The Wrong Legacy: A Cause Reagan Wouldn’t Have Supported (Draft executive order proves it)

BreakPoint with Charles Colson ^ | June 16, 2004 | Charles Colson

[NYer]

embryonic stem-cell research requires creating a human embryo and killing it.

Neither Reagan nor Bush were/are Catholic; however, both had a far greater understanding and respect for the Catholic teachings on when life begins. It would be a great disservice to both presidents, to override that moratorium, using Reagan to justify the killing of a child for purposes of extending the life of an alzheymer's victim.

RIGHT TO LIFE 2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person -- among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
Catechism Catholic Church

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[Reagan Man]

Michael Reagan is a staunch conservative talkshow host.

Maybe you meant Ronald Prescott Reagan.

[Reagan Man]

From "Abortion and the Conscience of A Nation", by President Ronald Reagan.

"... we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."

[Republican Wildcat]

Mike is openly a liberal.

Nope...that's Ron. Mike has a conservative radio talk show.

[TOUGH STOUGH]

As long as people understand they have no right, nor does the government have a right, to foist redemptive suffering upon one another.

Yes, you are correct. Nancy does not seem to understand the concept of redemptive suffering.

[StriperSniper]

The revision of history is much harder today. :)

[Blood of Tyrants]

I woukd rather die from some disease than live because someone sacrificed an unborn child to cure me.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

It's hard to imagine a more grotesque use of the Reagan legacy than calling to slaughter embryonic human beings for medical research. Nancy has lost her marbles.

[VOA]

bump

[VOA]

recommended reading for all:

http://www.nationalreview.com/document/reagan200406101030.asp

[Mr. Silverback]

Nancy has lost her marbles.

No, she's just in a lot of pain, and may not have been a committed pro-lifer in the first place. I wish this was happening because of insanity.

[Mr. Silverback]

Ditto.

[Reagan Man]

Check out this. More good stuff about Reagan. The Real Reagan Record: National Review August.31,1992. I've got my original copy in a plastic sleeve. Was reading it the other day for the first time in years.

[Mo1]

But they ought to argue their case on its merits—what few merits it has—and not enlist in their cause the name of Ronald Reagan, who stood foursquare against the exploitation and destruction of human life in any stage

They can't argue on the merit because it doesn't promote abortion and that is what they really care about

[RobbyS]

Too many in the public believe that stem cell research will hold all the answers to man's ills. Grant hungry scientists are making promises that stem cells likely won't be able to deliver. You see, we don't know how stems cell WORK yet, let alone how to make them into these wondrous silver bullets we have been promised. We are years away from knowing whether or not we can even use them without mutation dangers. Until then, the scientists will yell "We need more lines! (and funding)" ad nauseum.

They know that if the government dos not provide them with seed money the private sectors will not, because the private sector will not fund projects that are purely speculative.

[foreverfree]

The Dayton Daily News ran a 'toon by Mike Peters that had Nancy saying "Mr. President [Bush], tear down this [stem cell] wall!" If stem cell research weren't so gruesome and monkeying with the sanctity of life, Peters' 'toon might have been funny. (I saw it reproduced in the Pocono Record of 6/14/04.)

Praise God and the Gipper.

foreverfree

[MHGinTN]

Just an additional though my friend: when someone uses the 'acorns are not oak trees' argument to support killing embryos for their body parts, the answer is "Oh, but acorns ARE already oaks, just not the later form of oak, just as a toddler is not an adult human being'" Being a member of the species does not rest upon some stage or appearance. The life of the individual oak is already alive in the acorn else the acorn could not go through the lifetime stages of the oak. The individual human being is already in the fetal stem cells (and in fact in the placental stem cells and organ) at the first evidence of them, else the human being could not go through all the changes and ages of the HUMAN ORGANISM. The LIFE is in the blood, for humans, because the LIFE is already in the stem cells and continues to be in the stem cells throughout a lifetime.

[supercat]

Just an additional though my friend: when someone uses the 'acorns are not oak trees' argument to support killing embryos for their body parts, the answer is "Oh, but acorns ARE already oaks, just not the later form of oak, just as a toddler is not an adult human being'"

You talking about me?

I should perhaps clarify that I myself do not in any way, shape, or form favor the slaughter of embryos for this "stem cell research", but that does not mean that I feel conservatives' arguments are adequate.

I guess I would say that both fertilization and implantation are both major milestones in mammalian development, just as pollenation and germination are both major milestones in botanical development.

If a fertilized embryo is regarded as being the equal of an implanted and developing fetus or a fully-born child, that would imply that the duty of care required for all would be equal. But this would be absurd.

Suppose, for example, that a woman's uterine environment is such that a fertilized egg has a 50% chance of failing to implant. Would a woman be guilty of gross child endangerment if she had intercourse without taking steps to reduce that risk? From a practical standpoint, such a risk would not significantly impair the ability of an otherwise-fertile woman to have children by a highly-fertile mate. But if every embryo is sacred, the fact that half of the embryos conceived by this woman would get flushed down the toilet should be unacceptable.

Further, when dealing with "test-tube" embryos, risk-of-death versus quality-of-life issues become very bizarre and twisted. If a woman's uterine environment is such that an implanted embryo has only a 10% chance of surviving, then a decision to attempt an implantation means imposing a 90% chance of immediate death on an embryo which could otherwise survive nearly indefinitely. While imposing such a risk of death on a fully-born person would be considered unacceptable, one would hardly have to be a euthanasiaist to suggest that the "quality of live" of a frozen embryo leaves something to be desired.

What is wrong with recognizing that there is more than one qualitative major change in the path from separate gametes to birthed baby? It seems to me to just plain make sense.

[MHGinTN]

"But if every embryo is sacred, the fact that half of the embryos conceived by this woman would get flushed down the toilet should be unacceptable." I would not presume to deny that every gift of human LIFE is sacred ... to the Giver. I also would not presume to instruct The Giver of Life on His rhyme or reason for the natural processes. [Your phrasing of that comment is effectively a strawman approach.]

I am pointing to the fallacy of asserting that 'because an acorn doesn't look like an oak tree of several decades growth that such an acorn is not an oak'. It is not an oak tree, but it most certainly is an alive member of the species having within it the LIFE of the later oak tree, and that expression of the LIFE will always be there throughout the lifetime of the oak. Within the acorn is the conceived LIFE of oak. Within the dividing embryo is the LIFE of the individual member of the species to which we assign 'Human Being'.

The LIFE is in the acorn and the exact same LIFE is in the ages of that living thing as it becomes a tree. The individual human LIFE is in the living embryo and in that organism through all the ages of his or her lifetime (the LIFE is in the blood). As stem cell differentiation occurs, nothing of the expression of that individual LIFE is lost, merely the signals are turned off following the developmental stage achieved.

When researchers look at the mechanism of stem cell differentiation of multipotent adult progenitor cells, they will be seeking the same information the researcher desiring the body parts of a five day aged embryo: 'how does it happen?' But why kill an individual member of the species in order to seek this 'miracle information' when it can be achieved by using cells from older more developed individual members for whom the extraction of the LIFE in the stem cells will not kill the individual?

You posit, "If a fertilized embryo is regarded as being the equal of an implanted and developing fetus ..." The LIFE begun at conception has not changed, merely the particulars of expression occurring at each moment in the lifetime already up and running. The LIFE of an individual is the same from conception onward. Valuation of that LIFE is the stuff of philosophical debate, the vagary of assignment and utility. When an individual human being starts a lifetime, the exact same life will remain within the individual but have differing expression based on age, location, and life support necessities.

[Lexinom]

Same here.