On Life: Embryos, Stem Cells, Abortion, and Snowflakes

This morning, the Red State Capital City Newspaper features the standard pro and con letters to the editor on the stem cell bill. The con letter tries to start out reasonably, but as soon as we get to that buzzword, "life," we know where we stand:

In recent days, the right-vs.-left debate over embryonic stem-cell research has been intense.

After the recent passage of a House bill containing funding for such research, it appears to be opposed only by the most hard-line Republicans.

With promises such as regrown spinal-cord tissue allowing the paralyzed to walk again, many people find it hard to draw the line and say no.

It should be made clear that the opposition does not oppose private dollars being used for this purpose.

If the promises of stem cells are as great as proclaimed, private corporations should be eager to take up the research.

In the May 26 Associated Press article "Embryonic stem-cell debate moves from House to Senate," it is mentioned that proponents of government-sponsored embryonic stem-cell research "say the embryos involved would be discarded anyway."

While using only existing embryos may seem to be a good place to draw the line, I fail to see how this will guarantee that the federal government does not cause new life to be created for the purpose of destruction.

Here's what I don't get (and I feel like I've blogged about this before, but I'm not quite sure and I'm too lazy to troll through my archives): if you are opposed to research on embryos, because you believe that embryos are people too, how can you possibly be ok with anyone doing the research? How can you justify voting no on this bill because if the government doesn't support the research, private corporations will surely take care of it? This reasoning is simply specious.

I feel the same way about exceptions to rape and incest in anti-abortion laws (this is what I feel like I've blogged about already, though now that I think about it, I may just have commented about it on someone else's blog): if you think abortion is killing a baby, then it is killing a baby no matter how that baby came into being, and you should be against it no matter what. Stick to your guns, as it were.

Killing is serious business. I'm against it--I won't say no matter what, because, yes, if I was alone in a room with Hitler and a gun in 1933, knowing what we all know now, I might very well kill him. Still, I'm all for anyone who opposes killing people. This is why I am against capital punishment, and I want my wars to be pretty damn justified.

One of the many reasons I support abortion rights is because I do not believe that having an abortion is killing a person. I believe that actual people are more important than potential people, so I strongly support stem cell research. I think it's great when an infertile couple can have a baby using someone else's frozen embryo, but I don't believe those eight cells are a baby, snowflake or otherwise, and I don't think that adoption is the right term for what that couple is doing.

I have a great deal of respect for the seamless garment people, like the activists at Sojourner. They believe in protecting life in all forms: they are against abortion, capital punishment, war, and poverty. I don't agree with some of their positions, but, like I said, I respect them, and I prefer to respect my opponents.