“Every embryo is unique”, says George Bush, surrounded by the adoptive mothers of former embryos, announcing that he is prepared to veto a Congressional bill (for the first time ever) allowing stem cell research. “Every embryo is a person”, adds Tom Delay.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives with moderate Republican support, and is expected to pass the Senate.
A dissenting Republican opinion:
“To reduce this issue to an abortion issue is a horrible injustice to 100 million Americans suffering the ravages of diabetes, spinal cord paralysis, heart disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, MS [multiple sclerosis], Lou Gehrig’s disease and other fatal, debilitating diseases,” said Rep. Jim Ramstad, a Minnesota Republican.
“What could be more pro-life than working for a cure for a loved one?” asked Rep. James Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, another of the bill’s 200 co-sponsors, who suffered a spinal cord injury at age 16 and cannot walk.
Bush held a news conference Tuesday surrounded by families who had either adopted or given up for adoption embryos remaining after fertility treatments.
“With the right policies and the right techniques, we can pursue scientific progress while still fulfilling our moral duties,” Bush said. “The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo.”
Strangely, the Republicans seem to believe in the tyranny of the minority on this occasion, something they derided as unconstitutional and insulting to American citizens when the issue was Democrat filibusters holding up extreme Right judicial nominations:
Four years ago, Bush restricted federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research (or ESCR) to cell lines derived before Aug. 9, 2001. Last year, 58 senators and nearly half the House signed letters asking him to relax that restriction. For at least three years, most senators have supported legislation that would approve human therapeutic cloning. Last year, more than 200 members of the House co-sponsored legislation to expand ESCR funding.
None of these bills ever got an up-or-down vote. Why? Because the same Republicans who now preach about up-or-down votes bottled them up or threatened to filibuster them.
Writing in Slate before the House vote, William Saletan reveals:
The bill may not even make it to Bush’s desk. If it passes the House, it still needs Frist’s approval to reach the Senate floor. According to the New York Times, Frist said last week that “he wanted to consult with colleagues before bringing the bill up for a vote.” And if it gets that far, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., promises to filibuster it. Some things, you see, are more important than an up-or-down vote.
I suppose the conclusion to be drawn from all this is that it’s always democratic for the President to win whether he’s in a minority or a majority in Congress.
Elsewhere: Check out this article on the “sperm wars” at Online Opinion.
How do you give up an embryo for adoption? Presumably it means it has to be implanted in someone? Or has parthenogenesis come along without my noticing?
Anyway, I hope that in the interests of moral duty, President Bush and Senator Brownback (and his colleague Senator Redneck) are intending to adopt some of the 90% of surplus embryos that are discarded.
The Minnesota Republican is on the money. These are really fucked up priorities.
How do you give up an embryo for adoption? Presumably it means it has to be implanted in someone? Or has parthenogenesis come along without my noticing?
Anyway, I hope that in the interests of moral duty, President Bush and Senator Brownback (and his colleague Senator Redneck) are intending to adopt some of the 90% of surplus embryos that are discarded.
The Minnesota Republican is on the money. These are really fucked up priorities.
You gotta wonder why the ‘torture versus saving life’ maths is so easy for Bush to do, yet he can’t do the ‘discarded embryo versus curing disease’ maths, despite it being the same equation!
Sounds like someone needs a consistent overarching philosophy.
“parthenogenesis ” No, can’t have parthenogenesis. (a) it is cloning, (b) it is the form of cloning most open to lesbians!
You gotta wonder why the ‘torture versus saving life’ maths is so easy for Bush to do, yet he can’t do the ‘discarded embryo versus curing disease’ maths, despite it being the same equation!
Sounds like someone needs a consistent overarching philosophy.
“parthenogenesis ” No, can’t have parthenogenesis. (a) it is cloning, (b) it is the form of cloning most open to lesbians!
America – fuck yeah!
Sorry. Just had a Team America accountability moment.
America – fuck yeah!
Sorry. Just had a Team America accountability moment.
I have chatted with women who have had embryos excess to their requirements who have (in Australia) asked that they be used for research where possible because they don’t want to give them up for adoption. These embryos would be their flesh and blood children if they were successfully implanted and they didn’t want someone else bringing up their children. Likewise they didn’t want to waste the time and effort that had gone into producing these embryos by letting them thaw out and die.
I think that politicians spouting on about every embryo being a life need to go back to sex education classes. As most women trying to get pregnant know, 4 out of 5 fertilised eggs never make it to implantation and are lost with the monthly period. So every embryo is not a human life, it’s a 20% chance of human life. The older you get, the less chance you have. A 40yr old has only 2% chance of her fertilised eggs successfully implanting, maybe 5% with IVF.
