Thursday, June 21, 2007

Stop Me Before I Kill Some Stem Cells

Would it be too much to suggest that public health decisions be made on the basis of public health and not turned into morality plays? Well, I guess it would. President Bush vetoed legislation lifting restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research.

Look, I'm totally behind valuing human life, really, but are we unable to make any distinctions? Is there no distinction between killing a human being and using a 100-cell embryo that would have been discarded anyway for life-saving research?

I have no idea whether stem cell research will ever lead to anything, but it does offer hope for some awful diseases. If you had to kill babies to do the research, I would be against it. But let's try to make public health the center of public health decisions.

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