The False Controversy of Stem Cells
Leave it to Michael Kinsley to make an issue that's been controversial for years seem simple. In this week's Time, Kinsley starts by offering a recap of how thinking on the issue has evolved in the three years since President Bush severely restricted stem-cell research. In short, Bush is out of step; even Nancy Reagan wants him to change his policy.
After summing up the developing public feeling on the issue, Kinsley proceeds to demolish any supposed rationale for the Bush policy. If you support the existence of fertility clinics, he says, you can't oppose stem-cell research--and, though it's never seemed this simple before, Kinsley is right. It is this simple. The end result for the vast majority of the embryos created in a fertility clinic is the same whether or not stem-cell research is allowed: they're destroyed. The question we should be asking isn't whether it's OK to destroy embryos; we apparently decided that a long time ago, judging by all the in vitro quintuplets being born, and the thousands of destroyed embryos their existence implies. We should be asking whether it's moral to restrict access to something that will be destroyed anyway when that something can be used to do research that has the potential to improve life for millions of people. If the answer to that question is controversial, this country is in worse shape than even Justice Scalia imagines.
1 comment:
If such an argument were brought to President Bush's attention, I would wonder whether he would go the opposite direction: instead of lifting the crippling restrictions he's placed on embryonic stem cell research, he would instead curb operations at fertility clinics to prevent the creation and eventual destruction of so many embryos. I wouldn't put it past him.
Plus, few mainstream folks realize how such restrictions are crippling the American scientific field. We're losing ground on all fronts rapidly to Japan, the EU, Canada, and other markets. Lifting such restrictions, while it might not restore us to top order, would at least prevent us from being dealt out of the game entirely.
James
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