

RunInRed 16,492

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On average, we are spending at least 200M each and every day in Iraq.

Since 2003, we have spent about 650M on stem cell research.

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33540.pdf

And for those of you so worried about "big government", maybe you should contact your boy Bush who is the biggest non-military discretionary spender we've seen since LBJ.

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Auburn85 Founding Father

Auburn85 432

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i know and it irks me. He's turned out not to be a true conservative on spending. government has increased across the board.

you would think a democrat was in charge of the budget, but nope.

so are we supposed to spend 200m a day or week for stem cell research?

bush enabled the creation of another entitlement program via the perscription drug act, but it's never enough.

now, several are pushing socialized med. we have all of this trade debt increasing, but all I'm hearing from democrats is more government and the only way they can fund all of this is to dramatically raise taxes.

if we could persuade our congress to cut out most of the pork, alot more "important' stuff could be funded.

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CCTAU Founding Father

CCTAU 3,350

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Can't grow another head if yours gets blown off by a terrorist. So in that regard, I prefer the 200M in Iraq.

There are many other places we can cut out spending and have plenty. Too many bridges to nowhere on both sides of the aisle.

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AURaptor Founding Father

AURaptor 1,126

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Not near enough.

I love how you gloss over the fact that you didn't even know Bush was the 1st to spend Fed $$ to fund stem cell research, and you seemlessly ( in your mind ) follow up by ... " not near enough " .

:roflol:

What a maroon! What a clueless tool you really are.

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CCTAU Founding Father

CCTAU 3,350

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Why insert Iraq into an embryonic stem cell discussion? :gofig:

Read the thread. It's about the money being spent on stem cell and the war being compared by someone. I just pointed out that if all the money was spent on stem cell, you still wouldn't be able to use the results to save the people dying from terrorism. Sometimes you gotta make the tough choice. Protect America or use stem cells from embryos to create a few new cures. And it hasn't even been proven that embryonic stem cells are the best ones to use.

And any time a librul brings up funding for anything, Iraq is the reason we have no money.

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oldman Rising Star

oldman 23

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you could spend billons on stem cell research and all that would happen is the making of several millionaires and the research could still only go so fast. We still need to make sure that all safeguards are followed and nothing is rushed into use that would do more harm than good. Putting billions out would lead to funds being siphoned off and used for everything but research.

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