The Science President? MORALITY MATTERS WITH PAUL MURANO

 

By: Paul Murano – September, 2004

“What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?”

This was John Kerry’s provoking question near the end of his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was a rhetorical question with a double purpose: to jab President Bush for being backward and in the way of progress, and to declare that he (Kerry) is the progressive one who won’t stand in the way of science and who cares about sick people. John Kerry seems to think he has found one issue in this campaign, a wedge issue, that is a winner with the electorate.

The reason Kerry placed the above question within the most important political speech of his life and asked it so emphatically and confidently is because he is Inflatable 36ft Dry Slide Dual Lane Blue Crush banking on the hope that most Americans are shallow and non-thinking, focusing only on the question: How can anyone possibly stand in the way of curing Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease?!

Before we take a little deeper look at what this potential “Science President” from Massachusetts has been saying, first let‘s dispel some of the cloudiness of this issue. Stem cell research is already going on in this country.

Adult stem cells and stem cells from umbilical chords have perhaps as much promise as embryonic stem cells do. That being said, embryonic stem cell research still goes on in this country, it is not illegal at this time. The issue at hand is federal funding, the use of our tax money going to fund embryonic stem cell research. Should the American people, many of whom believe it is immoral to create embryos in order to extract their cells and destroy them, be forced to fund this work?

Bush says no, Kerry says yes. Okay, we’ve boiled it down; now let’s take a deeper look into what the potential science president has been saying:

A. Human life begins at conception (John Kerry’s own words during this campaign)

B. Abortion should be legal throughout all 9 months of pregnancy

C. Partial-birth infanticide (when all but the head of the live baby is out of the womb) should be legal

D. The government should subsidize embryonic stem cell research

Using simple logic, if you were to combine statement A with any of the other three statements, you have someone who believes in legalized murder. How can you recognize that we begin our existence at conception (statement A) and then condone statements B, C, or D? Wouldn’t this mean being consciously complicit in the legalized killing of over 60 million preborn people of the past generation since Roe v. Wade and partially sharing in its guilt? How else can you possibly look at it?

Politically correct or not, intentionally killing an innocent human being is the definition of murder; and if John Kerry believes: 1. a human being begins at conception, and 2. it’s okay to intentionally kill innocent human beings…what might this say about his character, values, and willingness to sell his soul for the presidency? Not to mention his insulting assumption that most Americans are too wrapped up in emotion or self-interest to think clearly?

Putting aside his logical contradiction and apparent intellectual dishonestly, if Kerry is wrong about statement A, then statements B, C, and D should not only be a right, but in the case of D a duty to our fellow human beings who may acquire debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

So since John Kerry claims to be such a believer in science let’s take an honest look at what science, not faith, indicates on this matter.

Medical science is clear on this matter: An individual human organism, i.e. a human being, begins at fertilization, when the new one-celled zygote contains all the genetic material that makes up you, me, and every unique person who’s ever walked the earth, and ends at death. The only difference be-tween you at the embryonic stage and you at the adult stage is time and nutrition.

There is no arbitrary point that science can point to between fertilization and natural death that turns a potential human being into being an actual human being. Sperm and egg are the matter of potential human beings – but a zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, child, adolescent, adult, and senior are simply words that describe the developmental stages of the human being, actualized and growing since fertilization. This is all science tells us because it is all science can tell us.

Hence, simply speaking, destruction of any of us at any point in our human development renders us dead, i.e. if you were aborted as a tiny embryo you wouldn’t be reading this article right now.

As you know there are many arguments in opposition to what I have just written, promoted by pro-choice advocates, but understand that they are not scientific arguments. The quality of life arguments, the fetal formation arguments, the viability arguments, the ensoulment arguments, the blob of tissue arguments – all of them are ironically arguments from faith, personal belief stemming from something other than science; precisely but falsely what abortion advocates claim the pro-life arguments to be.

You have to believe an individual human organism with it’s own growth pattern and genetic material is not a human being, science doesn’t indicate it. You have to believe human personhood kicks in at some mysterious time between conception and birth, science doesn’t indicate it. You have to believe that birth is not simply a change of environment for the already living human being but that which defines a human being, science doesn’t indicate it. In fact science does indicate that every human being that ever existed began at fertilization. So according to scientific fact John Kerry is actually right on statement A: Life begins at conception. All pro-choice arguments claiming the preborn to be less than human are not only dangerous (remember slavery and the holocaust?) but also very unscientific. Again, ironically, pro-choice arguments are arguments not from science or fact, but from faith: you must believe something that is not scientific.

So let’s be consistent with the liberal mantra of keeping faith out of public policy and let’s stick with the scientific facts. John Kerry the potential “science president” not only contradicts himself in the name of science with his support for stem cell research, but also denigrates the foundation of morality and civilization by condoning the deliberate destruction of embryos after admitting they are human beings. The bottom line is that anyone with a conscience knows you can’t kill some human beings in order to try and help others.

We have a history of despots who used science with this kind of rationalization that produced gas chambers, mass graves and the like.

On this issue of embryonic stem cell research it is President Bush, the one characterized as the bumbling religious idiot from down-home Texas, who is the man of true science and intellectual honesty. And knowing that many people can easily be deceived on this matter by political masters of emotional and psychological manipulation (i.e. contemporary liberals), this stand by George Bush, although I may not agree with him on all of the issues, shows that he is a man of principle and a man of conscience.