Tuesday, March 31, 2009

More fake wrestling than the WWE

In last week's press conference, President Obama was asked whether he wrestled with the ethics of funding embryonic stem cell research:
QUESTION [John Ward, Washington Times]: In your remarks on stem cell research earlier this month, you talked about a majority consensus in determining whether or not this is the right thing to do, to federally fund embryonic stem cell research.

I'm just wondering, though, how much you personally wrestled with the morality or ethics of federally funding this kind of research, especially given the fact that science so far has shown a lot of progress with adult stem cells, but not a lot with embryonic?


OBAMA: OK. No, I think it's -- I think it's a legitimate question. I -- I wrestle with these issues every day.

As I mentioned to -- I think in an interview a couple of days ago, by the time an issue reaches my desk, it's a hard issue. If it was an easy issue, somebody else would have solved it and it wouldn't have reached me.

Look, I believe that it is very important for us to have strong moral guidelines, ethical guidelines, when it comes to stem cell research or anything that touches on, you know, the issues of possible cloning or issues related to, you know, the human life sciences.

I think those issues are all critical, and I've said so before. I wrestle with it on stem cell; I wrestle with it on issues like abortion.

I think that the guidelines that we provided meet that ethical test. What we have said is that, for embryos that are typically -- about to be discarded, for us to be able to use those in order to find cures for Parkinson's or for Alzheimer's or, you know, all sorts of other debilitating diseases, juvenile diabetes, that -- that it is the right thing to do.

And that's not just my opinion. That is the opinion of a number of people who are also against abortion.

Now, I am glad to see progress is being made in adult stem cells. And if the science determines that we can completely avoid a set of ethical questions or political disputes, then that's great.

I have -- I have no investment in causing controversy. I'm happy to avoid it if that's where the science leads us. But what I don't want to do is predetermine this based on a very rigid ideological approach, and that's what I think is reflected in the executive order that I signed.


QUESTION: I meant to ask -- just to follow up -- do you think that scientific consensus is enough to tell us what we can and cannot do?

OBAMA: No. I think there's -- there's always an ethical and a moral element that has to be -- be a part of this. And so, as I said, I -- I don't take decisions like this lightly. They're ones that I take seriously, and -- and I respect people who have different opinions on this issue.

But I think that this was the right thing to do and the ethical thing to do. And as I said before, my hope is, is that we can find a mechanism, ultimately, to cure these diseases in a way that gains 100 percent consensus. And we certainly haven't achieved that yet, but I think on balance this was the right step to take.

Now this all sounds lovely, but here's how we know he's not telling the truth about all this "wrestling" with morals and ethics.

President Obama says that he'd be perfectly happy if adult stem cell therapies were proven effective and all this controversy could be avoided. But remember, at the same time Obama instated the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, he went out of his way to discourage research in non-embryonic stem cell therapies. I'm afraid the only thing Obama is wrestling with is how to not make it look obvious that the pro-abortion agenda is more important to him than curing disease.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The politics of death

By now, you are all aware that President Obama has signed an executive order to authorize federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (reversing President Bush's order prohibiting such funding).

But what's behind it? Without knowing what is in his heart, one could reasonably assume that President Obama has carefully weighed the moral and ethical issues associated with the destruction of human life for the sake of medical science and has concluded that the research will save more lives than are sacrificed, and therefore, funding it is the right thing to do.

It seems that assumption falls apart when we read the fine print, though. As reported in this morning's WSJ article by Robert George and Eric Cohen:
First, the Obama policy is itself blatantly political. It is red meat to his Bush-hating base, yet pays no more than lip service to recent scientific breakthroughs that make possible the production of cells that are biologically equivalent to embryonic stem cells without the need to create or kill human embryos. Inexplicably -- apart from political motivations -- Mr. Obama revoked not only the Bush restrictions on embryo destructive research funding, but also the 2007 executive order that encourages the National Institutes of Health to explore non-embryo-destructive sources of stem cells.

Indeed, why do that? If the goal is to advance medical science and to cure disease, then why would President Obama go out of his way to obstruct research on non-embryonic stem cell treatments that, to date, have shown far more promise than those that require destruction of embryos.

The reason is simple. This isn't about medicine. It's about politics. The Obama executive order is nothing more than the latest attempt to advance his culture-of-death/pro-abortion agenda. Hang on tight, folks -- the assault on the pro-Life cause won't be over anytime soon.

Here's a link to Professor George discussing the topic on Bill Bennett's show this morning.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Who's a terrorist?

In an unusually bold measure, Chris "Thrill Up My Leg" Matthews accused a particular group of "terrorism" on Hardball. Was he talking about Al Qaeda? Hamas? Hezbollah?

No. He was talking about pro-Life opponents to Kathleen Sebelius:
New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- Chris Matthews has been on the pro-abortion side of the debate since before his time as a top Congressional aide for abortion advocates. Now the MSNBC host has gone overboard by referring to pro-life advocates who oppose pro-abortion Health Secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius as terrorists.

During his program "Hardball" on Monday night, Matthews worried that Sebelius would become the target of "the terrorism of the, of the anti-abortion people."

Immediately after making the remark, Matthews appeared to realize his mistake and corrected himself to say, "I mean verbal terrorism."

"Is she gonna get through the, the terrorism of the, of the anti-abortion people," Matthews said during a question to Lois Romano of the Washington Post. "I mean verbal terrorism...."