Matt Yglesias and I are on the same page when it comes to Bush’s policy on stem-cell research. (Yes, another stem-cell post, but this one’s important.)
If the cells are sacred human life, then surely it’s not okay to kill them in a privately financed manner. The nonsensical nature of Bush’s position on this issue is old news, but continues, in my view, to be under-remarked upon in mainstream coverage of the issue. Years ago, he hit upon a goofy split-the-difference compromise and ever since then he’s been wandering the country insisting that he’s taking a bold stand of principle.
Kevin Drum takes issue with the comparison.
[W]hen it comes to federal funding all Bush has to do is veto a spending bill, and he can make this stick as long as he has the support of one-third of one house of Congress. Conversely, banning all embryonic stem cell research would take the affirmative passage of a bill, which requires the support of half the members of both houses of Congress. So Bush can do the former but not the latter simply due to the level of congressional support he can muster.
That’s a fair point, which I’d intended to address in the previous post. There is a qualitative difference between passive opposition and active support.
But I’d add just one thing to what Kevin wrote. The contradiction isn’t just that Bush opposes federally-funded research while allowing privately-funded research, it’s that the White House brags about how great the private research is.
Put it this way: the White House could say, “We oppose stem-cell research and have decided to block the funding we can control. If anyone wants a flat ban on all stem-cell research, they should talk to Congress about it.” But the Bush gang doesn’t say that at all. It’s because they want it both ways.
Yesterday, Tony Snow said the White House wants to “encourage” privately-funded embryonic stem-cell research. He practically boasted about the “billions of dollars available in the private sector to make such research possible.” All of this came just minutes after Snow said the president believes this research “involves…the taking of a human life.”
That’s the real contradiction.
Kevin’s right, banning this research outright would take the affirmative passage of a bill, which falls outside the president’s purview. But therein lies the point — if Bush really believed that the privately-funded research was literally slaughtering untold thousands of human lives in this country, he’d ask Congress to do something about it.
But he doesn’t. On the contrary, his spokesperson boasts about how great all this private investment in mass murder is.
Now, I haven’t talked to Kevin about this, but there are two counter-arguments to my counter-argument. First, the president would push Congress to criminalize this slaughter of innocents, but he knows the votes just aren’t there. Perhaps. But if the president truly celebrated a culture of life, he would, at a minimum, want to be on record stating his preference. He may not push, but he’d want the nation to know that he believes this research is morally reprehensible, whether lawmakers took it seriously or not.
Second, even if Bush successfully pushed Congress to pass a complete ban, it might be illegal under the Commerce Clause. That also may be true. But since when does the president care about what’s legal or not? Especially when dealing with murder on a grand scale?