{"id":4286,"date":"2005-05-25T09:56:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-25T13:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4286.html"},"modified":"2005-05-25T09:56:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-25T13:56:00","slug":"stem-cell-policy-forges-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/stem-cell-policy-forges-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem-cell policy forges ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

As everyone has no doubt heard by now, the House of Representatives easily passed<\/a> a measure (H.R. 2520) to undo the president’s 2001 restrictions on federal funding of stem-cell research. For me, there are two important angles to yesterday’s progress that warrant attention: the politics of the vote and the policy arguments offered on the floor.<\/p>\n

The outcome of the vote wasn’t really in doubt, but there was some concern that Bush’s unambiguous veto threat might curb GOP enthusiasm for the bill. That didn’t happen — 50 House Republican joined 187 Dems<\/a> in supporting the legislation. That’s 50 GOP lawmakers who bucked the president, Tom DeLay, and the party’s far-right base. Not too shabby.<\/p>\n

However, the 238 lawmakers who backed the bill came well short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to overturn a presidential veto. It suggests that the policy, if it’s going to become law, will be dependent on convincing Bush.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, if Bush caught any of the floor debate from yesterday, there wasn’t much to persuade him that he’s right. The policy arguments offered by opponents of the research were remarkably, almost comically<\/a>, bad.<\/p>\n

“An embryo is a person, a distinct internally directed, self-integrating human organism,” Mr. DeLay said, adding, “We were all at one time embryos ourselves. So was Abraham. So was Muhammad. So was Jesus of Nazareth.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s one of those arguments that’s so painfully absurd, one wonders if even DeLay believes it. First of all, the embryos and blastocysts involved in stem-cell research are microscopic clumps of cells, unthinking and unknowing, with fewer physical human qualities than a mosquito<\/i><\/a>. Second of all, everyone was once an embryo, but everyone was also once a sperm and an egg. Unless DeLay’s prepared to get into “every sperm is sacred” territory, the argument is silly on its face.<\/p>\n

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), meanwhile, argued that the House should reject the bill because taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize actions they find morally reprehensible. Following that logic, Congress shouldn’t finance the war in Iraq, because there a whole heck of a lot of American taxpayers who find it offensive.<\/p>\n

But the award for the worst, most insulting argument of them all goes to Rep. Michael Burgess<\/a> of Texas.<\/p>\n

Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, an obstetrician, played a recording of fetal heartbeat, and declared, “This is what it’s all about.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow. I thought I was inured to GOP lunacy, but this one even surprised me.
\n
\nFor what it’s worth, one of my favorite remarks from the entire floor debate came, believe it or not, from a Republican, who captured the bigger picture<\/a> quite nicely.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the bill argued that Bush’s 2001 limits on federal funding have hampered potentially promising treatments for a range of illnesses and put the United States at a competitive disadvantage with nations that have pursued the research more aggressively. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) called his support “one of the most important votes I will ever make in Congress.”<\/p>\n

“I think it’s time we recognized the Dark Ages are over,” Shays said. “Galileo and Copernicus have been proven right. The world is in fact round; the Earth does revolve around the sun. I believe God gave us intellect to differentiate between imprisoning dogma and sound ethical science, which is what we must do here today.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, if Bush caves to the GOP base (again), the Dark Ages will continue a bit longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As everyone has no doubt heard by now, the House of Representatives easily passed a measure (H.R. 2520) to undo the president’s 2001 restrictions on federal funding of stem-cell research. For me, there are two important angles to yesterday’s progress that warrant attention: the politics of the vote and the policy arguments offered on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}