DEMOCRATS PLAY POLITICS WITH HUMAN LIFE
By Maggie Gallagher
The Senate on Tuesday debated three important bills: Castle-DeGette, which expands federal funding for stem-cell research that kills human embryos; Santorum-Specter, which funds new research that uses the latest techniques to obtain embryonic-like stem cells without actually destroying embryos; and Brownback-Santorum, which would ban "fetal farming" or the practice of growing human fetuses for the purpose of using their body parts.
All three of these bills ask the fundamental question: What kind of people are we?
Americans are a people whose founding document promises that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In the 1970s, a great exception was made. The Supreme Court declared that abortion was a constitutional right. Because science could not tell us when human life begins (the court argued), women had a right to control their own bodies: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins," Justice Blackmun wrote for the majority. "When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." [Entire Story]
Moneybags has a nice summary and update of stem cell legislation here.
The Senate on Tuesday debated three important bills: Castle-DeGette, which expands federal funding for stem-cell research that kills human embryos; Santorum-Specter, which funds new research that uses the latest techniques to obtain embryonic-like stem cells without actually destroying embryos; and Brownback-Santorum, which would ban "fetal farming" or the practice of growing human fetuses for the purpose of using their body parts.
All three of these bills ask the fundamental question: What kind of people are we?
Americans are a people whose founding document promises that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In the 1970s, a great exception was made. The Supreme Court declared that abortion was a constitutional right. Because science could not tell us when human life begins (the court argued), women had a right to control their own bodies: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins," Justice Blackmun wrote for the majority. "When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." [Entire Story]
Moneybags has a nice summary and update of stem cell legislation here.
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