Stem-cell shell game

June 20, 2007

The bad news is the president followed through on his threats and vetoed a bipartisan bill to expand funding of stem-cell research. The worse news is he’s trying to pull a stunt to lessen the blow.

Pushing back against the Democratic-led Congress, President Bush vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have eased restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. […]

To blunt criticism, the White House said Bush is issuing an executive order directing the Health and Human Services Department to promote research into cells that — like human embryonic stem cells — also hold the potential of regenerating into different types of cells that might be used to battle disease.

“This is, certainly not an attempt to muzzle science,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “It is an attempt, I think, to respect people’s conscience on such an issue…. The president does not believe it’s appropriate to put an end to human life for research purposes.”

Actually, Snow’s argument falls apart after a little scrutiny. If the president really believes embryos are people, and that it’s morally offensive to use these people for medical research, he’d want to ban stem-cell research. But he’s done no such thing — he’s effectively put scientists in straight-jackets when it comes to federal funding, he’s delayed possibly life-saving treatments by years, and he’s led the U.S. to fall behind our rivals, but if Bush really believes stem-cell research is wrong, he could try to ban it. Why hasn’t he?

For that matter, Bush supports using federal funds for existing embryo lines, which, if we follow the White House’s logic, is a policy based on funding experimentation on embryos who’ve been murdered. In a nutshell, that’s the Bush policy.

But what about this new executive order? It’s about as impressive as the White House’s arguments on this issue.

The NYT reported:

[T]he effort appears largely symbolic — there is no money attached — and some scientists were instantly skeptical. Two leading stem cell researchers, interviewed Tuesday evening, said the recent work was no substitute for embryonic stem cell research. One, Douglas A. Melton of Harvard University, said he had become aware recently that the White House was trying to reach out to some of his colleagues who are pursuing the skin cell research, which has not been replicated in humans.

“It should be pursued just as actively as we pursue human embryonic stem cell research,” Dr. Melton said of the recent studies. “I’m not trying to say there’s nothing to this,” he continued, “but it doesn’t need any special attention from the White House. All we’ve ever asked is let human embryonic stem cell research vie for public funding like all other research.”

Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, said the new initiative was “not about politics. It’s about achieving effective policy.”

Fratto, regrettably, doesn’t know what he’s talking about. An effective policy was put on the president’s desk today, and he rejected it with an incoherent argument. This little symbolic gesture is about nothing but politics.

This was the third veto of Bush’s presidency. Given the issues — medical research and the war — it’s three too many.

So… over-ride the veto and be done with it… if the majority of Americans favor stem cell research, surely we can get enough votes to over-ride.

  • We can thank dipshit “bioethicist” Leon Kass for this idiot “compromise” on using only existing lines. I saw him try to defend his decision as to why we shouldn’t destroy unused embroys, and his response was basically that, if you ask a taxi driver about it, he’ll think something is wrong with doing it. So our national health policy is being dictated by this jackass from U Chicacago who’s probably never actually spoken to a taxi driver in his life other than to tell him where he’s going and ask for change.

    But more imporantly, if Bush wasn’t a complete hypocrite on this issue, wouldn’t he call for an end to the fertility clinics that actually create the suprlus embroys in the first place?

  • From a global perspective the earth already has plenty of lives that last quite long enough. It’s expensive medical technologies that are part of the health care problem. More money for quality of life and less for just extending it. Plus extend the health care we can already provide to everyone before we invest too heavily in research that can only help a few.

  • Since excess embryos created for in vitro fertilization could be, and are, donated with consent for use in stem-cell research, I don’t see that any additional human life need be ended — unless Mr Bat also has a problem with the in vitro fertilization procedure.

  • If the president really believes embryos are people, and that it’s morally offensive to use these people for medical research, he’d want to ban stem-cell research.

    And he would also ban in vitro fertilization in all cases where the resultant embryos are not implanted. But of course he won’t, because that would piss off more people than he already does.

  • The height of hypocrisy is that neither GWB nor anyone else has done anything to stop IVF, which actually does create embryos just to destroy (most of) them. That would affect people directly (ie people who could be interviewed on network TV), so it’s a political loser, while stem-cell research only saves potential lives. Hey, you think they only care about the “culture of life” when it’s politically convenient? Naaaah….

  • Goldilocks & Racerx beat me to the punch. Guess ithe IVF counter-argument is obvious to everyone. Except, apparently, politicians and the media

  • “The president does not believe it’s appropriate to put an end to human life for research purposes.”

