THE BUSH Administration may be trigger happy in its foreign policy, but it cravenly shrinks away from scientific progress.
On July 19, President George W. Bush exercised his first presidential veto to reject greater federal funding of stem cell research. This veto further cements the Bush administration's legacy as an overzealous agent of inertia against scientific progress. His veto may have been seen as wise, if it were framed as a matter of limited government and a hesitancy to expand federal influence in science. However, Bush's clouded reasoning for the veto will prove disastrous for Republicans in upcoming elections unless they distance themselves far, far away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Upon examining Bush's policy, his absurd moral inconsistency is laid bare. In 2001, President Bush announced that the federal government would only finance the study of stem cell lines created before August 9, the date of the speech. If Bush truly felt morally opposed to the "killing" of embryos, should not he object to federal financing of stem cell research at any time? It's like a pastor preaching that a good person should not steal, except on Fridays. Moral objections should not exist only some of the time.
Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, explained that Bush planned to veto the bill because he did not want to "get on the slippery slope of taking something that is living and making it dead for the purpose of research." First of all, Bush is not the arbiter of when human life begins, and very few people believe it begins this early, before the cell has any beginnings of human characteristics. Secondly, Snow's slippery slope argument is extremely weak. It is not like Congress is drafting a bill to killing children to fund research. This sort of reasoning is callous and disrespectful toward the scientific community.
Maybe Bush and his loyal (read: lackey) administration officials distrust the science community because not one stem cell researcher has backed up the White House policy. The administration argues that adult stem cells can be just as useful, but people with Ph.D.s in science strongly disagree. According to the American Medical Association's website, experimentation with adult stem cells is difficult because of the arduous complexity of growing and differentiating these cells under lab conditions. Basically, it's hard to set back time. Embryonic stem cells offer a chance to experiment at the very beginning.
Perhaps Bush is more moral than the rest of us, but many Americans, including the 51 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to override the veto, don't see an entity smaller than the period at the end of this sentence as a life or death moral issue. They only see Christopher Reeves, Michael J. Fox and their grandparents handicapped by Alzheimer's. Real, life-size people suffering from diseases that could be cured one day by the hard work of scientists and through enviable, God-given intelligence.
These Congressmen also see voters.
The Bush administration apparently calculated that a veto was necessary in order to satisfy social conservatives. But the 2006 and 2008 elections may find Mr. Bush's base quietly leaving the fold and voting for more moderate people. Midwestern conservatives may have voted for Bush in a backlash to a debauched culture where gay people want to be married and city slickers want the option to get a late-term abortion. But chances are, many of these people didn't know anyone who was gay or anyone who faced the dreadful decision on whether or not to keep a baby. However, even God-fearing folk have chikdren suffering from diabetes or grandparents with Alzheimer's.
Bush made a disastrous political miscalculation with this veto because he tried to make one too many issues moral. Most people, including social conservatives, do not have deep-seated beliefs about stem cell lines. Far-right conservatives don't seem to understand that stem cell research can save lives, not destroy them. It is political suicide to stand in the way of inevitability. Stem cell research is going to continue and expand because humans have an insatiable thirst to solve the problems of mortality. So this veto only plays into the hands of Democrats as more moderates grow weary of self-righteous rhetoric. Democrats need to explain to socially conservative people that stem cell research is not about playing God -- it is about fulfilling man's intellectual potential given to him by God.
Marta Cook is a Cavalier Daily Opinion columnist. She can be reached at mcook@cavalierdaily.com.
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