Morally Unserious in the Extreme (Charles Krauthammer)

Real Clear Politics ^ | 3-13-09 | Charles Krauthammer

[STARWISE]

Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics.

[donmeaker]

It bothers you that Chuck was right?

McCain ran his whole campaign like a concession speech.

Palin pulled him into contention for a while, until McCainiacs undermined her.

[TalBlack]

“I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix.”

Mr. Krauthammer is not religious but he apparently can't stomach the implications of being so.

A corpse is given respectful treatment because it is the earthly remains of a Human Being. It represents all that is left upon this earth of a Life granted by God. There is no reason a ‘thing’, a collection of cells, that has in Mr. Krauthammers view no ‘person hood’ should be accorded treatment any different than an excised tumor. None. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. One would think that a guy in a wheelchair with a name like 'Krauthammer' would be aware of the danger of leaving the authority for conferring 'person hood' to men.

[Cyber Ninja]

I like reading Charles Krauthammer, but

don't over think it

egg + sperm = fully complete human

just wait, and you'll see...

[Cyber Ninja]

[TMA62]

“Proponents Federal funding for research on new fetal stem cell strains really want to promote unrestricted abortion.......”
__________________________________________________________

I think you are correct that it really is about abortion. Abortion is a very lucrative and profitable industry. Embryonic stem cell research, which has shown NO results for medicine, will only open the gates more and more for abortion.

Millions and millions and MILLIONS have been murdered as a result of abortion and their blood will not go un-avenged.

[kindred]

The whole argument of allowing embryonic stem cell research for science and healing is a lie much like evolution and global warming. The only reason dems want stem cell research is to propagate the evil sin of abortion, a hate filled act of the ignorant mind of those who live in darkness and is worse than slavery, which cost over 400,000 American citizens to go to their death.
Abortion is no less a sin then slavery and is the murder of young children now funded by taxpayers money.
Sin always brings death and judgment of God upon those who hate his right ways.

[Stosh]

My take on K-Hammer: he’s one of the sharpest knifes in the conservative toolbox, and he’s reliably incisive when it comes to issues with little or no moral component. And he’s not too bad on a lot of those which have a signficant moral component.

But because he has no religious beliefs, on those issues which have a strong moral dimension (such as abortion), like most humanists, his views reflect an ethical foundation built on sand. A belief in a higher power isn’t essential to view things like abortion as an insult to human dignity (pro-lifers don’t come any stronger than the atheist Nat Henthof), but it is a lot tougher to come to that position absent the ethical grounding of theistic belief system.

But I do respect him more than just about any humanist going because he’s so intellectually honest - I think that’s what really honks him off about Obama. In addition, unlike most humanists, he has a real respect for religiously-based viewpoints he disagrees with, provided they’re expressed in an intelligent and non-doctrinaire fashion. Try to dig up some of his other impressions of his work on Bush’s ethics commission - he’s uniformly fair and respectful of all reasonable views, and (again) very complementry of Bush’s wisdom in these matters.

[yazoo]

“I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix.”

Damn, this statement, from a man I respect, really is troubling. If personhood or whatever he calls being a human being does not begin at conception he needs to offer an opinion on when it does begin. This is the quandary all pro abortionists are required to answer if they are going to defend abortion. And, if life does not begin at conception then the embryo does not deserve any more respect than a hangnail or an appendix. After all, if it is not a person, it is just a glob of tissue, much like an appendix and deserves no rights.

[aruanan]

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix.

Sorry, Chuck, personhood is not "conferred," it is inherent.

[KoRn]

"Hydroponic gardening as an industry is doing well here in SE Ohio."

Growing Marijuana in a hydroponic garden under lights is the best way to do it. You can fully customize the plants, and they are far more potent.

[SunkenCiv]

Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research
Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It
CNS News | March 13, 2009 | Terence P. Jeffrey
Posted on 03/13/2009 8:12:20 PM PDT by Between the Lines
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2206305/posts

[snip] On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.” [end]

[GVnana]

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.

Not really, Charles. History tells us that doctors can be great fascist lapdogs.

[Twotone]

“Then why is no private money interested in funding and patenting the research?”

From what I’ve read, the whole issue is that there would be no way to reliably ‘patent’ anything. Consequently, it’s not worth the investment of time & money for a private corporation to do this research.

[mojitojoe]

“I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research — a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.”
_________________
This is so disgusting .... I have no words. We have a deranged Communist beast in the WH.

[wardaddy]

Abortion as a cruel human practice exponentially dwarfs slavery in it’s evil...particularly when compared to the North American trade.

The numbers involved alone are proof enough.

Not to mention economics and religious and social mores generally forbid murdering one’s slave at least in the US.

Abortion has murdered more human beings worldwide than anything in history including war....and all in just a few decades.

[slowhandluke]

From what I’ve read, the whole issue is that there would be no way to reliably ‘patent’ anything. Consequently, it’s not worth the investment of time & money for a private corporation to do this research.

I doubt that's true, since companies are investing time and money into adult stem cell research.

What I read was that fetal stem cell lines are harder to control in the lab and go cancerous more often than the adult stem cells. Which should be reason enough to avoid them altogether.

[wardaddy]

Krathhammer used to write for the New Republic just like Barnes and Kondracker and O’Rourke.

many folks here don’t know that and think his hawkish views on Israel make him conservative

far from it.

he’s also somewhat pro-gun control

it amazes me how little some freepers keep up...folks who should know better

[willgolfforfood]

I think the old term for this is “hydroponic gardening”.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Being an atheist does not exclude one from being consistently pro-life; on the contrary, there some splendidly effective prolife atheists out there. Other than Nat Hentoff, who is my secret sweetie (!), my favorite is the brilliant Doris Gordon, of Libertarians for life, who provides this info. online:

Name: Doris Gordon
Location: Wheaton, MD, USA
Email: libertarian@erols.com
URL: http://www.L4L.org/
Nontheist position: The closest label for me on your list seems to be nontheist. I see no ~reason~ to accept the idea of God.
Pro-life position: [Please refer to Doris Gordon's Pro-life Position in Brief in the AAPL Library --Webmaster]
Political affiliation/orientation: Libertarian
Party/Libertarian

They have an intellectually delicious website at
http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html

Incidentally, the Catholic Church argues that the prolife ethic is part of Natural Law --- meaning, not "that which exists in a state of nature," but "that which is knowable via natural reason, without adverting to supernatural revelation."

[adorno]

Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells, said "if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough." Obama clearly has not.

Obama clearly knows what he is doing. He clearly knows the immorality of embryonic stem cell research. And he clearly knows, as do most democrats, that abortion is the murdering of a human life.

Why strain to excuse and confuse the issue, Mr Krauthammer? It is very clear that everything that Obama has undertaken to do has been what they could not do in the last 8 years. It is clear that they will use any excuse and any crisis to pursue what most thinking people would not under "normal" circumstances.