Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Demagoguery and Science Illiteracy

Sen. Joe Biden has charged:

"If you care about [children with disabilities], why don't you support stem cell research?"

Where to begin...

Republicans do not oppose stem cell research. (Some) oppose embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cell research is as popular as ever among Republicans and conservatives.

What's the difference? Well, the former destroys a tiny human being, and the latter has shown actual results.

And neither would do much to help a whole host of birth defects including the one currently in the spotlight -- Down's Syndrome.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What "tiny human being" is destroyed with ESCR? An unimplanted blastocyst is like a seed that will never be planted. It is cellular life, a potential, not an actual human being. It is outrageous that we are having this argument.

ChrisB said...

An unimplanted blastocyst is a human being in its earliest stages of development. Turning a blind eye to the destruction of any human life devalues us all.

It is outrageous that we are having this argument.
I agree completely.

sepherim said...

So where is the moral outrage about all of the thousands of unimplanted blastocyst that are frozen and then just thrown away. If you really believe these are really "tiny human beings" you have better get busy saving all of those lives. The only way unimplanted blastocyst ever gets beyond the potential stage is for an enourmous number of complex environmental factors to all work just exactly right. The vast majority of those that are implanted never respond to the stimulae and are simply flushed out of the body. I'm with anonymous--it is outrageous that we are having this argument.

ChrisB said...

So where is the moral outrage about all of the thousands of unimplanted blastocyst

One thing at a time. We still have people who think it's perfectly fine to stick scissors in a baby's head just before it clears the birth canal; do you think they're going to care about a blastocyst? Investing energy and resources in fighting the discard of "excess" IVF embryos would be counterproductive at this point. The pro-life movement is inching back toward the earliest stages of human life, but it will take time.

The vast majority of those that are implanted never respond to the stimulae and are simply flushed out of the body.

If you have a problem with that, take it up with God. I'm going to focus on the ones humans kill.

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