Right now I’m listening to Arlen Specter on ABC Sunday Morning exploiting his condition for political purposes. Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice has condemned those who would hold Senator Specter out as a spectacle for political purposes and I won’t defend them. But I sincerely wish that politicians of all positions, parties, and stripes would refrain from exploiting their families and personal tragedies for political gain. Like firing from behind a white flag of surrender, it exposes their families and personal tragedies as legitimate targets and brings disrepute both on themselves and their opponents.
There are several different subjects that are being conflated in the discussion of embryonic stem cell research. Among these are the abortion issue and the appropriateness of using government money for stem cell research of any kind. I’m completely flabbergasted by self-identified libertarians who apparently oppose federal spending for anything but embryonic stem cell research. Let me caution these: if you support this kind of use of federal monies on the grounds of general welfare, you have ceded the argument on the validity of such expenditures and opened the discussion up to the other guy’s pet projects which may include federal spending on social programs of all sorts. The subject will be the general welfare not the role of government.
The issue of embryonic stem cell research troubles me deeply. I don’t know for certain when life begins and neither does anyone else. I can see reason in the arguments of those who say that these are merely clumps of cells since they haven’t implanted in a womb and these clumps of cells would be destroyed anyway. Why not make use of them to expand our knowledge?
What troubles me most is what if the researchers succeed? What if they discover cures for Parkinson’s Disease, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, and hundred of other illnesses and injuries? Would the clumps of cells that would be destroyed anyway be sufficient to satisfy the wants and needs of the millions or billions of people who need and want cures for their ills? I have no doubt that every argument we’ve heard on the subject of research would be mustered to the cause of actually using the benefits of the research therapeutically.
There would appear to be only a few genuine alternatives. Some sort of rationing seems inevitable. Either the limited supply would be used on behalf of those who could best afford the undoubtedly expensive procedures, or some sort of need-based triage system would be implemented, or the decision would be made through the political process, or some combination of these.
Or, possibly, the prospect that troubles me the most: turning human reproduction into an industrial process and mass-producing the raw materials for these miraculous cures. That would clearly trivialize human life and the likelihood of abuse and exploitation seem to me to be simply too horrific.
UPDATE: I note that TM Lutas has a similar take to mine on Specter.
I have to ask if you would include Christopher Reeve in your opinion? Was it wrong for him to use his condition to push for ESCR? Or is it okay because he wasn’t a politician? I think we should all be looked at as human beings. Let’s take the words “politician”, “athelete”, “movie star”, “musician” etc. out of the equation. Every person on earth has some sort of agenda and it is in human nature to use whatever tools they have at their disposal to reach their goals.
I am wary of all appeals to emotion rather than to reason. I repeat my contention: if you raise your personal tragedies as an argument that makes you and your personal tragedies legitimate targets, lowering the level of the discourse.
I’m against embryonic stem cell research and want to offer an alternative idea: Dem Cell Research. Visit my store – http://www.cafepress.com/boldface – to see my designs that reflect this alternative.