Tell me what I should say to Kevin Granger.
Help me explain to him why he has to pack up from Caledonia and fly to China to have an operation by a doctor he's never met. He has ALS, you see, what most people call Lou Gehrig's disease.
Granger is, apparently, going to China for some sort of treatment.
Actually, Kevin's treatment falls just outside the big debate because these aren't really stem cells. He's having cells from the nose of an aborted baby inserted into his body. They're called olfactory glial cells.
Apparently that minor distinction doesn't free it from the stem cell controversy. Why else wouldn't the treatment be offered in the high-tech U.S. of A.?
Excuse me? Minor distinction?
Moore's closing paragraphs:
He knows this journey to the East is not the cure-all. All he's trying to do is stick around in case somebody makes a real breakthrough.
It might be a longshot, but it's the only bet Kevin Granger can make. For that, our country officially views him as immoral. Can I tell him why? Mr. President, you have a flock of speechwriters. One of them must have something.
Okay, if Moore supports embryonic stem cell research, fine. I disagree, but at least he's got a position. But not understanding the link between that and having "cells from the nose of an aborted baby inserted into his body" strikes me as a little too ignorant.
And that shot about "our contry officially views him as immoral." The official position in our country is that abortion is legal, is it not? And President Bush has put more federal money into stem-cell research, including embryonic stem-cell research, than any of his predecessors.
So "officially" our country would seem to be more on Mr. Granger's side than Moore lets on. Unofficially, yes, I'm going to say that using tissue from an aborted baby in a medical procedure, even when it is necessary to save another person's life, is immoral.
The really wierd part is, Moore says he's more or less in agreement with me on that:
Trust me, Mr. President, abortions make me sick too. My mind won't sugar-coat them, not even when they bring the possibility of life to someone else.
I don't know. Somebody else read this and tell me if I'm wrong.
The Journal Times Online
4 comments:
Hard cases make bad law (Policy). It almost appears that this is just a shot at Bush without substance. As you stated, it just perpetuates innuendo that W is the sterotype callous, pro-rich, sexist, homophobe, racist, etc. But, at least it is an editorial and doesn't attempt to pass itself off as unbiased, objective reporting.
intense!
love,
jason mulgrew
internet quasi-celebrity
Wow! The varieties of spam just keep on evolving. Check out Jason's blog if you've got a strong stomach for adult humor. (Adult situations, language)
Otherwise, I am one who despises the consequences of government overreaching and am, as a result, politically pro-choice, even though I would almost in every case advise against abortion - for moral reasons. This waffling yo-yo (that's a mixed metaphor, isn't it?) doesn't appear to be an ally of mine. Abortion isn't my litmus test, but how could this guy not see that the whole problem with stem cell research is, to say the least, the controversiality of profitting from abortions?
Add to which the fact that stem cell research is (I believe) concentrating upon the retrieval of cells from in-vitro clusters (blasto?something is it?) rather than from abortion.
Just as a matter of practicality, imagine trying to identify and collect, say 120, very specific cells from the total product of a suction abortion. Impossible.
The fact that the embryo is in-vitro rather than in true pregnancy does not remove the debate from "experimentation with human tissue".
THAT is where the ethic and legal debate lies at present. At the heart of the debate is the belief many hold that life begins at conception (i.e. the first cell division). Even waiting to a 120 cell blastoplast (I have a feeling that is right) makes it abortion with all the feeling in that argument.
What I read in the Chinese "experiments" is not stem cell, but embryonic cell therapy. I recall that GWB came out strongly against late second trimester abortion, and that therapies of this nature were part of the reason behind his opposition. That is quite a different beast altogether. I agree with the opposition on that one count.
The next step down the road is also being debated in the form of "sibling provider pregnancies", either for direct transplant or for umbilical cell therapies.
Hands up for...? Against?
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