Yesterday I was listening to “Talk of the Nation: Science Friday” with Ira Flatow who interviewed two scientists to ask how they felt now that President Obama has lifted the ban on using federal funds for stem-cell research. Notice how the NPR website characterizes the move: “President Obama loosened restrictions on stem-cell research this week and mandated that science should inform policy”. The significant distinction between what President Bush actually did and how NPR describes the lifting of the ban is instructive.
- President Bush (August 09, 2001) restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells from embryos that had already been destroyed. It was not a blanket restriction on stem cell research or even on embryonic stem cell research.
- Whereas NPR says rather blandly “President Obama loosened restrictions on stem-cell research”. The important nuances of the Bush policy are completely lost.
Both scientists Flatow interviewed were just plain ecstatic. One described being on the platform with President Obama as “electric” and characterized the Bush policy as being based on “not science but ideology”. Neither scientist even attempted to explain precisely how the Bush policy was ideological. Nor did they even attempt to explain why the Obama policy is not ideological. We are being asked to believe this is about science informing policy.
“Science informs policy”. As opposed to what?
Yes of course policy should make use of scientific “fact” (or at least well accepted theory). But does that mean ethical and moral considerations have no place? I am sure all sorts of human experimentation would advance the cause of “science”. “Well drat. That procedure did not work. The subject survived for only ten minutes. Hand me another Alzheimer’s patient. Sooner or later we will figure out how to cure this disease”. But most people recognize that just because we can do something to advance scientific understanding does not mean we ought.
So for these scientists along with President Obama to say this is about science is not quite correct. It is about redrawing the ethical lines.
President Bush along with many say “we think stem-cell research is a great thing with much promise – but there it is ethically problematic to create human embryos in order to destroy them for scientific research”.
President Obama along with many is saying “we have no ethical problems with this – creating and destroying human embryos is just fine with us”.
This is no more than taking a different ethical stance. To dress this up as “science in its rightful place… science informs policy” is pure dishonesty.
For the record – I have never had particularly strong opinions or feelings about this. What riles me up is sloppy thinking and dishonest rhetoric. What riles me up is people asking me to believe outrageous nonsense.
Charles Krauthammer continues to impress with his recent article on this. He thought the Bush policy was too strict. But he gives it the credit that President Obama along with these two scientists refuse.
On this, Obama has nothing to say. He leaves it entirely to the scientists. This is more than moral abdication. It is acquiescence to the mystique of “science” and its inherent moral benevolence. How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom.
That part of the ceremony, watched from the safe distance of my office, made me uneasy. The other part — the ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on “restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making” — would have made me walk out.
Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.
What an outrage. George Bush’s nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president.
Read the whole thing here. You do not have to register.
I am disappointed in Ira Flatow and his failure to treat the matter with the care that it deserves. Could he not have had one voice on the program to present a different perspective?
You know – I was influenced by the barrage of anti-Bush rhetoric especially those last few years. Even I was beginning to think “gosh yeah he really is a bad president although surely not the worst ever”. Although yes I still am convinced he made his share of mistakes I also am learning a strange new appreciation for the “bad president” who was far better than the one we have now.
ADDENDUM (03/14/2009): David Harsanyi disagrees with opposition to human embryonic stem cell research – but makes a similar argument. The president and others have “reignited an intellectually deceitful debate”.
