Both Oars In It’s Just Not a Practical Question

Mar 12, 2009

The candidate who told Rick Warren that life issues were “above his pay grade” has given himself another raise. On March 9th, President Obama reversed President Bush’s executive order that limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cell lines existing before August 9th, 2001. This is Mr. Obama’s second executive order removing a rampart erected by his predecessor to protect life. Mr. Obama must be feeling more comfortable with making big decisions—especially decisions that mean humans, albeit at the earliest stages of life, are more likely to end up in the lab or aborted in distant lands.

 

To be fair, President Obama is just fulfilling his campaign promise. He clearly told Rick Warren and the nation, “If we are going to discard those embryos and we know that there is potential research that could lead to curing debilitating disease…I think we should go ahead and pursue that research.” Obvious Mr. Obama felt then and continues to feel now that the fate of frozen embryos can be decided by mere pragmatism. Unfortunately, he has chosen to ignore the Vatican’s advice that the only moral solution to extra embryos created by IVF is not to create them in the first place.

 

Mr. Obama does seem to be aware that mere pragmatism alone will not make his decision palatable to all. So, in a speech before signing the order, he gloriously claimed the act as an “important step in advancing the cause of science in America.” He went on to explain that, while this government will never allow human cloning, it will work vigorously to ensure that science is not inhibited by ideologies. Implying that the past administration stifled science, especially when it was in search of inconvenient truths, he declared science now free to roam.

 

In his speech, Mr. Obama correctly pointed out, “Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident." Oh, but a lot of bad things, by intent and accident, do happen when man takes too practical a view of human life. Surely, he is aware of the “Tuskegee Experiments” for which President Clinton apologized on May 16th 1997. History is full of pragmatists who, in the name science, have done monstrous things to humans who have been discarded by society and left advocate-less.

 

So what will keep scientists from meandering from the merely inconvenient to the immoral in the future? Is Mr. Obama certain that cloning will never be sufficiently practical or popular to convince a future president to lift its ban on the same basis he lifted this ban? Unfortunately, Senator Kennedy, who, as a Catholic, should know that morality is superior to the physical sciences in decision making of this type, has heaped applause rather than sage advice on the president. Mr. Kennedy leaves the pragmatist president to ponder the wonders that will be discovered, without mentioning that even the best of ends cannot justify bad means. Destroying human life in pursuit of cures is most definitely bad means.

 

To further justify his decision, Mr. Obama claims to have sided with the majority. Even a government of the people and for the people has to sometimes recognize the correctness of the minority opinion. The Executive Office, by the very fact that it is occupied by one person, is just the office to do that. If not the president, who will stop the crowd when it has gone mad? Finding oneself in a lot of company does not mean one is in good company.

 

But there are some who assure the president that he is indeed in good company. Ms. DeGette, D- CO, must have channeled Senator Joe McCarthy when she made her claim on national TV that there are a number of pro-life leaders who see using the extra embryos created by IVF for scientific research as the embryos second chance to give life. I would like to see that list. I have never met a pro-life advocate who would describe using extra embryos for scientific research as making lemonade out of lemons.

 

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is right to point out that Mr. Obama has “rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us.” Unlike Lincoln, history will likely show that Mr. Obama is on the wrong side of this divided house.

 

Fortunately, the entire government has not lost their moral compass. South Carolina’s House has recently passed a measure to require a twenty-four hour wait period between a woman having an ultrasound and the decision to have an abortion. Bill H3245 has moved to the Senate. All indications are that Governor Sanford will sign the bill into law if passed. Mr. Obama should look to the South for guidance on more than the stimulus package.