Stem Cells

Today, Bill Frist finally stood up to President Bush and moved towards federal funding for Stem Cell Research. He noted, to paraphrase, that it was cruel to deny medical hope and possible salvation from sufferers of so many diseases of the brain and nervous system.

Bush, I'm sure, will happily veto anything that reaches his desk, and cites his belief that Stem Cell research is wrong because it involves the 'killing of living fetuses.' And simply put, that's a pile of drivel. Without passing ANY judgement on the acts themselves, the acts of abortion and embryo-usage after the fact are entirely seperate!

Firstly, banning stem-cell research does not in any way deter abortion. If the President objects to abortion, that is his right as a man and a President - but the Supreme Court has decided the matter, and it is now one of constitutional law. Thus, his objections to research that utilizes the medical remains of a procedure already decided by the Highest Court to be a Right are piffling and childish.

Secondly, stem-cell research begins after the embryo has already been removed and effectively destroyed. Abortion and the positives and negatives of it aside, stem-cells are byproducts ONLY of this procedure... a procedure, again, that is a right of every American woman. So misinformed Mr. Bush is wrong, regardless of his spiritual feelings, in stating that the research involves the killing of an embryo. ABORTION does that, and it's already been THROUGH the sluice-gate of the American legal system.

Intellectual analysis of the topic isn't even necessary here. If you sit down and think about it for five minutes, and set aside your feelings for a moment more... why discard and destroy forever the byproducts of something that's already done... when the potential exists to save even ONE life with them?