By Patrick Moynihan
SPECIAL TO RRSTAR.COM
Posted Apr 04, 2009 @ 04:12 PM
Last update Apr 04, 2009 @ 04:13 PM
The candidate who told Rick Warren that life issues were “above his pay grade” has given himself another raise. On March 9, President Barack Obama reversed President George Bush’s executive order that limited federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research to cell lines existing before Aug. 9, 2001. This is Mr. Obama’s second executive order removing a rampart erected by his predecessor to protect life. Obama must be feeling more comfortable with making big decisions — especially decisions that mean humans, albeit at the earliest stages of life, are more likely to end up in the lab or aborted in distant lands.
To be fair, Obama is just fulfilling his campaign promise. He clearly told Warren and the nation, “If we are going to discard those embryos and we know that there is potential research that could lead to curing debilitating disease … I think we should go ahead and pursue that research.”
Obviously Obama felt then and continues to feel now that the fate of frozen embryos can be decided by mere pragmatism. Unfortunately, he has chosen to ignore the Vatican’s advice that the only moral solution to extra embryos created by IVF is not to create them in the first place.
Obama does seem to be aware that mere pragmatism alone will not make his decision palatable to all. So, in a speech before signing the order, he gloriously claimed the act as an “important step in advancing the cause of science in America.” He went on to explain that, while this government will never allow human cloning, it will work vigorously to ensure that science is not inhibited by ideologies. Implying that the past administration stifled science, especially when it was in search of inconvenient truths, he declared science now free to roam.
In his speech, Obama correctly pointed out, “Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident.” Oh, but a lot of bad things, by intent and accident, do happen when man takes too practical a view of human life. Surely, he is aware of the “Tuskegee Experiments” for which President Bill Clinton apologized on May 16, 1997. History is full of pragmatists who, in the name of science, have done monstrous things to humans who have been discarded by society and left advocate-less.
So what will keep scientists from meandering from the merely inconvenient to the immoral in the future? Is Obama certain that cloning will never be sufficiently practical or popular to convince a future president to lift its ban on the same basis he lifted this ban? Unfortunately, Sen. Ted Kennedy, who, as a Catholic, should know that morality is superior to the physical sciences in decision making of this type, has heaped applause rather than sage advice on the president.
Kennedy leaves the pragmatist president to ponder the wonders that will be discovered, without mentioning that even the best of ends cannot justify bad means. Destroying human life in pursuit of cures is most definitely bad means.
To further justify his decision, Obama claims to have sided with the majority. Even a government of the people and for the people has to sometimes recognize the correctness of the minority opinion. The Executive Office, by the very fact that it is occupied by one person, is just the office to do that. If not the president, who will stop the crowd when it has gone mad?
Finding oneself in a lot of company does not mean one is in good company.
But there are some who assure the president that he is indeed in good company. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., must have channeled Sen. Joe McCarthy when she made her claim on national TV that there are a number of pro-life leaders who see using the extra embryos created by IVF for scientific research as the embryos’ second chance to give life. I would like to see that list. I have never met a pro-life advocate who would describe using extra embryos for scientific research as making lemonade out of lemons.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is right to point out that Obama has “rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us.” Unlike Lincoln, history will likely show that Obama is on the wrong side of this divided house.
Deacon Patrick Moynihan, formerly of Rockford, was recently reappointed as the president of The Haitian Project. He and his family live near Clemson, S.C. He can be reached at bothoarsin@gmail.com
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