I have gotten a couple of complaints about my support for embryonic cell research. I expect a lot more.
My boss John Ashbrook had a solid pro-life voting record. Since he was running for the Senate in 1982, a lot of people urged him to take the lead in outlawing in vitro ferilization.
In vitro fertilization had all the same cliches attached to it that embryonic stem cell research has today. You saved life by destroying life. You created life to be destroyed, the whole thing.
It was a natural. John could have used it the way Bush is using embryonic stem cell research. The pro-life pros would have gone wild with gratitude at a new cause to champion.
But that is one reason Bush is president and John Ashbrook never made it beyond congress. It never occurred to John to lead a fight to outlaw in vitro fertilization. In vitro would allow people who desperately wanted children to have them. It has allowed people to live, probably more like 50,000 by now.
The pro-lifers said those who wanted children could just adopt third-world children. That’s what they’re pushing today.
It never even occurred to John Ashbrook to do what Bush is doing. There were many instances like this that showed that John Ashbrook was not qualified for higher office.
People want sociopaths in higher offices, people incapable of genuine feelings of guilt.
If you face an issue like in vitro fertilization, you can’t just say how ignorant the person is who disagrees with you. You have to choose. Nobody answers me on in vitro because it makes the whole argument too difficult.
I never had the option of just pointing and condemning. I had to make decisions.
And I had to live with them.
And, worst of all, I am not a sociopath.
#1 by Don on 10/09/2004 - 5:45 pm
My attitude toward this is a bit different, not being based on the practicality of politics or the certainty of religious belief. In other words, this is just my opinion, and I have been known to be wrong, but not during recorded history.
I am not enthusiastic about the endless array of exotic methods for dealing with the problems of human health and now, even, cosmetic alterations. The mind boggling list of drugs, the heroic techniques used to keep people alive for a little while longer, as though only quantity of life and not quality is all that mattered, and who knows what else they are working on, leave me shaking my head.
All this artificiality for what? So that every two-legged featherless biped on the face of the earth can breed at will and we can devote monumental resources to fix up the result?
I understand, of course. Only the genetic quality of cows, horses, dogs, and cats is important. Humans are way above such trivia. Just ask any learned professor. And any mention of eugenics makes you anaziwhowantstogassixmillionjews.
#2 by Don on 10/09/2004 - 6:35 pm
“two-legged featherless biped”
Hey. At least I didn’t say four-legged featherless biped.
#3 by Bob on 10/10/2004 - 7:57 pm
I’ve seen four-legged featherless bipde, but I always had a hangover the next morning.