Sign a petition to tell President Bush:
Stop obstructing stem cell research
I'm not a big believer in petitions, especially online petitions. But this appeal from Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, moved me to share it with you. She is the co-author of the stem cell research bill passed recently by the House.
"Last month, the House overwhelmingly voted for the stem cell legislation I authored with Rep. Mike Castle. This bipartisan victory made it clear that stem cell research transcends political party and ideology.
"The public is fed up with the agenda of the Republican leadership and its clear lack of concern about the challenges facing ordinary Americans. This is a rare opportunity for Congress to do something that could lead to the saving of lives and making our nation - even the world - a better place.
"You have already heard heartfelt stories from my friends and colleagues, Reps. Lois Capps and Jim Langevin, on how stem cell research could help them and their loved ones. Many of you have shared similarly moving personal stories about how stem cell research could make a difference in your own lives. You have spoken. Members of Congress have spoken. Now it is time to demand that our voices be heard and answered.
"The vast majority of Americans who support stem cell research are anxiously waiting for the Senate and the President to do the right thing and expand the federal policy now. We are working with our Democratic and Republican allies in the Senate to pass this proposal. But President George Bush, the very man who has crowed about "obstructionism" whenever Democrats refused to rubber stamp his agenda, continues to stall the process with his unconscionable veto threat.
"That President Bush would use his first veto in five years to squash the hopes of millions is virtually unimaginable. That is why I am asking you today to join me in petitioning him to stop obstructing the clear will of the people:
Sign the petition
"The House has already debated this issue. You have already heard arguments for stem cell research put forth eloquently by Lois Capps and Jim Langevin. This is about saving people's lives, not about partisan politics. Now I want to share with you just one of the stirring stories the DCCC members shared with us:
"I will fight for SCR expansion for many reasons, but for my step dad, Marty, in particular. He is perfectly healthy, thank goodness ... because he spends his two days off caring for his Alzheimer's stricken mother and for his recently paralyzed son. Both are severe cases that necessitate home care. His son is only 24 years-old, and became a quadriplegic after breaking his neck in a motorcycle accident. It will be a year in July since he's been home. My step brother cannot hug his little daughter, and it is heartbreaking. To think that he could die from something like a bed sore, I just cannot understand how people justify fighting against SCR. To the opposition, I say come look at my step dad's mother, who has to be monitored constantly so she doesn't wander off, who can't remember who she is. Look into the eyes of a woman who cries because she wants to go home to her mother, who's been dead for 50 years. Look at my step brother, a once strapping young man who is now withered, who has to fight to breathe on his own. Look into the eyes of his three year-old little girl, who has to visit "Daddy" because he can't come home to play with her. Look at my step father, who deserves some good news, or at the very least ... some relief from the worry that he could lose either of them at any moment. Look into his eyes and tell him there is no hope, because I cannot. This is for Marty." -- Tanya Bennitt, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
"If that does not persuade you, nothing I can say will either. There are millions of these stories, from every town and city in America. Tell President Bush to remove the "roadblock" and withdraw his veto threat - stem cell research must be funded:
Sign the petition.
posted by xoff @ 2:25 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
The fact remains: the end cannot justify the means, emotions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Funny you should talk about "facts." The idea that a stem cell is a person is a belief, not a fact. Sure, it has the potential to become a person, but so do the 300 million sperm currently residing inside of you. Does that mean that each time you ejaculate, you're automatically a genocidal maniac? Of course not. Potential does not automatically equate to personhood.
Face it, you're on the wrong side of this one. A solid majority of Americans agree that, with informed consent, patients of fertility clinics should be able to allow their excess embryos to be used for life-saving research, rather than sitting in a deep freeze for decades and finally being thrown out.
The poll you quote has been adequately fisked--
Further, what's the "wrong side?" Being in the minority? (Shades of the Filibuster Debate...)
