Yesterday, we made a couple of initial points about the politics of "stem cell" research. Senator John Kerry is looking for a "wedge issue," something that might snip off a percentage of people who otherwise might well vote for President George W. Bush.
By promoting embryonic stem cells as a kind of high-tech elixir, an all-purpose concoction that will cure everything from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's by tomorrow afternoon, Kerry and his minions hope to paint Mr. Bush as a captive of flat-earth "fundamentalists." As Kerry is wont to say, "Here in America, we don't sacrifice science for ideology."
Columnist John Leo brilliantly unmasked Kerry's balderdash in a recent column. Leo wrote,
"This is a line he has been using for weeks. It delivers two messages, both false: (1) there is no legitimate moral issue here (though plenty of bioethicists and plenty of Kerry supporters think there is); and therefore (2) this is a one-sided issue, pitting enlightened people against backward ideological types. Kerry is demagoging the issue, but in a sophisticated way, echoing the debate at the Scopes trial (science vs. religion) without explicitly raising the religion issue. According to a report in The Washington Post, 'ideology trumps science' is the theme of a lobbying effort to discredit objections to more federal funding of embryonic stem cell research."
Clearly, if we're John Kerry, we ARE willing to sacrifice truth in a shameless campaign of disinformation.
In an article that appeared in the August 9 issue of American Demographics, we see this political calculation/mythology in its purest form. "This is the 'sleeper issue' of this campaign," says Bob Beckel, a former Democratic presidential candidate strategist. "It's more than just stem cell research--it's the symbolism of announcing a plan to eradicate major diseases, and part of the Baby Boomers' health care crisis."
However, as we discussed at the end of Wednesday's edition, when people are given options, they are far less supportive of lethally culling stem cells from tiny human embryos than the John Kerrys of this world are counting on.
Wilson Research Strategies, Inc., 1,000 national adults, August 16-18, 2004, margin of error 3.1%: Which of the following comes closest to your view?
1. Cloning to create human embryos for stem cell research which would kill them should be allowed and only cloning for reproduction should be banned: 24% 2. All human cloning should be banned: 69% 3. Don't know / refused: 7% [Other questions and answers in this poll relating to stem cell research are found here: http://www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/NRLCS temCellPoll.pdf" title="http://www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/NRLCS temCellPoll.pdf" target="_blank"http://www.nrlc.org/Killing_E... ]
International Communications Research, weighted sample of 1,001 adults, August 13-17, 2004, margin of error 3%:
Should scientists be allowed to use human cloning to create a supply of human embryos to be destroyed in medical research? Yes: 13.3% No: 79.8% Don't know: 6.1% Refused: 0.7% [Other questions and answers in this poll related to cloning and other forms of embryonic stem cell research are found here: http://www.usccb.org/comm/arc... ]
If you are John Kerry, truth has this unfortunate habit of breaking through, like flowers through the cracks in city sidewalks.
One other related idea for today. William Saletan is a columnist for the online publication, Slate. Often he writes very well, usually in a manner that props up an intellectually shaky pro-abortion movement, occasionally in a way that supports the pro-life view.
It'd be hard to exaggerate how influential was Saletan's August 10 column. He begins by noting that the pro-embryonic stem cell movement's highly flattering self-image--its "conceit"--is the very opposite of what it has become: "political, ideological, and religious.
In their politicking, proponents are reduced to sloganizing, promising to lift an imaginary "ban on stem-cell research." But as Saletan writes, no such ban exists.
"Embryonic stem-cell research is unrestricted in the private sector. State and local governments can fund it as they wish. The federal government spent nearly $200 million on adult stem-cell research last year and nearly $25 million on research involving the roughly 20 approved embryonic lines."
Likewise, "The stem-cell movement has become ideological," he writes. Facts are "shaded," pollsters massage questions to get the "correct" answers, and "any limit on stem-cell funding must be vilified as immoral," according to Saletan.
The richest irony is that proponents have become what Saletan describes as "religious." A major problem for proponents is that what they need most--the possibility that embryonic stem cells can "cure" Alzheimer's--is a virtual impossibility, a "fairy tale, as a NIH researcher told Rick Weiss of the Washington Post. Such dream- weaving is a distortion--a simplistic "story line"--that proponents allow to float along out there largely unchallenged.
Saletan cites a number of expressions of quasi-mystical hope by proponents.
"A month later, on the eve of their convention, [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi called stem-cell therapy 'the biblical power to cure.' At the [Democratic National] convention, Ron Reagan likened it to 'magic.' Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin trumpeted its 'medical miracles.' Rep. James Langevin of Rhode Island, a paraplegic, proclaimed his 'strong faith that we will find a cure.' 'I believe one day I will walk again,' said Langevin, adding, 'Embryonic stem cell research offers new dreams to so many people.' Democrats even engraved the myth in their platform: 'Stem-cell therapy offers hope to more than 100 million Americans who have serious illnesses—from Alzheimer's to heart disease to juvenile diabetes to Parkinson's.'"
However, "Kerry's appeals to faith and prayer don't end there," Saletan writes. "He asks voters to believe, on the same spiritual basis, that science will create ethical boundaries for itself." In a speech promoting stem-cell research, Kerry said, "I have full faith that our scientists will go forward with a moral compass," adding (according to Saletan) that we must "pursue the limitless potential of science—and trust that we can use it wisely."
Kerry is counting on aging Baby Boomer angst to camouflage the real status of the research [i.e., the "fact there has not been a single human trial of an embryonic stem cell therapy," according to Eric Cohen] as compared to adult-stem-cell and related tissue therapies which, Wesley Smith writes, "are already treating human maladies." Indeed,"[T]he science is moving forward at an exhilarating pace both here and abroad in animal and human studies."
We shall turn to these truths in tomorrow's concluding installment.
Yesterday, we made a couple of initial points about the politics of "stem cell" research. Senator John Kerry is looking for a "wedge issue," something that might snip off a percentage of people who otherwise might well vote for President George W. Bush.