By Dave Andrusko
"The lobby for embryonic stem cell funding is deeply dishonest. It involves a 'ban' that isn't a ban, a claim of cures 'right on our fingertips' (John Kerry) that falsely implies an early cure for Alzheimer's, and a discounting of promising stem cell research that doesn't involve the creation and destruction of embryos (cells from umbilical cords and adult bone marrow and teeth). Kerry and the Democrats have a case to make. They just don't want to make it honestly."
Columnist John Leo
"With the salesmanship of a faith healer, Kerry dangled promises no responsible scientist would countenance."
Slate columnist William Saletan
"John Kerry's assertions about stem cell research are so obviously untrue and so easily refuted that he must on some level actually believe them - - as only an ideologue can."
Eric Cohen, writing in the Weekly Standard
If you think you've heard a lot about "stem cells" so far, hold on to your hats.
To Senator John Kerry, a man still groping for a justification for his candidacy, it must seem as if a gift has been dropped from the sky.
Provided the press gives him a bye [and what are the chances of that?], the junior senator from Massachusetts will continue to promise the moon, extolling what he and kindred partisans modestly describe as stem cells' "magical" - - make that "biblical power" - - to cure. They are, of course, talking about embryonic stem cells - - cells carved out of living human embryos - - but this specificity is often lacking, part of a larger program of misinformation.
Author Saul Bellow once observed, "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." That's a nice way of saying that when rampant error is multiplied by indifference to ethical concerns and compounded by a cavalier disregard for elementary fact checking, it takes a while to shift through all the intellectual wreckage.
Sen. Kerry comes into this campaign weighed down with considerable baggage, including a fondness for abortion that includes defending even partial-birth abortion. What to do?
As we've talked about many times in National Right to Life News, Kerry has feinted several times in a pseudo-pro-life direction. He trusts that the public, which only vaguely follows most issues, will conclude he is, in his heart of hearts (if not in his voting record) vaguely "pro-life," or at least not a hard-core, shoulder-to-the-plow pro-abortionist.
So, what are his options? As much as possible move the discussion away from abortion, which hurts Kerry, onto something else, which (if properly manipulated) might help Kerry.
Early on, Kerry obviously looked at polling data which show that when the question is poorly worded, it appears as if the public supports embryonic stem cell research. As NRLC's Legislative Director Douglas Johnson has pointed out, Kerry has gone even further, co-sponsoring a bill to allow the mass creation of human embryos by cloning solely for research, as long as they are not allowed to live past 14 days.
This stance was reaffirmed by Kerry policy director Sarah Bianchi who, according to the August 10 Wall Street Journal, "says the Kerry bill prohibits cloned embryos from developing for more than 14 days or from being implanted in a uterus so they could produce live births."
But, as is so often the case with Kerry, he has beaten a kind of retreat. On August 19, Bianchi said that Kerry "absolutely [does] not" favor creating human embryos for research. Why the pullback, at least rhetorically? According to NRLC's Johnson, "Perhaps the Kerry campaign's internal polling has found results similar to those of two new polls, which were conducted independently in mid-August using scientific polling methods (by coincidence, both were released on August 23)." [See page 22] Both showed strong opposition to using human cloning to create human fodder for "medical research."
But that does not mean that he has given up using "stem cell" research as a "wedge issue," something that might snip off a percentage of people who otherwise might well vote for President George W. Bush.
By promoting embryonic stem cells as a kind of high-tech elixir, an all-purpose concoction that will cure everything from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's by tomorrow afternoon, Kerry and his minions hope to paint Mr. Bush as a captive of flat-earth "fundamentalists." As Kerry is wont to say, "Here in America, we don't sacrifice science for ideology."
For starters, it is crucially important to know that the Bush Administration is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into morally acceptable stem cell research, and states and private entrepreneurs are free to pour in their own resources. Beyond that, columnist John Leo brilliantly unmasked Kerry's balderdash.
In a recent column, Leo wrote, "This is a line he has been using for weeks. It delivers two messages, both false: (1) there is no legitimate moral issue here (though plenty of bioethicists and plenty of Kerry supporters think there is); and therefore (2) this is a one-sided issue, pitting enlightened people against backward ideological types. Kerry is demagoging the issue, but in a sophisticated way, echoing the debate at the Scopes trial (science vs. religion) without explicitly raising the religion issue. According to a report in the Washington Post, 'ideology trumps science' is the theme of a lobbying effort to discredit objections to more federal funding of embryonic stem cell research."
