Stem Cells Trump Human Beings

I had another one of those gawd-awful deja-vu moments just now, reading this article at DailyKos. The offending quote is this one, uttered by none other than our president, George “W Stands for Witless” Bush:

“But I have made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers’ money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is — I’m against that.”

Juxtapose that, please, to his words of just over one month ago:

“I happen to believe that the death penalty, when properly applied, saves lives of others. And so I’m comfortable with my beliefs that there’s no contradiction between the two.”

He’s comfortable with them. Right. This no doubt goes far to explain how he can really seem to believe that his tax cuts for the wealthy actually help the poor and middle class.

No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot reconcile these two belief-statements. Why is it okay, in this former land of the free, to support putting fully formed adult human beings to death in order to save lives, but not okay to destroy one-celled organisms in order to save lives?

Why is science that discovers newer, and more efficient means of killing human beings maximally funded, while science that discovers cures for cancer, Parkinson’s, birth defects, Multiple Sclerosis, and a long list of other debilitating conditions has to go begging to foreign countries?

Can you tell me, Mr. Bush, how you can possibly justify both these beliefs and still be able to face your mother, your wife, your daughters? More importantly, how can you entertain these contradictions in your “culture of life” facade so blatantly and still have the nerve to claim to follow Christ’s teachings?

Though I wish no ill to your daughters, I speculate often on how quickly your stance on stem cell research would change if one of your grandchildren was ill with one of the conditions I mentioned above. And I do hope and pray that’s not what it takes to make you, in the end, freakin’ think about what you are doing (and not doing) in our name.

Quote of the Day: Mr. President: This is the way democracy ends; This is the way democracy ends; This is the way democracy ends; Not with a bomb, but a gavel. — Senator Max Baucus
Metaphors For Life’s website