Just a Thought

Yesterday, President Obama singed an executive order which allows more embryos to be available for research and allows more taxpayer funds to be used for this.  Obama says, “And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.”  However, until the embryo is either implanted or destroyed, the process is the same.  Stem-cells are used to clone stem cells for just over a week.  Once the embryo is filled primarily with stem-cells, the embryo can be placed into a surrogate mother to bring the life to full term or the life can be terminated in order to use the stem-cells for research.

His stated reason for making the order is that this research could, “possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions.”  To Obama, the ends justify the means.  He could have been blunt and said, “if we have to kill humans at the embryonic stage to cure people, then those are acceptable losses.”  Would he have said the same for a newborn however?

Imagine six children who all had difficult diseases.  One has dual kidney failure, another’s liver is not functioning, and a third has a defective heart.  If we continue and know that a fourth has ocular degeneration, a fifth has underdeveloped lungs, and a sixth is born without a pancreas.  If a healthy seventh child is born and is a perfect match to the other six, can we kill the child and portion our her parts for transplant to save the other six?  Why not?  This is similar to embryonic stem-call research.  Could we at least take the new born and kill it to perform tests?  If not, then why is killing embryos acceptable?

Tags: Thoughts //