one giant leap for stem cells...

(it is my preference to stay away from politics in this blog -- it's too easy to get sucked into that whole milieu. but this is important, and, in a way, relevant to throckmorton's original subject matter, so i'm bending my own rules a bit...)

senate majority leader bill frist has decided to support federal funding of stem cell research, saying "It's not just a matter of faith, it's a matter of science." this is very good news.

the whole stem cell debate is so amazing to me. bush's stance, placing stem cell research under the (propagandist?) umbrella of pro-life issues, is just dumb. (this is the point where i refer to some death penalty statistics, and encourage that folks take note of the number of executions in the former governor bush's home state of texas.) stem cells, friends, are not babies. i don't care where you weigh in on the pro-choice/pro-life debate (in case there was any doubt, i'm gung ho pro-choice) we're talking apples and oranges, here; blastocysts and fetuses.

stem cell research is not nearly as relevant for multiple sclerosis as it is for alzheimer's or parkinson's or spinal cord injuries, but it seems obvious to me that if we have the ability and the resources to do something that has the potential to make a real and positive difference in people's lives, we have a duty, a responsibility to do all that we can to carry that out. it's just plain foolish to try to inject morality into the issue.

i take a really hard line on morality and the law, and that line is this -- under no circumstances should morality alone be a justification for law. the law, as i see it, does not exist to dictate how people view right and wrong. the law exists to preserve order, to protect individual rights, to promote efficient societal systems. law should be as objective as possible. law should not play favorites. once we start throwing around terms like "morals" and "values" to explain why the world works the way it does, we run a serious risk of squelching the freedoms that we claim to uphold. that just ain't right.

so, three cheers for stem cell research!