The GOP Hypocrisy On Stem Cell Research

I was glad to see that the most popular article on the Time magazine website today had to do with a potential new breakthrough on stem cell research.

As somebody who has been very active in working with both Alzheimer's and Diabetes charitable organizations, I know the implications of stem cell research and the enormous upside. I understand why Nancy Reagan and most Americans are fully in favor of funding. I am also equally nauseated with the official Bush position, those of his lapdogs (like Rush Limbaugh) and the sickening religious right-wing, who still acts as if this is somehow an immoral practice.

As I have written in the past, it is hypocrisy to be against stem cell research if one is in favor of in vitro fertilization. That is because the embryos used for the research are taken from embryos harvested in fertility clinics, and which would be discarded anyway.

I am glad to see a widely read piece from Time saying the same thing.

Michael Kinsley, who suffers from Parkinson's, wrote,

"although the political dilemma that stem cells pose for politicians is real enough, the moral dilemma is not and never was. The embryos used in stem-cell research come from fertility clinics, which otherwise would discard them. This has been a powerful argument in favor of such research. Why let these embryos go to waste? But a more important point is, What about fertility clinics themselves? In vitro fertilization ("test-tube babies") involves the purposeful creation of multiple embryos, knowing and intending that most of them either will die after implantation in the womb or, if not implanted, will be discarded or frozen indefinitely. Even if all embryonic-stem-cell research stopped tomorrow, this far larger mass slaughter of embryos would continue. There is no political effort to stop it. Bush even praised in vitro fertilization in his 2001 speech about the horrors of stem-cell research. In vitro has become too popular for politicians to take on. But their failure to do so makes a mockery of their alleged agony over embryonic stem cells."

For the full text of his piece, click here.