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"Morally Unserious in the Extreme"
If wheel-chair bound Charles Krauthammer had accepted the White House invitation to attend the signing ceremony at which President Obama removed restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, he says, he would have "walked out."
Such is the curative effect of presidential arrogance and hypocrisy.
Read the whole thing. My thoughts (nice to see them shared by C.K.) can be found here.
Such is the curative effect of presidential arrogance and hypocrisy.
Read the whole thing. My thoughts (nice to see them shared by C.K.) can be found here.
posted by Spencerblog at
8:30 AM
8 Comments:
Gil- You need to re-read his artcle. You two are not on the same page. He doesn't believe like you do about being a person at conception.
He is okay with using spare embryos for research. His only problem is with artifical creation of embryos just to take them apart. That's the line he doesn't want to see crossed. And just because Obama removed the restrictons doesn't mean that he wants cloning. I'm pretty sure Obama said he was against cloning during the campaign.
"While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.
I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception."
Bob,
It's you who need to do the re-reading.
Please, point out to me where I said conception confers personhood.
Gil- You wrote:
"The scientific question of when human life begins is hardly a serious question anymore, among scientists, anyway. It begins at conception. A new living being, human - not in potential but in genetic reality - has been created."
Maybe YOU need to re-read.
Human created at conception is the same as personhood.
Bob,
No, it's not.
Recognizing, that a fertilized egg is nascent human life is not the same as recognizing it as a human "person."
Persons, under our constitution, have rights. Fertilized eggs do not.
When to confer such rights is a political and moral question.
Get it?
Reasonable people can disagree at what moment those rights should be conferred.
Some say at 3 months gestation, or "viability." Others say not until birth. Still others say such rights should be conferred at conception.
As for cloning - you're pretty sure Obama is against it. So am I. My question is why?
What's wrong with cloning a human being? What's unethical or immoral about it. After all, it doesn't take a human life. It creates one.
Think about it and get back to me.
Unborn children do have some protections and rights in our country, it just seems that their mother has the ability to take away the unborn child's rights if she desires. An abortion doctor can kill an unborn baby legally. If you walked up to a pregnant woman and kicked or punched her stomach until the unborn baby died you are committing a crime of murder of an unborn child. How can we recognize rights of some unborn children but allow another person (namely their mother) to waive the rights of a different unborn child?
Gil - Good seeing you again. You were right. It was the other Bob. I haven't weighed in on this one yet. I'll take the time to read it tomorrow. While I'm at work.
Thanks for the G&T. From now on I'll try to sign on as "Bob 1"
Gil - I didn't realize we were revisiting this issue last night when we talked. I was standing right in front of the speaker, and it was a bit loud, so when you were saying "stem cells",I thought you were saying "step sons" On second thought, maybe I'm just getting old. So here is my take on it. Krauthammer seems to have more of an issue with Obama's handling of the situation, than anything else. Not only can I can accept that, but I agree that this is an issue that should be handled with respect, and the president should have avoided the political angle, if that was at all possible. I have always stated that I have a problem with abortion being used as a method of birth control. However, I do believe there are times when it is acceptable. When the mothers health is an issue, and in cases of rape or incest. In addition, I think the availability of a morning after pill would be acceptable. I also believe that if these embryos were to be discarded, there would be no harm in using them for research. To me , it seems morally wrong to let them go to waste. But then I also believe in the death penalty, and I wouldn't object to the harvesting of organs in such cases. What I really find quite disturbing, is that so many of the people who oppose abortion and stem cell research, are the same people who stood on the side lines cheering when bombs were falling on Iraq, and innocent men, women and children were loosing their lives. Hypocracy is alive and well.
Gil - In Obama's defense, I think a portion of what he said was in reference to the Bush administrations editing of environmental reports. The same kind of manipulation of information that Bush used to justify invading Iraq.
NY Times - In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
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