By Leah Fishbein, 6/21/07
Wednesday: George W. Bush vetoes funding for stem cell research. Again. The federal funds so crucial to scientists and their research laboratories have again been denied as Bush crushed the many hopes packed into The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.
It is quite noteworthy that this bill is so important that
Congress attempted to pass it again, even after it received a dreaded
veto a little over a year ago. It is also noteworthy that the “national
consensus” on the bill, as well as the public support that has been
amassing over time, were both completely disregarded with this veto.
More than half of Americans support embryonic stem cell research. A
Gallup survey in May on values and beliefs found that 64 percent of
Americans believe “medical research using stem cell obtained from human
embryos” is morally acceptable, while only 30 percent said it is
morally wrong. Clearly, their elected representatives agree. So why are
more resources for this possibly life-saving technology being denied at
such a scientifically exciting moment?
Stem cells can grow into
any of the 300 different kinds of cell in the human body. The most
promising stem cells are taken from early-stage embryos, or
blastocysts, that have only existed for a few days and are often
destined to be discarded during fertility treatments and as rejects of
in vitro fertilization. These stem cell lines, through therapeutic
cloning, can then be used to clone DNA, harvest new stem cells, and
grow them into the type of tissue needed-from repairing damage to
damage to the brain, spinal cord and skeletal muscles to even the heart.
Using
embryonic stem cells-whether to generate new tissue and possibly
organs, or cure juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s among a
host of other possibilities-has become increasingly controversial since
the Christian Right billed embryonic stem cell research as a
“destruction of human life.” The Pope has called this scientific work
“as evil as infanticide.” But stem cell research aims to help people
suffering from physical, degenerative, and even genetic conditions. The
vast majority of the US public understands this and consequently
supports important work being done to advance knowledge of how stem
cells can save lives and prevent unnecessary trauma and human
suffering. That’s human suffering, lived with by fully grown, thinking,
feeling humans. Do the emotional and mental capabilities of a
blastocyst really stand up to that?
What this veto really comes
down to is another 2008 hot button “moral values” issue in which the
American public will remain poorly informed as Democrats and Republican
alike pull more and more wool over our eyes, with some attempting to
distract from the murderous wars continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and others truly moving to pull society back to Onan’s time, when it
was sacrilege to use sex for anything other than a means to pregnancy.
That is, unless we take a stand. Unless we refuse to let the terms of
the debate be dictated by a theocratic minority that stubbornly values
a couple of cells over a human life, all because of science’s
frightening implications for backwards, dark-ages morality. Unless we
drive Bush and his backwards, shameful program out of the White House.