The math and moral cases for Bush veto don’t add up
IF anything embodies this White House’s cracked sense of morality, it has to be the president’s decision to veto a bill that would have expanded funding for stem cell research. How many days until Nov. 7? Bush isn’t running for re-election, but several Republicans who sided with him are. The political calculation is that the veto will appease ultraconservatives opposed to research that harms embryos — and will be forgotten by the more than two-to-one majority that wants it. The math is bad, though. Hostility to a science that may someday find treatments, even cures, for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other afflictions hurts no small group. About 100 million Americans suffer from diseases that stem cell therapies have the potential to treat.
You might be forgiven for thinking that a President would wholeheartedly support a policy supported by something like a 2-1 majority of the American sheeple. How could a leader with even the barest shred of decency NOT support stem cell research, which holds so much promise for so many debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimers, diabetes…just to name a few. Yeah, you could easily be forgiven, because who could possibly have expected that a sitting President could be so thoroughly devoid of compassion as Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader?
The issue of stem cell research is likely neither as promising as it’s supporters think, nor as morally repugnant as Evangelical Social Conservatives would have us believe. The honest truth is that most embryos are ultimately destroyed. Why then are we subjected to all the self-righteous prattling about the infinite potential contained within each embryo? Yes, each embryo has the potential to become a human life. The reality, though, is that the vast majority of embryos are not adopted and do not grow into viable children, denying researchers and those who suffer from debilitating diseases the opportunity to benefit from their use. If they’re going to be destroyed anyway, why NOT use them for research purposes? Why not use them to try and find a cure for diseases that have bedeviled and afflicted millions, causing untold and unimaginable suffering?
Why not? Because Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader saw an opportunity to prove to his Conservative base that he’s a “Good Christian”. The reality that proving his Christian bona fides means demonstrating once and for all that his self-proclaimed “Compassionate Conservatism” is the ultimate oxymoron.
And here’s another thing that doesn’t add up: If Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader is so all fired up about protecting the sanctity of life, then how do you explain the never-ending bloodbath that is the war in Iraq? How many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians have died as a direct result of the lies and deceptions used to sell the war to the American sheeple in the first place? Or is it merely that his “pro-life” facade extends only as far as there are political points to be scored?
The moral case for this veto is also out of whack. The “offending” legislation would have allowed federal support for research using embryos that fertility clinics routinely throw out. Note that while Bush and friends portray their stance as a noble defense of the embryo, not one of them has ever lifted a finger to stop the clinics from creating excess embryos or discarding them.
If embryos are such precious bundles of potential, then why is Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader willfully ignoring the reality that the vast majority of embryos are destroyed? If this is all about “protecting life”, they where is the hue and cry about the embryos being destroyed? Where are the paroxysms of righteous indignation and the promises of God’s wrath being visited upon godless researchers and their fellow travellers? Where are the Right-wing Evangelicals lining up to adopt these homeless embryos?
No, ultimately this is all about politics- specifically about November 7th, when Republicans fear (justifiably) that their asses will be handed to them by an electorate sick to death of hypocrisy and corruption.
The career most threatened by the stem cell issue is that of Sen. Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican who voted against the expanded funding. Polls show him neck-and-neck with Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, now Missouri’s auditor. McCaskill rarely misses an opportunity to talk up stem cell research, and she does it in conservative farm country, as well as in urban Kansas City and St. Louis.
Adding to the drama, Missouri is home to the Stowers Institute, which wants to go full bore on embryonic stem cell research. A world-class research center, Stowers has warned that it will not build a second campus in Kansas City if Missouri lawmakers make therapeutic cloning of embryos a felony — which some have repeatedly tried to do. A ballot referendum this November gives Missouri voters a chance to end the threats against this research.
The issue pops up in New Jersey, where Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez is in a tight race with Tom Kean Jr. (son of former Gov. Tom Kean). As a state senator, Kean voted three times against public funding for stem cell research. He has since done a spin-around, urging Bush not to veto the stem cell bill and making campaign stops at biotech firms.
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum is so far behind Democrat Bob Casey Jr. in the polls that it almost doesn’t matter what he thinks about embryonic stem cell research. Aware that most voters badly wanted expanded federal support for this work, he had sponsored two bills designed to confuse the public. One would ban “fetal farming,” something no reputable researcher does or dreams of doing. The other would encourage more federal funding for research using adult stem cells, which do not come from embryos. Adult stem cell research is promising — but already fully funded. And only embryonic stem cells can be turned into other types of body cells to replace damaged tissues. That’s why researchers are so intent on using them.
American lives are literally hanging in the balance, and yet Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader and his Conservative base are concerned only with their ignorant, wholly uncompassionate, and thoroughly self-centered agenda. The message being sent by Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s veto (“F—k you. If you’re sick, it’s not my problem.”) is one that should be remembered come November, when we should vote the cowards and zealots who support Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader out of office. Too many politicians would rather dump embryos into the medical waste bin than see them used for research that could bring hope and relief to those who suffer from so many debilitating diseases. It’s time to hold the fools and hypocrites accountable for their appalling lack of compassion.
Compassionate Conservatism…the ultimate oxymoron.
WE DESERVE BETTER….
