Thursday, August 08, 2002

Ok.  For those people that didn't like my single issue voting stance in regards to stem cell research.  Here is my reply: >>>I don't like single issue voting either. However, this is too close to home. I don't want to wake up some morning to find my 10 year old dead due to an insulin overdose. A cure is the only way out of this constant nightmare. I also don't want to see my father become completely immobile due to Parkinsons. He is too damn close to that now, and for an extremely active man, it would be a tragedy.   All other considerations -- economy, war, terrorism, abortion, taxes, etc. -- are remote abstractions. I would love to see a future situation where those issues are the only things I have to think and worry about. You are lucky if they are. <<< [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 11:03:06 AM  Permalink  Say What? [] Stem cell backlash? John Robb suggests that Bush's year-old stem-cell research policy -- hailed by some at the time as a Solomonic compromise -- is a failure, one that will bite back at the president in future elections, as voters with ailing relatives who might have been helped by robust research turn on him. As I argued at the time (and Michael Kinsley later echoed), the policy -- which is built around Bush's stated conviction that all embryos are sacred and the government should act to protect them -- is baldly hypocritical. Vast numbers of embryos are created and discarded every year during fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization. If Bush actually felt this was profoundly immoral, he'd do something to stop it. But since such fertility treatment touches the lives of a huge swathe of the electorate, the president wouldn't think of banning it. Couples who are stuck with extra embryos as a byproduct of such treatment typically have no choice but to dispose of them; stem cell research offers a way to make good use of them for the betterment of all. Why not allow that? Why not, in cases where it doesn't conflict with people's religious beliefs, encourage that? [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment] I've been trying to say that, haven't I? Still, it feels good to see my views confirmed. 11:00:08 AM  Permalink  Say What? [] The August edition of Puremusic is up. 10:52:27 AM  Permalink  Say What? []

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