For those who refuse to consider the moral implications of Embryonic Stem Cell research, and who believe in the fantasy rhetoric of the “stem cells will cure all ailments” crowd, Charles Krauthammer has just put you in your place.
Krauthammer’s politics may stand on the right side of centre, but his bio makes him a source beyond reproach. A trained Medical Doctor, Krauthammer became a paraplegic in a diving accident while studying at Harvard Medical School, and after practicing for several years, went to work for the Carter administration in the late 1970s, and has been a writer ever since. Always an advocate for continued research on discarded embryos from fertility treatments, but queasy about the ethical implications of obtaining future embryos and the possible treatment options available from embryonic stem cells, he now believes the argument is essentially moot, now that new research has shown that therapeautic stem cells can be produced from a simple cheek swab – and he exposes the ugly alliance between money-hungry medical researchers and ugly political partisans who exploited the hopes of suffering people by purposely ignoring the truth:
That Holy Grail has now been achieved. Largely because of the genius of Thomson and Yamanaka. And also because of the astonishing good fortune that nature requires only four injected genes to turn an ordinary adult skin cell into a magical stem cell that can become bone or brain or heart or liver.
But for one more reason as well. Because the moral disquiet that James Thomson always felt — and that George Bush forced the country to confront — helped lead him and others to find some ethically neutral way to produce stem cells. Providence then saw to it that the technique be so elegant and beautiful that scientific reasons alone will now incline even the most willful researchers to leave the human embryo alone.
Jonah Goldberg also celebrates the news of cheek-swab stem cells with a great column acknowledging Krauthammer’s prescience, and the press’s sudden move away from out-and-out advocacy:
At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Ron Reagan, the acclaimed dog show emcee, tried his hand at being an infomercial snake oil barker. “I am here tonight to talk about the issue of research into maybe the greatest breakthrough in our or any lifetime: the use of embryonic stem cells,” Reagan announced. After listing numerous diseases and injuries it could cure, Reagan delivered the pitch: “How’d you like to have your own personal biological repair kit standing by at the hospital? Sound like magic? Welcome to the future of medicine.”
“Wait! There’s more! Order your Biological Repair Kit in the next seven minutes, by voting 1-800-D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T, and you’ll receive a second repair kit at no additional cost, as well as this amazing two-in-one steak knife that can cut through your dignity and still be sharp enough to slice this tomato! Operators are standing by.”O.K., I exaggerate. But the tone wasn’t far off.
Reagan wasn’t alone, either. Then-vice presidential candidate John Edwards proclaimed in 2004, “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) announced a few years earlier: “We must not say to millions of sick or injured human beings, ‘Go ahead and die, stay paralyzed, because we believe the blastocyst, the clump of cells, is more important than you are.’ … It is a sentence of death to millions of Americans.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), outraged by conservatives seeking to inject religion into politics, nonetheless proclaimed: “Mr. Speaker, the National Institutes of Health and Science hold the biblical power of a cure for us.”Cure for what? Cure for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. And soon!
How soon? Very soon. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.) promised that “we stand on the brink of finding the cures to diseases that have plagued so many millions of Americans.”Columnist Charles Krauthammer, who is not only a doctor but also bound to a wheelchair because of the sort of spinal injury Democrats insinuated could be cured with a Democrat in the White House, said it well. This flimflammery was “a cruel deception perpetrated by cynical scientists and ignorant politicians. Its purpose is clear: to exploit the desperation of the sick to garner political support for ethically problematic biotechnology.”
And where was the press during this riot of false hope and cruel demagoguery, where politicians were in effect telling sick people they could vote for a cure for themselves or their loved ones? The short answer is that they were either on the Democratic bandwagon, or they were outside helping push it.When President Bush was grappling with embryonic stem cell research in 2001, Newsweek’s science correspondent, Sharon Begley, warned in a cover story that this might be “a cruel blow to millions of patients for whom embryonic stem cells might offer the last chance for health and life.”
Both columns are well worth the read – particularly for those who blindly followed the embryo-free-for-all advocates.
16 Comments
December 4, 2007 at 3:23 am
Really makes you think, doesn’t it?
December 9, 2007 at 8:42 pm
All to show the real agenda behind pushing embryonic stem cells is solidifying the pro-abortion views of people by creating a lack of respect for life from its logical and scientific beginning, and once again putting the “needs” of born people ahead of those who are too tiny, defenseless, underdeveloped, and hidden to speak up for themselves or garner sympathy in any other way for their own plight. And, that abortion in any form — whether for “research”, or not — is big, big business. And those who stand to gain from it will generally say or do anything to make sure they keep the business booming.
December 10, 2007 at 3:09 am
I suppose if you consider a clump of 150 cells to be equivalent to a fully-developed human being, it might be ethically problematic. Thankfully, I can’t see anyone halfway rational thinking that.
