It may be that the days of controversy over embryonic stem cell research are in the past. Breakthroughs using adult tissue have perhaps rendered moot the use of human embryos for this research. For reaction, see Ross Douthat, also commenting on the Will Saletan pieces on intelligence discussed earlier this week. Here is the reaction from South Dakota's own Joseph Bottum:
The people who turn out actually to have believed in the power of science are the pro-lifers—the ones who said that a moral roadblock is not, in point of fact, an outrageous hindrance, for scientists will always find another, less-objectionable way to achieve their goals. President Bush’s refusal of federal funding for new embryonic stem cell lines didn’t halt major stem-cell advances, any more than the prohibition against life-threatening research on human subjects, such as the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, stopped the advance of medical treatments.
For those who attacked the pro-lifers in the name of science, however, things look a little different. As Maureen L. Condic explained to First Things readers this year in her careful survey, “What We Know About Embryonic Stem Cells,” the promises of medical breakthroughs were massively overblown by the media.
But there were reasons for all the hype. I have long suspected that science, in the context of the editorial page of the New York Times, was simply a stalking-horse for something else. In fact, for two something-elses: a chance to discredit America’s religious believers and an opportunity to put yet another hedge around the legalization of abortion. After all, if our very health depends on the death of embryos, and we live in a culture that routinely destroys early human life in the laboratory, no grounds could exist for objecting to abortion.
David Freddoso has a run down of the various ways in which facts about embryonic research were exaggerated or invented to fit a particular political purpose. See both here and here. And sample from the second link:
You may remember John Edwards's famous and stupid claim that embryonic stem-cells could make Christopher Reeve "rise and walk." Sen. Charles Schumer actually told a constituent this spring that he had met two people who had been cured by embryonic stem-cells — which would be difficult, because no such person exists on earth today.
Returning to Harkin's home state of Iowa, former Gov. Tom Vilsack actually said, in his state of the state address in 2006, that embryonic stem-cell cures had already been developed:
Well, they have been [developed], and as a result we should revisit our ban on nuclear cell transplants. We should remove the restrictions and allow life-saving treatments to be administered to Iowans here in Iowa rather than forcing them to leave our state.
Needless to say, no such cures existed.
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