To take this to it’s illogical conclusion, if every embryo is human life, then each sexually active woman who doesn’t use contraception and doesn’t get pregnant in any given month is a murderer because she failed to sustain a human life.
I have chatted with women who have had embryos excess to their requirements who have (in Australia) asked that they be used for research where possible because they don’t want to give them up for adoption. These embryos would be their flesh and blood children if they were successfully implanted and they didn’t want someone else bringing up their children. Likewise they didn’t want to waste the time and effort that had gone into producing these embryos by letting them thaw out and die.
I think that politicians spouting on about every embryo being a life need to go back to sex education classes. As most women trying to get pregnant know, 4 out of 5 fertilised eggs never make it to implantation and are lost with the monthly period. So every embryo is not a human life, it’s a 20% chance of human life. The older you get, the less chance you have. A 40yr old has only 2% chance of her fertilised eggs successfully implanting, maybe 5% with IVF.
To take this to it’s illogical conclusion, if every embryo is human life, then each sexually active woman who doesn’t use contraception and doesn’t get pregnant in any given month is a murderer because she failed to sustain a human life.
Good points, Mindy.
Just going back to the maths before: IVF is exactly the same maths.
If you are against using surplus embryos for research you must be against IVF. IVF by neccessity makes surplus embryos that will eventually be destroyed.
The maths here is that this loss in life is worth it to make the parents happy. They will suffer not medical problems from not having a child of their own flesh and blood – apart from say depression and feelings of inadequacy. But with stem cell research we actually have people who will die early or physically suffer which is much much worse than whatever someone will feel by being infertile.
Good points, Mindy.
Just going back to the maths before: IVF is exactly the same maths.
If you are against using surplus embryos for research you must be against IVF. IVF by neccessity makes surplus embryos that will eventually be destroyed.
The maths here is that this loss in life is worth it to make the parents happy. They will suffer not medical problems from not having a child of their own flesh and blood – apart from say depression and feelings of inadequacy. But with stem cell research we actually have people who will die early or physically suffer which is much much worse than whatever someone will feel by being infertile.
each sexually active woman who doesn?Äôt use contraception and doesn?Äôt get pregnant in any given month is a murderer because she failed to sustain a human life.
That’s next week’s bill before Congress, Mindy, probably.
each sexually active woman who doesn?Äôt use contraception and doesn?Äôt get pregnant in any given month is a murderer because she failed to sustain a human life.
That’s next week’s bill before Congress, Mindy, probably.
And with recent developments in Korea, we’re not even necessarily talking about the use of IVF surplus biological material, since it’s now possible to create stem cells from adult cells using closing techniques. To impose an across-the-board ban is simply reactionary, when what’s needed is a more thoughtful approach. Thoughfulness, however, has not been the President’s strength.
And with recent developments in Korea, we’re not even necessarily talking about the use of IVF surplus biological material, since it’s now possible to create stem cells from adult cells using closing techniques. To impose an across-the-board ban is simply reactionary, when what’s needed is a more thoughtful approach. Thoughfulness, however, has not been the President’s strength.
“These lives are not raw material to be exploited” – except at presidential photo-ops apparently.
Still he’d have probably looked sillier holding up a testtube with a teensie little dab of protoplasm in it called “Danny”.
“These lives are not raw material to be exploited” – except at presidential photo-ops apparently.
Still he’d have probably looked sillier holding up a testtube with a teensie little dab of protoplasm in it called “Danny”.
I still wonder at how pro-lifers like GWB can also be pro-death penalty if a collection of cells means so much to them.
And then I remembered that it isn’t really about life, it’s about control.
I still wonder at how pro-lifers like GWB can also be pro-death penalty if a collection of cells means so much to them.
And then I remembered that it isn’t really about life, it’s about control.
Watching those two clowns spout their rhetoric is probably more nauseating than ingesting one of their precious embryos.
Watching those two clowns spout their rhetoric is probably more nauseating than ingesting one of their precious embryos.
There would also be an element of sop to the base in this one as well – after the spectacular failure of the “nuclear option” in the Senate (much favoured by the religious Right who are obsessed with the judiciary) earlier in the week.
There would also be an element of sop to the base in this one as well – after the spectacular failure of the “nuclear option” in the Senate (much favoured by the religious Right who are obsessed with the judiciary) earlier in the week.
Straining out gnats and swallowing camels—-save an embryo in the US of A while starving, torturing and murdering live human beings in Iraq is what its all about. Hypocrites, to the nth degree.
Straining out gnats and swallowing camels—-save an embryo in the US of A while starving, torturing and murdering live human beings in Iraq is what its all about. Hypocrites, to the nth degree.