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.