Stem Cell Research

Stem Cell Research

I have to put one serious post in between my memorial posts and my usual posts about banging chickens and the crackhead who lit up on the F train. Just as a buffer.

This is only the second time I've ever tried to write down my feelings on the issue of stem cell research so bear with me if it seems fragmented and disjointed. I understand that like abortion, proponents want to make it seem like it's just a matter of biology and opponents want to make it seem like it's a moral issue. It's actually both, depending I think on your personal view of morality. While some argue that it's morally wrong to create then destroy life, isn't it also morally wrong to choose not to save life when one can? Abortion is legal in this country. The termination of life up to 22 weeks is legal in this country, in order to protect a woman's "right to privacy" which isn't actually a constitutional right. If we as a society have legally made the decision that a 14-week-old fetus can be terminated if a woman just doesn't feel like she wants to be pregnant anymore, shouldn't it be legal to terminate a 5-minute-old embryo to save a person from a fate worse than death? And yes, I do believe the dying process of someone afflicted with diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's is worse than the actual death itself.

I think more than any other issue out there, this is one in which people have to look beyond the traditional feelings of God and morality. This is an issue that should cause everyone to question their own faith. Is it "We can't play God" or "God helps those who help themselves?" Though I am a conservative by label, and though I have never been comfortable with abortion itself, and although I do view the fertilized egg as technically "life" (albeit life without a soul) I understand that it is probably a necessary evil. I would vote to ban partial-birth abortion which I think is an abhorrent practice, but not abortion overall. Even I however, see that morally and biologically speaking, this stance makes no logical sense. If one believes that a 39-week-old fetus about to be born is a baby with a life, then one should also believe that one-week-old fetus is a baby with the same value of life. The issue of "viability" just serves to confuse people. A one-year-old baby isn't viable. If you were to leave him alone in the house for 2 weeks with no one to feed him, he would die.

So we as a society actively or passively support the termination of "life" for the convenience of the mother. Otherwise abortion wouldn't exist. The public outcry against it would have outlawed it years ago. We also support the termination of "life" in order to create more life. In vitro fertilization discards embryos that go unused. If they create 8 and only implant 4, those remaining 4 are never given the opportunity to become life. President Bush has yet to explain how he can define the termination of a pregnancy as evil because it's the destruction of life, yet support the destruction of embryos as a byproduct of a couple's pursuit of parenthood.

Yet if he doesn't see a contradiction because he considers those embryos "collateral damage" for lack of a less disgusting phrase, then he should also view the embryos destroyed during stem cell research in the same manner. If a couple's desire to be parents is a worthwhile cause, then so is preventing people from suffering the pain and degradation of dying from Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer. And others' sorrow from having to watch their loved ones fight a losing battle against those diseases. Anyone who has been through that knows there are few things in this world that are worse.