May 25th, 2005 at 9:12 am
Above the fold, USA Today reports that the House (pro-life Republicans, right?) passed a bill that would federally fund research with stem cells to be received from the destruction of embryos.
President Bush’s modus operandi when legislation he doesn’t like hits his desk seems to have been to sign it anyway and let the courts worry about it (see Campaign Finance Reform). Of course, that time the courts took the opportunity to legislate from the bench, and we still don’t quite know exactly what we’re allowed to say inside 60 days of an election.
Representative Randy Cunningham (R-CA) seems willing to trade one life for another:
“I’m 100% pro-life. This is an issue of life to me,” said Cunningham, choking back tears as he spoke on the House floor. “I don’t want another 6-year-old to die” of juvenile diabetes.
This argument is heinous, even in economic terms. Surely more than one embryo is going to be harmed to save the next six-year-old. It is one thing for a soldier to put his life on the line to protect his countrymen, but it is quite different to commoditize those who have no say in the matter. We also have other sources for stem cells: amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood, placenta, bone marrow, and brain tissue. If we can advance medicine with these, why do we have to turn lives into a quantity of goods?
This issue likely exists because couples seeking in-vitro fertilization may make ten or more embryos at a time. There is a high fixed cost to egg cell extraction, and excessive embryos offer the chance to induce subsequent pregnancies. I’m not against IVF, provided those embryos created are given the chance to live inside the mother’s womb. Just because someone commits a wrong and suspends life in a nitrogen bottle in perpetuity doesn’t mean we commit another and destroy these lives.
Update: May 29th, 10:34pm: Josh S at Here We Stand informs that the bill is H.R. 810, and he includes an editor’s letter from someone with 16 embryos in storage. Amazing.
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