George W. Bush had a chance to make the history books. Until last week he had never vetoed a bill. He was set to join a handful of American presidents who never used this power. But Mr. Bush finally found something handed to him by his own Republican Congress that stirred him to veto. Was it one of the many pieces of pork barrel legislation Congress routinely sends up from the Hill? Was it to stop the FCC from imposing such ridiculous fines for "indecency" that networks are afraid a fan’s stray profanity caught by an on-the-field microphone might make televising live sporting events a thing of the past? No, the president vetoed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and in doing so killed our best chance to find a cure for HIV, Parkinson’s disease, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and juvenile diabetes.
To begin at the beginning, here is a working definition of blastocyst: "The early stage of an embryo produced by cleavage of an ovum, a liquid-filled sphere whose wall is composed of a single layer of cells; during this stage (about eight days after fertilization) implantation in the wall of the uterus occurs." Some religious people view the blastocyst as having the rights of an adult human. They are entitled to that belief, but this vocal minority has just deprived the rest of us of our best chance to save our parents, our kids and even ourselves from terrible suffering and ultimately death. And it is not wrong in the political arena to point out the inconsistency of their beliefs.
Every day across this country fertilization clinics have been discarding embryos not chosen to be implanted for development during in vitro fertilization. As Michael Kinsley, a Washington Post columnist suffering from Parkinson’s disease recently pointed out, the president has publicly praised these clinics, yet, using his definition of life, they are indulging in murder. In effect, for Mr. Bush and the others who believe like him, the fertilization clinics should be considered the equivalent of a Nazi death camp. So if it is human life with all its attendant rights that is being discarded, the president ought to be calling for outlawing the clinics, not praising them. Of course he does no such thing. Ironically, the veto does nothing to protect the discarded embryos. They will continue to be discarded instead of used to find cures for illnesses.
The president insists his is only a ban on using federal tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research and, by implication, downplays the importance of his veto. He ignores the fact that without federal funding little research will be undertaken in this area by the private sector because the private sector isn’t big on huge financial risk. But, if it is wrong to use embryonic stem cells for research because it is destroying human life, then it seems to me that drawing the ethical line at federal funding is a pretty thin one indeed. If life is life, then murder is murder, but in reality even the president doesn’t believe it.
There is another snafu created by the ban on federal funds, as explained in a response to Andrew Sullivan’s blog supporting the president. "None of the researchers funded with federal money can ever be involved or associated with research in other areas," wrote the reader. "If a California researcher wants to tap into money allocated by his state for stem cell research, he would have to have a completely different facility whereby nothing funded with federal dollars can enter." He concluded, "in academic medicine, that is impossible."
As if preventing the destruction of human life isn’t enough of an argument for his veto, the president claims using adult stem cell research will yield the same or even better results anyway. The president seems to be making up science as he goes along. It is simply not true.
Mr. Bush’s initial "compromise" also indicated he doesn’t believe destroying an embryo is the same as destroying a human life. He already signed into law a bill allowing embryonic stem cell research on a limited number of cells slated for destruction in clinics. At that time, he also made the false claim there were enough such cells available so there was no need to expand the process. The existing embryonic stem cells turned out to be far fewer than the president’s claim and many were degraded beyond usefulness.
Is there danger that allowing embryonic stem cell research will lead to abuse? Yes and an ethical and moral debate across this country is a healthy way to deal with potential problems. But almost every human advance carries some danger. We already know what the president’s veto means: more people will suffer and die from diseases for which we have no cure. When I think of my Mom struggling to swallow her food because her throat was constricted by Parkinson’s or my Dad swollen beyond recognition, dying from lymphoma, I want to make sure my grandkids don’t suffer the same fate.
The president’s veto just made that goal far more difficult.
