Guest Blogger: V on Stem Cell Hypocrisy

My good friend V wanted to expand on a point that I alluded to about human reproduction being a crapshoot in my post about embryonic stem (ES) cells (in addition to making several points of his own). It is interesting reading so I'm breaking it up into 3-4 parts over the rest of this week. Remember that the opinions of guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect my views (except when they do, or when they make me look cool for having them on my site). Enjoy. I want to discuss some facts relevant to the understanding of how and when human life may begin; this is obviously a key point of disagreement in the ES Cell debate and therefore worth visiting. But before that, just a couple of lines on the administration's hypocrisy on life----I know that many have touched on this so I will be brief. Firstly, nice job by Tony Snow last week, backtracking on his '‘murder'’ statement to clarify that he meant to say that the President "does have objections with spending federal money on something that is morally objectionable to many Americans". Well, snowflake, causing the deaths of over 2500 American soldiers and tens of thousands of foreign civilians in a war based on admittedly bad (and demonstrably trumped-up) evidence, is "morally objectionable to many Americans"”; a majority of the Americans actually, going by opinion polls. Just thought we'd let you know. Also, the President said that he vetoed the stem cell bill because it "“would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others". You know where I'm going with this---- if taking life to protect life is unacceptable, what'’s with the pre-emptive-war doctrine dude? It is also difficult to reconcile the President's statement with the administration'’s implicit stance that the destruction of human life (as defined by them) is acceptable as long as taxpayer money is not involved. Here'’s a question: If the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe vs Wade, will the administration and anti-choice activists concede that the overturn should apply to only federally supported clinics that perform abortions? By their own ES cell logic, private clinics should be allowed to perform the procedure, correct? Anyway, a lot of these arguments hinge on different people's opinions on the issue of when human life begins. Of course, no one really knows when human life actually begins. Many people have very strong beliefs about it, but no one really knows for sure. So it is essentially a judgment call---and good judgment, of course, requires knowledge and analytical power. To know where I'’m going [next], keep in mind is that ES cells are harvested from an in-vitro fertilized embryo typically at Day 5 after fertilization. Tomorrow: V Drops the Science Tags: Stem Cells, Science, Politics, IVF, Bush, Tony Snow, Snowflake babies