A Bad Day To Be An Embryo

As most of you probably know, today Obama signed signed an executive order that reverses the Bush administration's restrictions on federal funding for research that destroys human embryos.

Here are a couple responses.

Al Mohler:

Those wondering when President Obama would make a clear move on a matter that involves the sanctity of human life now have their answer -- and its consequences. When President Obama says he will "respect" the point of view that such research is immoral, his respect is hard to detect.

When human embryos are destroyed in the name of medical advancement, we make a deal with the Culture of Death and sacrifice embryonic human beings for the hope of medical advances. We all hope and pray for those advances, and for treatments to cure or treat intractable diseases. But there are valid alternatives to the use of human embryos.

The vulnerable human embryo is now at greater risk than ever before. And this, inevitably, means that every single human life is devalued by this decision.

Ryan T. Anderson:

Bad ethics and bad science, Obama's decision earlier this morning is bad politics, too. Obama ran on a platform of fulfilling George W. Bush's promise to be a uniter, not a divider--to be the president of the entire United States, and not just of special interests. He acknowledged this morning that "many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, [embryo-destructive] research." He said that he "understands their concerns" and that "we must respect their point of view." As such, he promised "that we will never undertake this research lightly. We will support it only when it is both scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted." But by his actions today, Obama has shown himself to take unnecessarily divisive approaches to controversial questions. He has committed the nation--and all its taxpayers--to supporting unethical, lethal research. Beyond the objective wrong committed, this is likely to have political consequences: Given Obama's efforts to woo religious voters, this decision may come back to haunt him.

One has to wonder who's advising Obama on these issues, for even President Clinton's bioethics committee had concerns about embryo destruction:

In our judgment, the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research. But as we have noted, ES cells from embryos appear to be different in scientifically important ways from AS cells and also appear to offer greater promise of therapeutic breakthroughs. The claim that there are alternatives to using stem cells derived from embryos is not, at the present time, supported scientifically. We recognize, however, that this is a matter that must be revisited continually as science advances [emphasis added].

While at the time, because alternatives didn't exist, they considered the research morally justified, they explicitly stated that this would have to be reevaluated in light of subsequent scientific advancements. Obama is ignoring these advancements and pledging federal dollars on research that needlessly destroys the lives of tiny developing human beings. Who is the one playing politics with science?

Click the names to read the full articles.


(HT: JT)