A veto of darkness
President Bush tends to "veto" legislation through the backhanded use of so-called "signing statements" (which I recently addressed here). But now we have his first real veto:
No surprise here. Karl Rove indicated some time ago that this was coming. As I put it then:
Well, Mr. President? You talk about "a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect," which must sound nice to your base, but all you prove with this veto is that you are closed off -- politically and morally -- to the possibilities of science and to a beneficial (and hopefully benevolent) technology that will save the lives of the living.
A truly decent society would respect those lives. Your veto only threatens to keep your society in darkness.
President Bush issued the first veto of his five-year-old administration yesterday, rejecting Congress's bid to lift funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research and underscoring his party's split on an emotional issue in this fall's elections.
No surprise here. Karl Rove indicated some time ago that this was coming. As I put it then:
The first veto will say a lot about this president and his priorities. If he vetos this stem-cell legislation, he should go before the American people and tell them why he doesn't support this bipartisan effort. And he should explain to those who could benefit from stem-cell research, as well as to their loved ones, just why he refuses to help them.
Well, Mr. President? You talk about "a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect," which must sound nice to your base, but all you prove with this veto is that you are closed off -- politically and morally -- to the possibilities of science and to a beneficial (and hopefully benevolent) technology that will save the lives of the living.
A truly decent society would respect those lives. Your veto only threatens to keep your society in darkness.
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
12:29 AM
1 Comments:
I find it interesting that the president's position is seen as not open to the possibilities of science. I see it the exact opposite way. It seems he has a clear grasp of what science is capable of, and therefore will not allow scientific experiments on human beings. And yes, it can be argued scientifically that a fetus is a human being, even if you don't agree.
Since the only therapies we know of have come from adult stem cells, and none from the research on fetal stem cells, it seems that it is the left that is ignoring the science here.
Just my two cents.
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Anonymous, at 3:29 PM
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