David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). He writes a twice-monthly column for TomPaine.com, "The Loyal Opposition." Read his blog at http://www.davidcorn.com.
My fellow Americans, I am shocked that scientists in this country are killing young children in order to extract organ parts for medical research. I reaffirm my previous position: I am against this. And as your president I am willing to take swift action regarding this violation of decency and morality. Using the power I have, I have implemented a ban on all federal funding for any research using organs obtained in this manner from this day on.
George W. Bush would look pretty foolish giving such a speech. But this is not so far from his position on embryonic stem cells research.
On Tuesday, the Senate, with a 63-37 vote, approved a measure overturning the severe limitations Bush imposed five summers ago on federal funding for this research. The legislation had already been passed by the House, and today Bush vetoed it. Explaining Bush's position shortly before the Senate vote, White House press secretary Tony Snow said, "The simple answer is he thinks murder is wrong."
That is, Bush believes that embryonic stem cell research—which involves removing cells from a blastocyst and destroying that five-day-old embryo—is killing. This represents an evolution in Bush's position. In August 2001, in his first primetime Oval Office speech, he outlined his position on stem cells research. In that address, he did not term this research "murder." He said that embryonic stem cell research "is at the leading edge of a series of moral hazards." He noted that he had asked scientists, bioethicists, religious leaders and others whether a blastocyst is a human life. "Well," Bush said, "one researcher told me that he believes this five-day-old cluster of cells is not an embryo, not yet an individual, but a pre-embryo. He argued that it had the potential for life, but it is not a life because it cannot develop on its own." But, Bush continued, an "ethicist dismissed that as a callous attempt at rationalization. Make no mistake, he told me, that cluster of cells is the same way you and I, and all the rest of us, started our lives."
At the time, Bush did not say which view he favored. In that speech, he went on to announce a compromise. He would permit federal funding of research using existing stem cells lines because "the life and death decision" had already been made concerning those unfortunate blastocysts. But he would not let taxpayer dollars underwrite research using new lines—for that would encourage the further destruction of embryos.
Bush sugarcoated the effect of his executive order. He said there were 60 existing lines and research using them held "great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures." This was misleading. There were closer to a dozen lines in existence at that time, and many of them were of poor quality and polluted with mouse cells (which had been used to generate the lines). Bush's decision was basically a ban on effective embryonic stem cell research. Yet he and his advisers had crafted a position that hid the true impact of his action. This waffling permitted Bush to come across as supportive of stem cells research while scoring some points with the religious right. He escaped making the hard call.
The new legislation afforded Bush no room for maneuvering. It forced him to decide who was right: the researcher he cited in 2001 or the ethicist he quoted. He resolved that he stands with the “it's murder” crowd. Karl Rove recently explained Bush's stance this way: "We were all an embryo at one point."
Bush, Rove and others are certainly entitled to this view. But it does lead to dilemmas for them. Or it should. If embryonic stem cell research is murder, shouldn't Bush call for outlawing the practice? As opponents of the legislation frequently note, the fight at hand is not about banning stem cell research, for such work is under way in labs across the United States—just without federal funding. (The counter-argument is that absent federal support, researchers are at a distinct disadvantage.) Under Bush's definition, these researchers are engaged in homicide.
Bush's doesn't want to subsidize the killing going on but he doesn't say it ought to be stopped. Does that make sense? I would expect him, Rove, Snow and others who believe stem cell research is murder to raise hell and do whatever they can to end such a horror. Bush could give another primetime speech demanding Congress bring a halt to this slaughter. He could call for legislation banning all embryonic stem cell research. Sure, it wouldn't pass. But no one could say (as I'm saying) that Bush is willing to stand by as murder after murder is committed. On abortion, Bush is at least on record supporting the criminalization of abortion, even if he doesn't do that much for the cause.
Why hasn't Bush rushed to Capitol Hill a bill banning all embryonic stem cells research? Could it be that he is not willing to go that far out on a limb for a principle? Such a move would truly force him to choose between religious right supporters and secular Republican suburbanites who favor research that might lead to treatments for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other awful diseases. Perhaps he and Rove are applying political pragmatism to a moral issue of life and death. How shocking.
There are other tough questions for Bush. If he and his aides consider blastocysts young—really young—people, what do they propose ought to be done with the 400,000 or so unused blastocysts sitting in freezers in fertility clinics nationwide? Couples who use in vitro fertilization to create children often generate more fertilized eggs than they need. The leftovers are stored, and some are thrown away—that is, destroyed. According to a recent RAND study, about 10,000 frozen embryos are designated to be "discarded." That's a lot of murders. Does Bush want to do anything about that? And what would he do? Insist that these blastocysts be preserved forever? Yet if the president does nothing as these five-day-old embryos are tossed into garbage cans, how can he argue that it would be wrong to use these cells for research?
Addressing this piece of the moral hazard, Snow said of the discarded blastocsyts, "That is a tragedy, but the president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something that is living and making it dead for the purpose of research." But Bush is not willing to do anything to prevent this tragedy. Moreover, if Bush views the destruction of a blastocyst as murder, we can presume he opposes any form of contraception that inhibits the development of an embryo once an egg is fertilized by a sperm. So why has Bush not ordered his aides to draft legislation banning IUDs and emergency contraception (Plan B)? My hunch is that far more embryos are destroyed by these forms of contraception than stem cells research. Once again, Bush is letting people get away with murder.
You can see the spot he is in. Calling something murder does oblige one to take action. Anti-abortion activists who believe abortion is equivalent to mass-murder are right to fight damn hard to stop what they see as a modern-day Holocaust. But it's tough to take Bush seriously when he screams bloody murder about stem cells research because it seems as if he is merely playing with life and death.
