Okay. I’ve put it off as long as I can. This is from President Bush’s State of the Union Speech:
A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator — and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.
This is more of the kind of ‘spin’ that has been pouring out of the White House for five years. Such things are the subjects of not terribly good science fiction movies, true enough. But that’s not why he said it. Nor are there any research institutes out there clamoring to make monsters that need to be regulated. There are gajillions of ‘stops’ already in place for such an eventuality. So that’s not why he’s saying it either. He’s saying it for two reasons. First, to maintain his connection with the Religious Right who demonizes science in general, and anything to do with embryos in the specific. Secondly, it’s part of his and his Administration’s constant attention to making sure that there’s a devisive split between his supporters and his foes.
He’s talking about some need to regulate those out-of-control unethical, scientists who will commit "egregious abuses of medical research" against God and Nature if they’re not under constant surveillance. No such group exists. It’s the Straw Man again. Stop the fiends! As if the Medical and Medical Research Community are not the most ethics driven communities in America.
If there are ethical regulations that are needed, how about the Lobbyists in Washington? How about an open government? How about some truthfulness about how the Iraqi War was conceived? How about the lives of 2247 2249 American children, very dead as of today in a war that was started based on a set of conscious, premeditated lies?
Human life is a gift from our Creator — and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.
What I don’t understand, and this has been confirmed by an American scientist who now works in Britain, the US does not have laws that prevent the type of reproductive cloning that is banned in the rest of the world.
He talking about banning research that is currently showing promise in creating new therapies while we don’t have the minimum laws that are in place in the rest of the world.
Scientists are fleeing because they can’t get funding for their research in this unstable environment. We are being left behind in one of the most important fields of study because people who don’t understand what they are talking about are making laws.