I still don’t understand how this can even be a controversial issue.
Once there’s at least a nervous system in place (which happens far earlier than many would have you believe), I agree: hard-line pro-choicers are all wet in claiming that there are no relevant life or value interests at stake in abortion. But stem cells? Sorry, can’t buy into it.
DNA is not itself a person, nor even a description of a person: it’s quite litterally a set of instructions for how to go about building a person. But at the stem cell stage, even the basic functional structure hasn’t been built yet, and thwarting further construction is no more depriving someone a person of life than is stopping at third base on a date (which also prevents the future existence of a person). I’ve never heard a sensible argument that even comes CLOSE to dealing with any of those realities.
The presence of a soul from conception I could at least accept as someone’s religious beliefs, but most pro-life conservatives try to pretend that their objections are broadly ethical and not secretarian, so I have to take them at their word that they think they have some justification beyond religious belief. It’s just that I’ve yet to hear anything that isn’t flatly pathetic as an argument
I think the basis for his change of heart is that no one can determine when life began, in reality it began eons ago. Life is a passed on thing, ours came from our ancestors and there was "Life on this planet long before man came on the scene.There is life in human sperm,we do not call an apple blossom an apple, nor a fertialized egg a chicken. We sure wouldn’t go to a restaurant and ask for a scrambled chicken. Nor is a human fertilized egg yet a human being,even though it contains human life.
I think a test for what or how we value life is to place one’s self in a hypothical situation such as: You are in a labatory that is on fire, you can save some people in one of the rooms, or grab a container of frozen embryosn another,you can’t save both,which would you choose and why?
Kudos to Frist. When someone does the right thing, even those that you dislike, it’s a good thing. Let’s hope that somehow Bush has a change of heart. I’d like to see him spend a week with Nancy Reagan, if anyone could change him, it would be her.
Even if policy doesn’t change, this “loosening” of the ban may also help researchers who currently are unsure about some less-than-clear aspects of what the ban currently means.
There are some people who fear that the rules, as they read, mean that if you’re doing stem cell research on lines other than the ones Bush approved, you have to do it in such a way that every lab glove, every test tube, every pen you use for that research cannot have been used for any project that had federal funding. It makes the solution of “screw the government, fund stem cell research via other ways” less feasible. So much infrastructure has been funded by federal dollars.
But if attitudes are shifting, researchers might feel assured that the law won’t be interpreted so strictly, and they won’t have to go so far as to set up a different lab. They will still have to do careful accounting and make sure no funds are commingled, but perhaps they can breathe a little easier that there won’t be some political thrust to interpret the rules in the worst way possible.
I think we all agree it’s a good thing. Personally though, I have a more cynical view of what the motives might be. Not that it matters, it’s still a very good thing.
I’ve never cared for Frist, but I totally agree with BobLibDem about this being a good thing. So it probably has a political connection, how many things that are done and said in Washington aren’t political. Frist stated when Bush’s program was voted in that he (Frist) didn’t think it would work and now he is saying that after giving it a chance, it isn’t working. That was a good political move, but isn’t remembered now. I aplaud any support given to stem cell research.