    That’s right, he believes that it’s only appropriate to put an end to human life when profits for Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Exxon/Mobil, Shell or BP are at stake.

  • If you want to ban the destruction of embryos then you need to ban invitro fertilization since they create far more ‘human beings’ than ever will be born. Those ‘human beings’ are frozen and eventually will be ‘killed’ when they are taken out of the freezer.

    Until you ban invitro fertilization then you are being hypocritical banning stem cell research.

  • If Bush really believed all human life is sacred, perhaps he will reconsider his stance of the Death Penalty, on torture,on killing Sunni and Shia,on war in general as a means to effect change, on his position on health care which is a driver in high infant mortality. on AIDS/HIV funding, and on the Global Climate Emergency.

  • Isn’t it about time to create a computer macro for the phrase “[Republican shill’s] argument falls apart after a little scrutiny”? So when you type “afa” the actual phrase appears in its entirety? Based on the number of times Republicans lie, you’ll save a lot of energy.

  • What’s the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells?

    It is important to be clear, first of all, about the embryo from which stem cells are extracted. It is not implanted and growing in a woman’s uterus. It is not a fetus. It has no recognizable human features or form. It is, rather, a blastocyst, a cluster of 180 to 200 cells, growing in a petri dish, barely visible to the naked eye. Such blastocysts are either cloned in the lab or created in fertility clinics. The bill pending in Congress would fund stem cell research only on excess blastocysts left over from infertility treatments. -Michael J. Sandel, Embryo Ethics, April 8, 2007 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/04/08/embryo_ethics/

    Christian Legal Society Applauds the President’s Announced Intention to Again Veto the Latest Unnecessary Human Embryo Destruction Bill

    Gee, why would that be? Read on…

    WASHINGTON, June 7 /Christian Newswire/ — Like its predecessor the President vetoed last year, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (S.5) that passed Congress today is more accurately called the ‘Unnecessary Human Embryo Destruction Act’ because it not only fails to adequately respect human life by encouraging ‘research’ on living human embryos solely to dissect and kill them for their stem cells, it further fails to justify why such research is even necessary given the other more viable and completely ethical research alternatives available (www.stemcellresearch.org) and open for funding.

    While the Act’s proponents continue to insist that legislation is necessary to advance medical research, few, if any, successful animal models of embryonic stem cell research exist. Western medicine and law has always previously required successful animal disease modeling before experimenting on human subjects. In addition, the international medical code of conduct prohibits all hazardous non-therapeutic research on human subjects, particularly when as here it is not absolutely necessary. This Act, if not vetoed, would only legitimize a dangerous departure from this model that has served us well since Nuremberg, based solely on unfounded speculation about the utility of the research.

    “In short, the Act would accomplish nothing short of a revolution in medical law by overcoming the natural legal principles that have for decades protected human subjects from harmful experimentation,” said CLS Executive Director Sam Casey. “It rests on the worst form of utilitarianism because no proven remedies — only speculation — are juxtaposed against the cost in human lives this so-called ‘research’ demands.”

    “Americans need to begin wrestling with three indisputable, scientifically verifiable facts: (1) the subject of this so-called “stem cell research” are not just “cells”, but living and genetically unique human beings; (2) the embryo would be human and capable of developing into an adult; and (3) derivation of a human embryo’s stem cells and various other components necessarily terminates the life of the human embryo.”

    Living human embryos, referred to disparagingly by some in the Congress and the research community as “dots” or “goldfish,” are today more properly the subject of adoption by such agencies as Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency. Parents have appeared before Congress carrying their young children that they adopted when these children were frozen human embryos otherwise headed for abandonment or destruction. The demand for embryo adoption services is exploding, because of the earnest and understandable desire of infertile couples to adopt, birth and raise children…

    Full article here…
    http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/397783350.html

    Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, said the new initiative was “not about politics. It’s about achieving effective policy.”

    Sure, sure whatever he says…

    Adoption’s New Frontier: ‘Snowflake’ Babies Adopted For Personal, Political Reasons
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/28/national/main712541.shtml

  • Bush is an idiot. All the sh*t that spewed from his mouth today made him sound even more stupid. The stem cells that r from the skin pertain to mice. There are few cures from adult stem cells, even though the funding is far far more, regardless of what he says. If he would fund esc research without crippling it with stipulations we could have many more cures.
    I can not wait til he is gone. YES I AM A PERSON THAT COULD BENEFIT FROM THIS RESEARCH. ONE DAY I CAN ONLY HOPE BUSH COULD SIT IN A WHEELCHAIR AND WATCH WHILE I CRUSH HIS HOPE.

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