And i still think you’re going to easy on Frist. You’re right that laws against in vitro fertilization aren’t going anywhere, but if he really wanted to advance some so-called “culture of life,” he could say exactly what his view would be on in vitro, and then articulate the view you just attributed to him.

Integrity doesn’t demand making every law that would save lives. Integrity demands seeking to do what you think might be possible to make these tragedies less bad rather than trying to do more radical things that have no chance of passing. Opposing in vitro is just not going to get anywhere in the current climate. Now I don’t know if Frist has said anything on the matter at all. I’m not a Frist scholar. I’m a philosophy, and people were claiming that supporting this research conflicts with pro-life convictions. It simply doesn’t. It conflicts with pro-life convictions if you also add in some other theses that someone who is pro-life doesn’t necessarily have to believe. They happen to be theses I don’t myself believe, so this isn’t just about Frist.

But regarding the topic of the post: it seems to me that you’re letting Frist off way too easy. If he were truly committed to pro-life principles, why wouldn’t he advocate for a law that prohibited the kinds of in vitro fertilization techniques that create embryos which will never be implanted into a womb? Instead of Frist arguing, “well, these embryos are going to die anyway,” shouldn’t he argue, “we shouldn’t allow people to create embyros for any reason — for research or as ‘extras’ in trying to procreate — only to destroy them later”? Why doesn’t integrity demand THAT position?

As for the main topic of the post, it’s not clear that Frist is contradicting the pro-life stance. What he’s proposing is that it’s no more wrong for someone to kill these embryos by extracting stem cells than it is simply to throw them away. They will be destroyed. There’s no way to prevent that given the current law that these embryos are the property of parents. He’s suggesting that in destroying them the stem cells should be retained so that at least this immoral action can have some good consequences.

The Nazi experiments are a good analogy, actually, but in a different way. The experiments were clearly wrong. What was also wrong was when the idiot Allied leaders insisted on throwing out the results of that research, as if the mere existence of the knowledge gained by immoral means has some immoral element. If we learned that we can cure cancer via a method that wouldn’t have to be immoral, and the way we did it was by finding the research of a scientist who did terrible things to people to find this information, we have a moral responsibility to preserve that knowledge, not to throw it out.

Similarly, with stem cells, it may be immoral for these parents to kill their embryonic children, but the law gives them the right to do it. All Frist is proposing is that we extract the stem cells before we do it. Maybe there are moral considerations against that (e.g., having to do with honoring corpses unless they consent to have their bodies used for medical research), but it can’t be merely because of the pro-life issue, because these embryos are going to be destroyed either way. Wanting to prevent that from being as much of a tragedy by using their stem cells to help people is not a clear contradiction with the pro-life view. You can mount an argument in defense of the Bush position, but I don’t think it’s going to involve premises that every pro-life person would share, and apparently Frist is one of those people who doesn’t share those premises.

Frist’s Folly
Killing human embryos for research is not pro-life.
http://ChristianityToday.com/ct/2005/131/23.0.html

Anyway, you attacked the media, but your still saying that scientists can’t be trusted for saying that stem cells have promise. Your view of the scientific and medical promise of stem cells is indefensible.

Anyone reading this should see that the proper pro-life view here is just to say that stem cells may lead to cures, but that is irrelevant since we can’t kill thousands of people (ie, embryos) to find cures for some others.

The view that I think you’re describing is not that secularism has a “right” to define anything. People have rights, not descriptions or theories. The idea is that the United States is a pluralistic society in the sense that we have 290 million people and we do NOT believe that the state’s purpose is to reflect or impose ONE national conception of the good life on all people. The very essence of our society, as opposed to others based on theocracy or nationalism, is that people with different conceptions of how to live can live together in peace and freedom. The government exists for a number of purposes, but it’s most important purpose is to protect individual freedom. Regardless of any particular person’s point of view, each person is assumed to have an interest in freedom — freedom from others to live according to his/her own conception of the good life.

As for your claims, you argue that scientists don’t really think or know that stem cells have medical promise, but rather advocate their use because they just want to resist the “Judeo-Christian” narrative, which you claim they resent.

First, I’d question whether there is a unified Judeo-Christian “narrative,” whatever that means. Much of the discussion on this blog reflects the fact of wide disagreement with the Lutheran community, let alone the Protestant community, let alone the Christian community, let alone the Judeo-Christian community.

Second, and more importantly, do you think scientists just made up the stem cell idea in order to provoke a confrontation between the religious right and the rest of society? That’s what I find so strange about your view -you’re depicting scientists as being reactionary to the religious right on this issue. Remember … *scientists* were the first to bring up the issue of stem cells — not to provoke confrontation, but because they see scientific reason for medical promise. It wasn’t the religious right who first came out and said, “Hey … there are these things called stem cells … we can never let embryos be created and destroyed for them!” That doesn’t make sense. And, like I said, stem cell research is being published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I mean, you’ve made up on your mind regarding these publications *without reading them*!!! You just dismiss them with ad hominem attacks: “oh, scientists are just leftist.” To me, not only is that an unfair argumentative tactic, it’s just disingenuine and you’re doing yourself a disservice by letting your religious views stop you from truly evaluating claims *unrelated* to those religious views. (The moral issue is, of course, inseparable from religious views. But whether stem cell research could lead to medical cures IS unrelated to religious views).

Finally, to say that “none of them (scientists) have really investigated the issue” … to be frank … simply reflects not being informed. There is research going on all over the world on stem cells.