Religious backwardness trumps science as Bush vetoes stem cell bill

In rejecting the bill, Bush repeated his “ethical” concerns with stem cell research. In a statement from the White House, Bush declared, “America is also a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred. And our conscience calls on us to pursue the possibilities of science in a manner that respects human dignity and upholds our moral values.”

He insisted that embryonic stem cells are “created as the result of destruction of human life,” and that “destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.”

The administration’s statements not only display a complete contempt for democratic rights—holding that the president has the right to determine what “our Nation” will support based on his own medieval religious conceptions—they also involve a deliberate promotion of ignorance and backwardness.

Embryonic stem cell research, a relatively new field of medical science, involves the extraction of stem cells from a fertilized egg that has just begun the development process. At that stage, the embryo—or, more accurately, the pre-embryo or blastocyst—consists of a handful of undifferentiated cells. The research is critical because the cells have the capacity to develop into any other cell type (that is, they are “pluripotent”). Scientists hope to develop technologies that could, for example, regenerate nerve tissue for patients suffering form Alzheimer’s disease.

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