Now, taxpayers are likely to fund not only research on the “spare” embryos from in vitro fertilization but also on human lives produced and ended for the sole purpose of scientific exploitation. Biotechnicians have been freed from the vulgar moralism of the masses, so they can operate according to the vulgar utilitarianism of their own social clique — the belief that some human lives can be planted, plucked and processed for the benefit of others.
It is the incurable itch of pro-choice activists to compel everyone’s complicity in their agenda. Somehow, getting “politics out of science” translates into taxpayer funding for embryo experimentation. “Choice” becomes a demand on doctors and nurses to violate their deepest beliefs or face discrimination.
via Michael Gerson – Pro-Choice Incoherence – washingtonpost.com.
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Krauthammer’s column on the subject was quite good, particularly given the limitations he has on the subject.
You mean the part where Krauthammer pretends it was possible to listen to Bush’s speech yet not anticipate the outcome? (Only if you know nothing about Bush.) Why is it “better” for a President to pretend to have evaluated the issues, then announce a policy that is consistent with his prejudices, than for a President to announce a process by which new policies will be formulated in accord with good science and sound ethical principles, with the President implicitly reserving to himself the right to accept or reject their ultimate recommendation?
Or the part where he conflates the end-point of Bush policy – the decision Bush reached only after supposedly considering the competing scientific and ethical viewpoints, with the starting point of Obama’s policy. Obama’s speech wasn’t a policy announcement on stem cell research; it was an announcement of a process by which the new policy will be formulated.
Or the part where he propogates the right-wing platitude that scientists are, at best, amoral and in all likelihood immoral. As if scientists don’t grapple with ethics, or try to approach these issues responsibly.
Or the part when he sneers at the suggestion of a “false choice between sound science and moral values”, pretending that Obama suggested something other than that sound science and moral values can be made consistent with each other. At most, Obama’s arguing for the ethical line on embryonic stem cell research to be moved from where Bush arbitrarily drew it – and Krauthammer agrees that Bush drew it in the wrong place.
Krauthammer’s column may deserve being called “quite good” by virtue of comparison to a typical Krauthammer column, or by comparison to claptrap from people like Gerson, but as analytic reasoning goes it’s retrograde.
>as analytic reasoning goes it’s retrograde
After reading your comment it seems clear that you aren’t in much of a position to make that assessment…