Posted on 12/23/2002 1:21:54 PM PST by Incorrigible
Stem cells: Give us the cures, spare us the sermon
Sunday, December 22, 2002
[Newark, NJ] -- Paul Byrne has been a political operative in Jersey City for 25 years. He is one of those guys for whom politics is both vocation and avocation. He knows everybody in Democratic politics, and everybody knows him.
Nine years ago, Byrne was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which has led to a retina condition called macular degeneration. At 57, and despite two operations on both eyes, he has lost 98 percent of his sight. But he keeps up with the news because four or five friends call and read him the newspapers.
Among the stories that came to him this way was a piece about a breakthrough in stem cell research in India that has led to the successful restoration of damaged retinas.
It left him furious. It is a fury directed at President George W. Bush, who is an opponent of embryonic stem cell research because the technique results in the destruction of embryos. Accordingly, Bush has ordered that federal funding be denied for this kind of research. And never mind that the embryos at issue are those left over from in-vitro procedures at pregnancy clinics and would be destroyed in any event.
So, freeze in perpetuity superfluous embryos created in a lab to induce birth, and you are doing the Lord's work. Destroy embryos after their stem cells are extracted in an attempt to cure people suffering from a dozen different diseases, and you are in league with Satan. Insert a recipient's DNA into a stem cell to reduce chances the body will reject it and you are paving the way for human cloning.
Last week the state Senate passed a bill that would make New Jersey the second state in the nation to legalize embryonic stem cell research. (NJ Senate Votes to Harvest Babies for body parts (My Title)) The bill is sponsored by Richard Codey, the Democratic leader in the Senate. It passed in a party-line vote with most Republicans abstaining. It passed over the objections of the Roman Catholic Church and various anti-abortion allies. The Codey legislation may be altered a tad but Gov. James E. McGreevey is a supporter and it is going to become law.
Not surprisingly, Paul Byrne is an enthusiastic supporter of the Codey bill. It may help him see again. He believes it's good science and good politics in a state chockablock in pharmaceutical research firms.
Of the opponents, he says, "They are the very people who believed in miracles, yet they would deny me my miracle." And they are hard at work.
Joan Quigley is a Democratic assemblywoman from Hudson County. She is being flooded with form letters informing her that the Codey bill "is not part of God's plan."
"I tell them that it's more important that God help those to whom he's already given life," Quigley says.
For years now, I've been reading about the promise of stem cells as a cure for a bunch of diseases. Parkinson's disease as often as not heads up the list. This interests me because I've had Parkinson's disease for about six years now. I'm not complaining. If you have to get a heretofore incurable, degenerative disease, this one is not the worst. Still, it hasn't been much fun and it's nice to know there's a potential cure out there.
So I could do without President Bush playing politics with my future by buying into the religious right's contention that it knows what God is thinking and God believes the destruction of embryos in course of research isn't much different than killing babies.
As for the Catholic Church, if the bishops want to take the position they know the mind of God on the question of embryonic research, so be it. But they might want to think about confining their efforts to people who still put stock in what they have to say. Their moralizing rings a little hollow these days.
Let God and me handle this. If the bishops don't mind, I'd like the opportunity to be treated if and when the researchers come up with the right technique.
And I'm willing to take my chances that God won't make me out to be a mass murderer.
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