Surprisingly, I don’t see pro-lifers lobbying against infertility treatment – the source of most embryonic stem cells. If the blastocysts from this process will be discarded anyway, what’s the harm in using them for science? Would you rather we forced couples undergoing infertility treatment to try to carry every single embryo to term?
December 10, 2007 at 9:14 am
Reilly: you were a “clump of cells” at one time, and yet you were allowed to develop all the way to this era of pomposity and thoughtlessness in your life. Congratulations.
Meanwhile, if you actually read what you are commenting on, you would understand that thoughtful people like Krauthammer do indeed support research on discarded embryos. The controversy lies not in the research; it lies in the future practical applications of the research results.
Your point about fertility treatments is moronic. If you can’t grasp the distinction between creating life and destroying it, you’re really not up to the challenge of civilized debate.
December 10, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Thanks, but I did read the article – I just have trouble distinguishing between research on discarded embryos and research on embryos created specifically for those purposes.
Your “distinction between creating life and destroying it” is also a little fuzzy to me. Are you saying that creating one life balances out discarding what you consider to be human beings? If discarding embryos is okay because they’re by-products and weren’t intended to be carried to term, then why is using embryos specifically created for research morally problematic?
My point is that if 150 cells is a human being, murder is murder and these embryos that will only be discarded shouldn’t be created in the first place. If you’re justifying this by the creation of another human being, then it follows that any new mother should get to murder a couple people for bringing a child into the world.
Accordingly, if it’s not a human being there shouldn’t be moral dilemmas involved in creating embryos specifically for research.
I was hoping to start a conversation about the subject and possibly learn something new, but I suppose the best I can hope for is more insults masquerading as “civilized debate”.
December 10, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Your final paragraph is completely disingenuous. Your original post was an insult, not a conversation-starter. And your responsive arguments are completely disingenuous. Bottom line is, I have no time for people who refuse to accept at the very least that a “clump of cells” is a future human being if left alone in the womb, and that creating embryos for the purpose of creating a fetus is far different than creating embryos for the purpose of destroying embryos.
January 15, 2008 at 8:41 am
The future of medicine:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080114/beating_heart_080114/20080114?hub=CTVNewsAt11
January 22, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I find it most funny that the same conservative right to lifers won’t support socialized medicare in the states.
So, they will protect that life so it can born, but…if that particular life doesn’t make enough money…then it can die due to lack of primary medical care…too bad so sad.
Besides, by then it’s not a cutesy babykins and can die apparantly. The same thinking that makes people save cute animals over rats or other “ugly” animals.
January 22, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Robert: I find it most sad that you are such a shallow thinker, and that you ascribe the most awful motives you could possibly think of to those you disagree with politically. Grow up.
June 7, 2009 at 3:39 am
Current [June 2009] bottom line:
Adult cells have helped in over 70 diagnoses.
Embryonic cells : none.
Can’t beat those odds.
July 12, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I admire you greatly, Mr. Krauthammer and your stance on stem cell research. Please continue to hammer this home to the public so that alternatives will eventually be understood and followed. You may or may not be a Kraut, nor am I a Klam but let me say this, I thoroughly enjoy your wise contributions to the Fox panel.
September 16, 2009 at 6:06 pm
I have been trying to find out more about Charles Krauthammer, as I deeply admire him. I found out he was injured in a “driving” accident, not a “diving” accident as you say above. This is old, so no telling if anyone reading it. Also, I am against stem cell research, so enjoyed this article.
JoAnne in Texas
September 16, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Well, excuse my last submission. I found out by reading two other articles that Krauthammer WAS damaged by DIVING and not DRIVING! Sorry.
I posted the same to Seraphic Secret who said that it was a car accident! See how things get twisted, from just a letter, in this case, an “r?” jb
October 16, 2009 at 2:49 pm
[...] could tell larger lies in their quest to manipulate their voters. Then I ran across this blog on Stem Cell Research and wow, this guy is more vicious than I am. You see, this October 16, 2009 less than 40 percent of [...]
October 16, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Excellent piece, I ran across this when I was curious of Krauthammer’s infirmity. I find it really surprising how committed some of the abortion-rights commenters are to fantasy. Remember when John Edwards (the love-child Daddy since running as US Democrat VP candidate) said – paraphrasing – if the embryo lobby could put the Democrats in power, people in wheel chairs will walk again. They pile lie on top of lie, and it is all to control reproduction, health, energy, education, in fact everything Karl Marx saw as the tools to enslave the masses with a new atheist opiate.
October 31, 2009 at 4:59 am
Dilema! Premise…
If it were proven that embryonic stem cells held the secret for mending nerve injuries, i.e., spinal cord, nerve blindness, m.s., parkinsons etc. and you were the keeper of embryonic stem cells to be destroyed. Would you deny the plea of a living breathing sick person, or mother of a suffering child only to cast those cells into the furnace?Maybe Christopher Reeves motrher, or if you prefer Mr. Krauthammers mother?