July 19, 2006
Stem Cells
Glenn Reynolds said it best. The good news is that we finally have a presidential veto. The bad news is that it is on stem-cell research.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will use his first veto on Wednesday to stop legislation to expand embryonic stem cell research championed by top scientists and desired by most Americans."The president has had a clear principled stand on this issue since August of 2001 and he has made clear from the beginning that if this bill came to him he would veto it and so this is what he's going to do today," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
The U.S. Senate approved the legislation, which has also been passed by the House of Representatives, on Tuesday. But neither chamber expects to have the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto. It would be Bush's first veto since taking office more than five years ago.
JohnGalt was biting his tongue in a comment below, as we both praised President Bush for his muscular reaction to terrorism and his refusal to ask Israel for a cease fire.
Unclench your jaw my friend. This issue is complex. I am guessing that we are on the same side in a way. Using a pro-life argument to block scientific research rubs me the wrong way, and I'm guessing that is what disturbs you.
On the other hand, kimosabe, we are talking about Federal funding of research. Private companies can do what they want. Applying limits to Federal Funding seems very legitimate even if don't happen to agree with the reason. I'll allow you to make the case for Federal funding.
As a pragmatist, I just want to crawl back into bed. I work at home now and the temptation is always there. The GOP leadership was both foolish and myopic to allow this to transpire. This puts the President in a very bad light and will hurt Republicans.
The Glenn Reynolds argument will seize the issue. Every bill that he did not veto is now suitable for highlight. The farm bill, porcine appropriations: every bill is now subject to the question why X was okay but Y was worth a veto.
The Senate did not have time to pass a resolution supporting Israel, but we can embarrass the President with a little political gamesmanship. A bad, bad day to be a Republican.
Your turn.
Excellent analysis of the political implications, but you seem to be overlooking the fact that the politician who is going against the majority public opinion is term-limited, while all those in Congress who bucked the president still have to face the voters again someday.
Well done on the Federal funding angle, but even an Objectivist (notice the absence of the curious term "Randian") must be practical. Unlike the president, when I take it upon myself to dismantle the present practice of Federal funding of research I will not start with the branch of human biotechnology that holds the greatest promise for the future of humanity since penicillin.
Dagny said it best this morning: "He's been in office nearly six years and the first spending bill he's seen fit to veto is this one?" Please.
Posted by: johngalt at July 19, 2006 3:09 PMDagny's hit that which I dislike the most. This One? Huh?
I will actually defend resident Bush. I will not defend the soi disant GOP Congress who set up this fiasco.
President Bush said in a widely noted 2001 speech what he would and would not do. Congress can certainly test him, but I don't see why his own party is so predisposed.
The Federal funding angle is not simply a quest for less spending. Although neither you nor I are particularly bothered by this, many folks are. Not using Federal funds for something to which many are opposed seems defensible. The Bridge to Nowhere is stupid but at least they're not making out of kittens.
Posted by: jk at July 19, 2006 3:38 PMMy personal feelings pretty closely match James Taranto's. Politically he points out that the most vulnerable GOP Senators voted against the proposition.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008675
Posted by: jk at July 19, 2006 4:20 PMMy point is that Federal funding is not the president's reason for the veto. Indeed, he boasts of being the first president to fund such research, to the tune of $90 million. His justification? Only "embryos that had already been destroyed" could be used. THIS is what the president describes as a "balance between the needs of science and the demands of conscience?" No sir. It is a compromise of the rights of individuals to their own lives and bodies and the right to improve them through human ingenuity and reason to the demands of YOUR conscience, and that of others like you.
It must be universally agreed that to take the life of another individual is an immoral act when not in self-defense. But please explain the difference between a number of artificially inseminated human embryos that are not artificially implanted into a uterus, and an equal number of the same woman's eggs that are naturally released from her ovaries and uneventfully discarded every 28 days. Are the unfertilized eggs also the domain of the state? Once artificially inseminated is it then a capital crime for a woman and her physician to choose only a fraction of them for implantation? Are the unchosen ones victims of murder?
It is often said that, "Life begins at conception." Without even engaging in the abortion debate, wherein the individual rights of a dependent parasitic being are given primacy by some over those of its host, we can see that insemination in vitro is incapable of conceiving a life unless said embryo is then implanted into a woman's womb. Absent the necessary conditions for life an embryo is no greater than the sum of its parts.
The "demands of conscience" that the president holds sacrosanct essentially demand that no man and no woman may permit their discarded genetic material from being mixed in a laboratory setting for even the most noble of purposes: The saving or the improvement of a human life. This taboo is a remnant of the same sensibilities that decried in vitro fertilization in the first place as "unnatural" and "playing God." These are certainly not valid reasons for infringing the liberties of others who are not individually bound by such externally imposed dogmas.
Now, you may say that the veto of this bill does not outlaw embryonic stem cell research, but merely Federal funding of it. I say this is splitting hairs. As long as Federal funding is available for other public health issues and not this one, market forces will act to retard this important and promising work.
Posted by: johngalt at July 20, 2006 2:04 AM | What do you think? [4]