Bush's Stem Cell Indecision
BARNES, FRED
Bush's Stem Cell Indecision Will he go pro-life or pro-media? BY FRED BARNES THE POLITICAL DISTRESS and moral agony now burdening President Bush on the issue of stem cell research could have been...
...On tough moral issues, of course, there’s always a good model to emulate: President Reagan...
...Pieces on the front page, editorial page, and op-ed page of the N^'w Yo-rk Times argued for such research...
...It is not pro-life to rely on an industry of death, even if the intention is to find cures for diseases...
...So did scientists who echo that view...
...This was sophistry...
...He found that when he took a consistent position on moral issues—even an unpopular position—folks may have disagreed but they respected him...
...BY FRED BARNES THE POLITICAL DISTRESS and moral agony now burdening President Bush on the issue of stem cell research could have been avoided...
...This is a weird idea for a professed pro-lifer...
...The blasto-cyst is an embryo four or five days old...
...This has allowed a massive effort to spring up in favor of federal sponsorship of research using human embryos—an effort heavily promoted by the national media...
...Bush appears to be wavering...
...So is the reasoning of Republican pro-lifers who back stem cell research using embryos...
...Rove mainly listened, but did say Bush would be criticized whatever he decides...
...Noted Wesley Smith in National Review Online: “Wherever it happens, fertilization certainly produces a new member of the human species...
...Respect is something Bush could use a bit of right now...
...He is also cognizant of the fact that life should not be destroyed to save or make another life...
...President Clinton found a clever way around the law, insisting the government was only backing the research on the stem cells, not the process that culled them and killed the embryos...
...But Bush temporized, then temporized some more...
...As an alternative, Bush could have proposed to jack up funding for research on adult stem cells, the use of which harms no one and raises no moral or ethical questions...
...Surplus embryos from fertility clinics will only be "discarded," the media say, so why not exploit them for medical research on Parkinson's and other diseases...
...The bishops urged him to implement immediately his campaign promise to bar federal funding for stem cell research that destroys human embryos...
...Taking the first type of cell from a human embryo still causes the death of the embryo...
...The Dickey amendment, adopted annually since 1996, buttressed that view, blocking federal funding for research that involves killing embryos...
...All Bush had to do was take the advice of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the first days of his administration...
...The handful of Republican pro-lifers who advocate use of embryos got lavish press attention...
...On May 18, Bush wrote the Culture of Life Foundation that he opposes funding for stem cell research “that involves destroying living human embryos...
...Hatch also declared: "Life begins in the mother's womb, not in a refrigerator...
...The truth is many leftover embryos have been adopted and implanted in women who couldn't otherwise conceive...
...The drive to force Bush to reverse his position has generated a backlash...
...Republican senator Orrin Hatch made the same argument in a widely publicized letter to Bush last month, and went further...
...It just cannot be done...
...N^'w^'week delivered a tendentious cover story...
...The pro-ban view got short shrift...
...There is no way for the blastocyst to then grow into human life," Mack said...
...Yes, redeeming his promise would have sparked yipes of outrage from the abortion lobby, disease groups, scientists, and assorted liberals...
...The media largely ignored reports of astonishing success in research using adult stem cells...
...When Bush meets Pope John Paul II in Rome on July 23, he’s likely to hear something similar...
...But on June 28, press secretary Ari Fleischer was equivocal...
...Also, the media have touted dubious polls that show widespread public support for federal backing for embryonic stem cell research (69 percent in the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey...
...Three of the four GOP House leaders—Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, and J.C...
...If Bush ever thought most pro-lifers would follow Mack and Hatch, he knows better now...
...A delegation of prolife Republican members of Congress has lobbied Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political adviser...
...But of course an embryo created outside a mother's womb can grow into human life, and often does, once implanted in the womb...
...New studies raising doubts about embryonic stem cells and finding promise in the use of adult cells may have come too late...
...A poll conducted for the Catholic bishops informed respondents the embryos would be destroyed in the process...
...Later, appearing on Hardball, he told host Chris Matthews it is appropriate to use one type of cell (pluripotent) but not another (totipotent) because it could grow into a "completely new embryo...
...In fact, 18 House members last week wrote Bush, asking him to meet with three children, two of them twins, who "used to be frozen embryos residing at in vitro fertilization clinics...
...Bush, he said, “is well aware of the powerful research that can come from stem cells...
...Misinformation disseminated by the media has made it harder for Bush to stick by his campaign pledge...
...Former GOP senator Connie Mack told host Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday on June 24 that he believes life begins at conception...
...The vast majority of GOP pro-lifers support the federal funding ban...
...Capitol Hill aides who talk to pro-lifers on Bush’s staff are discouraged...
...Then there's the supposed split in Republican and pro-life ranks...
...He endorsed the Clinton contortion of the law...
...But it's "a different set of circumstances" if life is created through in vitro fertilization...
...It's not much of a split...
...And so, again, instead of just discarding that, to use the stem cells from that blastocyst seems to me the right thing to do...
...Hatch missed the point...
...tive supporters or reach a decision consistent with his campaign promise and get whacked in the press...
...Seventy percent said they opposed using tax money to finance this research...
...Watts— issued a statement calling on Bush to “uphold current law and prohibit federal funding of embryonic stem cell research...
...But it would have been a one-day story, not a firestorm but a flicker...
...Sorry, but it depends on how you ask the question...
...And Bush was left in a pickle: He must either flip-flop on a moral issue and anger his conservaFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
Vol. 6 • July 2001 • No. 41
