Krauthammer’s on Bush’s Stem Cell Veto
Posted by Peter Lawler
The scientific breakthrough on stem cells acquired from amniotic fluid--which seem more promising for regenerative medicine than embryonic stem cells--shows the wisdom of the president’s noble effort to keep us off a slippery slope that may well turn out to have been specific to a particular stage of scientific development. Notice, of course, that Charles’ concerns are wholly secular, but not amoral.
11:28 PM / January 13, 2007
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My apologies on this technical glitch. I’m unable to fix it right now...
Being the technical genius that I am, I fixed it!
I listened to that speech carefully, read it, and admired it. (It now seems a long time ago.) I had already come to admire Leon Kass’s approach to biotechnology. So I also applaud Krauthammer’s piece.
Meanwhile, various scientific issues, including this one and including climate change, have been politicized in unfortunate ways, and the record is more complex than the noise often implies. This issue, of course, has more obvious moral implications than, say, "new sources review" under the Clean Air Act.
Steve, I agree that all this techno stuff gets politicized in unfortunate ways. I also agree that Republicans should be conservationists, if not exactly environmentalists.
Peter - As we know, Republicans invented conservation. Much of the environmental "movement" has to be sure gone in a quirky direction, or at least many of the high theorists have. Republicans - I mean some of them - would do well to stop mocking environmental protection as such.
By analogy, I suppose the question that now arises from your post is whether the president’s skepticism (to say the least) about global warming will also prove beneficial by keeping us off an economic or regulatory "slippery slope." I am not enough of an expert to conjecture, but, as you will agree, it is not a question that can be answered by ideological assertion.