Clearly, if you're John Kerry, you ARE willing to sacrifice truth in a shameless campaign of disinformation. If you read an article that appeared in the August 9 issue of American Demographics, you'll understand why the politics of "stem cell research" is so seductive to Kerry.
"This is the 'sleeper issue' of this campaign," said Bob Beckel, a former Democratic presidential candidate strategist. "It's more than just stem cell research - - it's the symbolism of announcing a plan to eradicate major diseases, and part of the Baby Boomers' health care crisis."
Unchallenged, this can be a major problem. But, as always, when people are given the truth - - and options - - they are far less supportive of lethally culling stem cells from tiny human embryos than the John Kerrys of this world are counting on. They are strongly against human cloning and against creating a supply of cloned embryos on which to experiment.
What is most interesting is that at least some observers, not necessarily in our camp, are seeing through the smoke and mirrors.
William Saletan is a columnist for the online publication, Slate. Often he writes very well, usually in a manner that props up an intellectually shaky pro-abortion movement, occasionally in a way that supports the pro-life view.
It'd be hard to exaggerate how influential was Saletan's August 10 column. He begins by noting that the pro-embryonic stem cell movement's highly flattering self-image (its "conceit") is the very opposite of what it has become: "political, ideological, and religious."
In their politicking, proponents are reduced to sloganizing, promising to lift an imaginary "ban on stem-cell research." But as Saletan writes, no such ban exists.
"Embryonic stem-cell research is unrestricted in the private sector. State and local governments can fund it as they wish. The federal government spent nearly $200 million on adult stem-cell research last year and nearly $25 million on research involving the roughly 20 approved embryonic lines."
Likewise, "The stem-cell movement has become ideological," he writes. Facts are "shaded," pollsters massage questions to get the correct answers, and "any limit on stem-cell funding must be vilified as immoral," according to Saletan.
The richest irony is that proponents have become what Saletan describes as "religious." A major problem for proponents is that what they need most - - the possibility that embryonic stem cells can "cure" Alzheimer's - - is a virtual impossibility, a "fairy tale," as an NIH researcher told Rick Weiss of the Washington Post. Such dream-weaving is a distortion, a simplistic "story line," that proponents allow to float along out there largely unchallenged.
Saletan cites a number of expressions of quasi-mystical hope by proponents.
"A month later, on the eve of their convention, [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi called stem-cell therapy 'the biblical power to cure.' At the [Democratic National] convention, Ron Reagan likened it to 'magic.' Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin trumpeted its 'medical miracles.' Rep. James Langevin of Rhode Island, a paraplegic, proclaimed his 'strong faith that we will find a cure.' 'I believe one day I will walk again,' said Langevin, adding, 'Embryonic stem cell research offers new dreams to so many people.' Democrats even engraved the myth in their platform: 'Stem-cell therapy offers hope to more than 100 million Americans who have serious illnesses - - from Alzheimer's to heart disease to juvenile diabetes to Parkinson's.'"
However, "Kerry's appeals to faith and prayer don't end there," Saletan writes. "He asks voters to believe, on the same spiritual basis, that science will create ethical boundaries for itself." In a speech promoting stem cell research, Kerry said, "I have full faith that our scientists will go forward with a moral compass," adding that we must "pursue the limitless potential of science - - and trust that we can use it wisely."
Kerry is counting on aging Baby Boomer angst to camouflage the real status of the research [i.e., the "fact there has not been a single human trial of an embryonic stem cell therapy," according to Eric Cohen] as compared to adult-stem-cell and related tissue therapies which, as Wesley Smith writes, "are already treating human maladies." Indeed, "[t]he science is moving forward at an exhilarating pace both here and abroad in animal and human studies," Smith explains.
We need to stay up to speed on the real face of "stem cell research." The public needs to know that there are enormous ethical issues at stake, not only in embryonic stem cell research and cloning per se, but also in a move in the direction of what Eric Cohen calls "the normalization of the radical in biotechnology."
Moreover, in truth all "cures" from embryonic stem cells are theoretical. All progress to date in humans has come from ethically acceptable sources.
Provided we keep up to date, grasp that the Bush Administration is vigorously promoting ethically acceptable alternatives, and then share this knowledge with the larger community, the controversy will redound to our benefit. Keep reading NRL News and material found in "Today's News & Views," which is found at www.nrlc.org.