Res Publica 2005

A few years ago, there was a good SF book written called the Summer Queen. It was about a culture where a sentient race of beings (a lot like dolphins) lived along with humans. This world had a strange, long year, and for reasons I don't remember, could only be approached by people off world during the winter of the year.

Well, the point was, that during that winter phase, people killed the dolphin like beings because there was a serum that could be extracted from their bodies that would give humans unlimited youth. And this product was in great demand off world, and even though the culture of the interplantery society said killing sentient life was bad, they did it anyway because they wanted desperately to live, and look young, beyond the natural span.

Hearing some of the nonsense lately about the potential for human stem cell research, I am put to mind that book. Where do we draw the ethical lines?

If we found out that by eating infants, we could cure Parkensin's would we?

Robert George over at NRO says this:

For months now, the Kerry campaign and its surrogates, such as Ron Reagan Jr., have cruelly led suffering people to believe that cures for their diseases are just around the corner. All we have to do is replace Bush with Kerry, open the federal funding spigot, and presto! The blind see and the lame walk! The Kerry campaign's hyping of embryo-destructive research for political gain is the cruelest and most shameful episode in the story of the 2004 election.

What Elizabeth Long (the woman who asked Kerry the stem-cell question) said is true: "Thousands of people have already been cured or treated by the use of adult stem cells or umbilical-cord stem cells. However, no one has been cured by using embryonic stem cells. Wouldn't it be wise to use stem cells obtained without the destruction of an embryo?

Kerry answered with a lie. A lie that will falsely inflate the hopes of countless people who would dearly love to believe that "we have the option" of curing them.

Cannabalism of the unborn, whether directly or indirectly by way of the lab is still cannablism. The culture of death wants us to eat our young so we can stay young and beautiful and healthy forever.