Standard fair warning: This blog is my opinion, and only my opinion. I have strong feelings about some subjects and occasionally air them here in-between the lighter fare. I try to back up what I say with details and facts, as best I understand them. People have varied and strong views when it comes to the question of how life is defined—I make no attempt to answer that. I respect that everyone has their own opinion.President Bush marked the momentous (and long overdue) moment of his first veto with a horrible bout of grandstanding and theatrics. The bill blocked would have permitted federal funding for research on new embryonic stem cells, and had the support of over two-thirds of the American public. I would like to assume that it was purely a political play, designed to motivate his sagging base, but I suspect otherwise—that it was partly personal belief and conviction on his part—leading me to further question his sense of logic and common sense. I believe that Bush is indeed a man of faith, and I respect that, but I believe this veto and the way it was presented was a mistake.
Surrounding himself with so-called “snowflake” children was an especially overblown touch. In the last 9 years there have been approximately 130 such adoptions, a paltry number compared to the estimated 400,000 embryos that will be frozen this year alone. Understand: this bill did not prevent or forbid these adoptions. This carefully-phrased bill would only allow government funds to be used for research using embryos that would have been discarded. These were not embryos slated for adoption, they were slated for the garbage can. The bill also only allowed access to these 3–5 day-old embryos when the donor gives written permission.
So where's the logic? How are lives saved? The choice was simple: simply allow the excess frozen embryos to be discarded or allow embryos that would have been discarded to be used, with the donor's permission, in research that probably holds the highest hope to solve many of our most debilitating illnesses: Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease … the list goes on. Bush chose the former.
In his testimony before the President’s Council on Bioethics, John Opitz, a professor of human genetics, obstetrics, and gynecology at the University of Utah, stated that millions of embryos — between 60 percent and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos — are flushed out of women’s bodies during the normal menstrual flow process unnoticed. What about the “lives” being lost there?
On average, 30 to 40 extra embryos per woman are produced as a byproduct of the in vitro fertility procedures and are later discarded. That’s thousands and thousands of discarded embryos each year. Where is Bush's outrage about that?
No, nothing is said about closing down fertility clinics nationwide; evidently Bush is smart enough not to commit political suicide. It's also worth noting that, surprise, Bush's two daughters were both produced as a result of, you guessed it, fertility treatments.
The research will carry on, regardless, but stem cell research is so expensive in the U.S. as to be near-impossible without government funds. Already many of our talented scientists have relocated to Singapore to conduct their research there. We are nearly 8 years behind much of the world in this critical field of study.
It's bad enough the current Administration has seriously hurt our standing in the world, run our deficit through the roof, committed human rights abuses, hurt our environment, and shamefully exploited a tragic national event to begin an ill-planned (but long-desired) war; but now we can add to the list the decline of America's position as the scientific leader of the free world. Well done.
