RSSBush and Human Life
July 20th, 2006 | View Comments
So Bush is expected to veto the stem cell bill.
I guess I’m with Andrew Sullivan on this point:
I find the absolutism of those who view a blastocyst as a human person to be morally unpersuasive, but I cannot see how it can be seen as anything other than human life.
in that a blastocyst has human DNA and, left to its own devices, will develop into a human rather than a dog, cat, or fish, but said blastocyst doesn’t really meet the requirements of personhood in the more philosophical sense. It doesn’t talk, see, hear, or think, it lacks consciousness and self-awareness, and frankly it looks a lot more like blastocysts of other species than an actual person. Biologically it’s living and human, but it’s not really a living human just yet.
But I don’t see Bush’s veto as an upholding of moral principle. I see it as more evidence that he likes to cherrypick his principles.
Leaving aside all the arguments for supporting federally-funded stem-cell research, Bush has a long record of de-valuing human life so why should he be applauded for his morality here?
Maybe when Bush recants his support for the state-sponsored torture and execution of adult humans (including juveniles and the mentally retarded) in the names of national security and crime prevention, then I could agree that Bush supports a principled “refusal to treat human life as a means rather than as an end”.
In the meantime, I don’t think so.
Yvonne posted this on July 20th, 2006 @ 1:37pm in News/Politics | Permalink to "Bush and Human Life"
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2. Yvonne » July 27th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Point taken. You are, of course, correct.
1. dlw32 » July 27th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I just want to correct one statement. A blastocyst “left to its own devices” won’t become a human or a dog or anything other than a dead clump of cells. It has to be implanted in a woman to become anything else. And even then a healthy percentage of the time it won’t take or the pregnancy will abort naturally (miscarrage).
It may seem like a small point, but the fact is that there isn’t surplus of women lining up to being impregnated with these blastocysts. So, unless W wants to force pregnancy on women to save the “potential human life” or end the whole system of fertility clinics, these cells aren’t going to ever become anything.