Yesterday the House of Representatives voted again to overturn President Bush’s embryonic stem cell policy. HR 3, The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 passed 253-174. The policy allows funding on research using stem cells from embryos killed before August 9, 2001, but it prohibits federal funding on anymore destroying of embryos research to keep us from creating life only to destroy it.
Why does it matter that these little human beings are killed? It matters because human life has inherent value and human beings at any stage of life have ultimate value by virtue of being human. Once any person’s life becomes expendable, the value of every human life becomes negotiable. It reduces human life to a mere natural resource. Human beings are not resources to be mined, crops to be harvested or commodities to be bought and sold.
The bill would set a dangerous precedent. It says that we can use human life for experimentation and therapeutic purposes. It says there can be and will be classes of people who are expendable for others. It also opens the door to more unethical human research.
The announcement this week of the new discovery with amniotic stem cells-which come with the gift of a baby-shows some of the wisdom of President Bush’s embryonic stem cell limitations. The president’s policy of protecting human life has advanced, not hindered, science. By limiting unethical embryonic stem cell research, scientists have been led to discover other stem cell sources-which appear to be superior, easier to use and are ethical.
If President Bush had caved to political pressure and “political” science to fund unethical research, it is likely that scientists may not have found these other sources of stem cells, benefits and therapies.
This vote crosses leads America into an irreversible venture into human experimentation. President Bush has promised to veto this bill again and keep us from crossing the line into human experimentation. He needs to veto it again.
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