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War and EmbryosBush's faulty logic about stem-cell research.

By Michael Kinsley
Updated Friday, Sept. 29, 2006, at 9:06 AM ET

It was, I believe, Rep. Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who first made the excellent, bitter, and terribly unfair joke about Ronald Reagan: that he believed in a right to life that begins at conception and ends at birth. This joke has been adapted for use against various Republican politicians ever since. In the case of President George W. Bush, though, it appears to be literally true.

Bush, as we know, believes deeply and earnestly that human life begins at conception. Even tiny embryos composed of half a dozen microscopic cells, he thinks, have the same right to life as you and I. That is why he cannot bring himself to allow federal funding for new stem-cell research, or even for other projects in labs where stem-cell research is going on. Even though these embryos are obtained from fertility clinics where they would otherwise be destroyed anyway, and even though he appears to have no objection to the fertility clinics themselves, where these same embryos are manufactured and destroyed by the thousands, the much smaller number of embryos needed and destroyed in the process of developing cures for diseases like Parkinson's are, in effect, tiny little children whose use in this way constitutes killing a human being and therefore is intolerable.

But President Bush does not believe that the deaths of all little children as a result of U.S. policy are, in effect, murder. He thinks that some are, while very unfortunate, also inevitable and essential.

You know who I mean. Close to 50,000 Iraqi civilians have died so far as a direct result of our invasion and occupation of their country, in order to liberate them. The numbers are actually increasing as the country slides into chaos: more than 6,500 in July and August alone. These numbers are from reliable sources and are not seriously contested. They include many who were tortured and then killed, along with others blown up less personally by car bombs and suicide bombers. The number does not include the hundreds of thousands who have died prematurely as a result of a decade and a half of war and embargos imposed on the Iraqi economy. Nor does it include soldiers on both sides, most of whom are innocent, too. Last week the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan surpassed the number of people who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush is right, of course, that the inevitable loss of innocent life in wartime cannot be a reason not to go to war, or a reason not to fight that war in a way intended to win. Eggs, omelettes, and all that. "Collateral damage" should be a consideration weighed in the balance, of course. But there is no formula to determine when you have the balance right. It does seem to me that both of our wars in Iraq were started and conducted with insufficient consideration for the cost in innocent blood. Callousness, naiveté, isolation of the decision makers from democratic accountability, and isolation of the citizenry from the consequences, or even the awareness, of what is being done in their name—all have played a role. I don't see anything coming out of this war that is worth 50,000 innocent lives, although a case can be made, I guess.

But it is hard—indeed, I would say it is impossible—to reconcile Bush's absolutism over alleged human life when it is a clump of unknowing, unfeeling cells with his sophisticated, if not cavalier, attitude toward the loss of innocent human life when it is children and adults in Iraq.

In all discussions weighing the cost of something-or-other in terms of human life, a philosopher pops up at this point and says that the crucial difference is a matter of intentions. Terrorists purposely target innocent civilians. We try hard not to kill innocent civilians, even if we know it can't be avoided. They're worse, even if our score is sadly higher.

But are stem cells any different? Stem-cell researchers don't want to kill embryos. They know that the deaths of embryos are a consequence of what they do, and they think that curing terrible diseases is worth it—just as President Bush thinks that bringing democracy to Iraq is worth it. In the case of stem cells, there is the added element that the embryos in question will be killed (or pointlessly frozen indefinitely) anyway if they are not used for research. And—oh, yes—there is still the question of whether a clump of a half-dozen cells you can't see without a microscope is actually a human being in the same sense as a 6-year-old girl blown up as she skips off to kindergarten in Baghdad.

A commander in chief who must face life-or-death questions like these deserves a bit of sympathy. I would sympathize a bit more with President Bush if his answers weren't so preening and struggle-free. It is very wonderful to be so morally pure that you won't allow a single embryo to be destroyed in the quest for medical cures that could save lives by the thousands. You are way beyond Gandhi, sweeping the path ahead to avoid stepping on an insect: Insects have more human characteristics than a six-cell embryo.

And regarding Iraq, you are quite the man—aren't you?—"making the tough decisions." A regular Harry Truman, consigning thousands to death in order to bring democracy and freedom and peace to millions. But Truman actually produced democracy and freedom and peace, whereas you want credit for your hopes. That's not how it works. If you want to be the hard-ass, you get judged by results. And you can't be Gandhi and Truman at the same time.

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Michael Kinsley is a columnist for Time and the founding editor of Slate.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Kinsley's accurate and stark assessment of Bush's false morality is stunning. This is a huge issue for all politicians but especially those aligned with the religious right (or wrong, as the case usually is): they use morality as a tool, not as a guidepost for life. They use it when they feel it would benefit them at the polls but completely forget what it is when it comes down to a scenario that involves American power and supremacy or economic dominance. Morality and ethics are punchlines for these people, not ways of being and living. So, sometimes morality is for wimps but at other times, only real men are moral. WWJD? indeed.

--themusicman

(To reply, click here.)

Stem cell researchers want lots of credit for their hopes - and it isn't even a 'destroy hundreds, cure millions' calculus. Honest stem cell researchers suggest that it might take screening of many embryos created specifically for each patient to find a good chromosomal match.

This then is the hope of many stem cell researchers - that the research that consumes the unborn will lead to cures - which will likely consume many more unborn. The certainty of a cure is non-existent, and many of these cures may only prolong life a little while for the seriously ill and elderly. The old eating the young, as it were, like some twisted vampiric emperor of old consuming hundreds of children in the quest for eternal life.

We should be honest about the hopes and chances that result from stem cell research and from war. Both are usually bad bets, but the hard decisions could render both of them acceptable in extremis. The charge that Bush resorted to war a bit early has always been something to be argued, not trivially dismissed nor trivially accepted. That stem cell researchers are doing their work 'in extremis' is clearly not the case. They are not battling an emerging infectious disease, nor something that somehow threatens to extinguish civilization. And they want us to fund them based on their own hopes for glory, at any cost.

--BenK

(To reply, click here.)

Mr. Kinsley thinks insects have more human characteristics than an embryo. How terribly unscientific and un-elitist of him.. Embryos and older humans look remarkably similar when you look at their 46 chromosomes, insects clearly do not. On a macroscopic level, embryos don't look a lot like 6 month old infants, but neither does a 30 year old who has been in a terrible accident or a 99 year old man. Despite this, they are all still human and alive.

--mmmm1

(To reply, click here.)

People have a natural tendency to get jealous when persons other than themselves are having casual sex. This predilection has allowed the No Casual Sex religious law to stay on the books while other regressive moral stances of olde time religion have died out.

Because casual sex is wrong, using contraception, hpv vaccines, morning after pills, and abortion are also wrong. Because abortion is wrong, killing embryos is wrong. Because killing embryos is wrong, stem cell research is wrong.

Heres an example of how ass-backwards some of the logic is. Here in Wisconsin, some people were protesting against University Health Services offering free condoms. One woman said that she was protesting because "sex should have consequences". I guess one consequence of sex is that we don't get cures from stem cell research.

--Mubic_P

(To reply, click here.)

(10/2)

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