If you can show documentation of just ONE of these embryos which developed into something OTHER than a human, I'll sign onto the program. But using the term "potential" is artful deception--as my request gently points out.
If you can show documentation of just ONE of these embryos which developed into something OTHER than a human, I'll sign onto the program.
Okay, right after you find a case of one of these frozen embryos spontaneously growing into a baby.
So tell me--exactly at WHAT point in time do embryos become human babies?
Please recall that prudence is necessary--as so many have LOUDLY stated about Gitmo...
There are hundreds of thousands of surplus frozen embryos that will never become human babies. They will be incinerated or otherwise destroyed.
Columnist/commentator Bill Press said it well: "The idea that we should incinerate them – rather than take advantage of their potential to save millions of lives – turns ethics upside down. It is a cruel, cold-hearted public policy that puts politics over science and ideology over compassion."
So tell me--exactly at WHAT point in time do embryos become human babies?
I would say an embryo becomes a human baby when it successfully implants itself into the uterine lining of its mother and develops to the point where it is physically capable of independent existence outside of its mother's womb.
When fertility treatments and in-vitro fertilization were developed, they opened up a whole host of moral and ethical issues. People had to weigh the desire of couples otherwise unable to conceive to have children with their own beliefs. As a society, we decided that this technology was more helpful than harmful, although that decision was nowhere near unanimous. Stem-cell research is a further development of that technology, which like any cutting-edge research has a lot of promise but no guarantees.
I'd have more respect for alarmists like yourself if I heard you calling for a ban on IVF as loudly as you are clamoring for an end to stem-cell research. At least the new Pope and his church are consistent on these issues -- wrongheaded, obnoxious and, in some cases, destructive, to be sure, but consistent.
Ummmnhhh..you never asked me about IVF (blush)--but the Pope's position and mine line up perfectly.
What Press is happy to ignore is that the IVF-created frozen babies are there ONLY because (as every Catholic Pope on record has pointed out) IVF is unnatural.
Press and others (like you, e.g.) would now ignore the fact that Science has tried to fool Mother Nature (that's inconvenient, isn't it?) --and argue, instead, that incineration would be a "waste."
As a matter of fact, it would be Auschwitz--but Press et al, never really gave a hoot/n/holler about the FIRST ethical problem--why be concerned about the subsequent ones?
Speaking of guarantees, it is guaranteed that adult SCR works--there are examples at hand. No such claim can be made about ESCR. Similarly, placentaSCR seems to get good results.
So why do you advocate spending money on ESCR when the other technologies actually WORK? (I would insert ad hominems here if I were as discourteous as you are...)
Thanks for the definition, at last. We will disagree because in the natural course of things, the 'unattached' embryo becomes an 'attached' embryo, regardless of the vapid intellectualities perpetrated on the US population by such "thinkers" as Hugo Black.
See, the problem with your definition is that "viability" in utero is mirrored by "viability" ex utero. In the end, you are arguing for "mercy killing" of those who become un-viable after birth.
Like quadraplegics, for example.
I don't think you want to go there.
See, now I've gotten myself into an argument with an experienced Internet debater, and I should know better than that. In your long, rambling post, you accuse me of an [insert Latin term here] fallacy and then create a tortuous chain of logic to imply that I'm advocating [insert random immoral practice here], which seems to be how right-wingers argue these days.
What it boils down to is that you believe a few frozen cells are a person, and I don't. Don't ask me to draw a line, as I did for you, and then piss all over it by claiming I want to murder the disabled.
Anyway, this has occupied far too much of my time, so I'll go ahead and let you have the last word, because Lord knows your RNC tally sheet of prosyletizing and propagandizing could use another tick mark.
Sorry--as you can see from other comments I have posted here and on my own blog, it's likely that the RNC would emphatically reject my application--and send poisoned letters back to me to boot.
And if you don't like logic, you are no friend of the Democrats, who MUST establish a logical support system for their ideas before they are all defeated.
Post a Comment
<< Home