Posted on 04/12/2002 7:48:36 AM PDT by X-USAF
President Bush is mistaken.
His perspective on cloning is wrong.
I campaigned for him. I voted for him. I pray for him.
I’d name a son after him.
But on this issue, he has made the wrong choice.
Earlier this week, dramatically, in the Rose Garden, George W. Bush said that all human cloning is morally wrong, and must be made illegal by the Congress. He saw it as a desecration of life, and as an exploitation of the female body.
His position is a logical outgrowth of the anti-abortion assertion that life begins at conception. If life begins at conception, the thinking goes, then life begins at cloning, and the destruction of cellular clones is the taking of a life and, therefore, a murder.
I understand his position.
But it’s still wrong.
First, the background. Human cloning is a science in its infancy. Little is known, much is speculated. Presently, cloning is seen as being divided into two types: Reproductive and therapeutic.
In reproductive cloning, you would make a baby. In therapeutic cloning, you would make a tissue, organ or bodily product that would treat or cure a disease.
Most people oppose reproductive cloning, most people are curious about therapeutic cloning. But President Bush is opposed to both, and insists that both be outlawed.
And that’s too bad.
Because the lesson of history is that every time government or religion has tried to suppress or subvert science, the results have been disastrous. In every single case, the position of government or religion has been proven wrong and the advance of science has been proven right.
It is unlikely that this situation is any different.
History says that, a few years down the road, governmental opposition to cloning research will, in hindsight, make about as much sense as insisting that the world is flat. Failure to recognize and apply that lesson of history will undoubtedly result in the delay of medical and scientific advances that could significantly benefit humankind.
President Bush, I suspect, believes that cloning research is wrong because it violates God’s will. I, on the contrary, believe that cloning research is God’s way of blessing us. For centuries people have prayed to God for relief from various illnesses. Now, as God seems about to answer some of those prayers through a medical advance, the president of the United States inadvertently seeks to impede him.
Because I believe science is God’s tool. I believe that the incredible advances of our technology, science and medicine have not come from the mind of man, but from the goodness of God. Just as Moses revealed the will of God on Sinai, I believe countless scientists, inventors and doctors have similarly revealed the will of God in labs, workshops and clinics around the world.
I believe that the great breakthroughs have come when God has whispered to the minds of talented and hard-working people. Even people who didn’t believe in him.
It was a miracle when Jesus walked on water, and it was a miracle when antibiotics came about. I believe both miracles, and a myriad of others, have the same source.
So I’m not afraid of cloning research.
And I don’t believe that life begins at conception. I believe that life begins at a time known only to God, a time when the growing fetus is infused with a heavenly spirit, the intelligence and personality of the person it will become. I believe that probably happens early in a pregnancy, but it does not occur at conception, or when there is just a tiny mass of undifferentiated cells.
Those cells are living, but they are not alive. They are not human. They are not a person. Not yet.
And to presume that man can tinker with cells in a test tube and call down the powers of heaven to enliven those cells with an immortal soul makes no sense. A soul is sent by God, not demanded by the vagaries of cell division.
So the cells with which cloning researchers would work are not human beings. They are not children of God. They are merely cells, like any of the billions in our bodies.
Doctors would not be making babies, they would be making cells.
And there is no sin in that.
And there should be no moral objection to this.
The president is wrong.
Cloning research, ethically and professionally done, with proper safeguards and objectives, is a blessing, not a curse.
The government must stay out of science.
Yet exploring these options will lead to alleviating vast pain-- for example to curing cancer, to curing the blind, to curing heart disease.
President Bush has come squarely down on the side of inflicting pain on real human beings to protect cells in a test tube.
And so it goes.
A belief that [human] life begins "at a time known only to God", but a belief that also says that we know that at a certain time [conception], human life has not yet begun.
It is my humble observation that part of this belief (namely, that human life does not begin at conception) may be driven by the hope that producing human clones wil lead to break-through cures for al sorts of diseases. In other words, if the only way in which "science" can find cures to certain diseases is to destroy "the products of conception", well, then, it MUST be the case that those "propducts of conception are not human life.
I would argue that this has it exactly backwards. Since we don't know when human life begins -- it is known only to God -- we should not presume to use what is arguably human life as a means to and end -- human life should not be sacrificed in order to cure a disease -- any more than we would take old people and slice them up if science were to tell us that doing so would bring about the cure for diseases.
As for your statement, it is simply wrong and arrogant. President Bush's guiding principle is that tp take a life to create or aid another life is morally wrong. His position is eminently supportable. Yours isn't.
Banning cloning does NOT, I repeat, does not, put an end to stem cell research. It simply puts down a marker saying we will not cross this line.
Science has a problem, some call it hubris, some call it arrogance. Because they can do something, they think they are entitled to do it. Well, I'm here to tell you that they are wrong.
1. Of course it's human. It's DNA is identical to ours otherwise it wouldn't be useful. If allowed to grow up in the normal means it would become a functioning adult.
2. Of course it's alive. It grows, it consumes food, and produces waste. All of these are the tests of life as presented by the very science books people use as excuses to exploit this life.
That it would not "survive on its own" is only evidence that these most helpless of humans should not be destroyed of exploited but protected and defended.
...the president of the United States inadvertently seeks to impede him.
I believe that the great breakthroughs have come when God has whispered to the minds of talented and hard-working people. Even people who didn’t believe in him.
If you want to be a snot-nosed whiney Demonrat and not captialize President, that's your own business. But you better use the capital "H" in "Him" when you are talking about God. Snot-nosed whiney Demonrats do not capitalize President Bush as a slight. I suspect this author feels the same about the Almighty, based on his usage.
...
Bush could not have been more wrong...
If it isn't alive, why does it grow? If it isn't living, just leave it alone and watch what happens.
Exactly. Can a 3-month-old infant survive on its own? Of course not. It needs to be fed, at the very least, by someone else, or else he or she will die. The same can be said for older people with certain disabilities. That makes them no less human and no less valuable.
Cloning research, ethically and professionally done, with proper safeguards and objectives, is a blessing, not a curse.
The government must stay out of science.
How are we to ensure that research is ethically and professionally done, with proper safeguards?
Wrong, the government's whole purpose for being is to protect rights. If you don't believe that the preeminent right is life, then we really have no more to talk about. Liberty, the pursuit of happiness, smoking weed and having sex with armadillos in the privacy of your own home are all wisps in the wind without life.
To sum up, if you believe that life begins at conception and you believe in unalienable rights and if you believe that the federal governement is the final protector of those rights, then the government has an obligation to make laws banning the taking of life without due process or informed consent.
Then defund science.
How do you ensure that all of this research is "ethical", if you insisit on redefining "ethical" to justify your objectives?
I would add, use animals to experiment with therapeutic cloning. Once the science is solid it may well be able to be expanded to humans without destroying human embryos in the process.
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