Stem-Cell Veto

The President had a slice of good luck with his first veto - that of the stem-cell research funding bill. Who knew that his decision to resist the will of the populace and hamper efforts to bring possible medical treatment to millions of people would coincide with the ongoing hostilities in the Middle East? As a consequence, this serious attack on medical science by the forces of Christian Conservatism has been only lightly touched upon by the media.

Let's not allow the right-wing to discuss the issue on their terms.

The history of the last century has in large part been the story of the struggle by society to free itself from the control of those who claim to know God's will - Martin Luther, The Reformation, the exodus to the American colonies, the Bill of Rights, democracy itself! Religious conservatives accused Copernicus of heresy for suggesting that the earth orbits the sun and may not be the center of the universe. Religious conservatives fought for monarchical control at one time or another in every European country. Religious conservatives put their heads in the sand and continue to deny the plain facts of evolution.

Now, yet again, even in a democracy like America, where the majority support stem-cell research, religious conservatives succeed in forcing their agenda on the rest of us.

These extremists want to ensure that this debate (like the abortion debate) is conducted in the language of 'protecting life'. We should not be drawn into debating this issue on those terms because it is beside the point. The hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos will never 'become' people. If they are not used for research, they will become medical waste.

Bush has not 'saved' any lives with this veto. Instead, by hindering honest efforts to cure disease, he may have done the exact opposite.