Should public money fund controvercial research?
Stop asking questions and fork it over.
When a new buzzword enters the lexicon of news anchors, go long on it costing taxpayers a fortune as soon as lobbyists figure out how to use it to pan for gold in legislatures across the country. If there is moral opposition involved, it’s a safe bet that those opposed will be marginalized, painted as Neo-Luddites, and have their serious moral reservations offhandedly dismissed. The current debate over public funding of stem cell research is a good example.
Blocked at the federal level, supporters of embryonic stem cell research are taking their tin cup to the states. Maryland is currently embroiled in stem cell fever. Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has proposed 20 million dollars of state funding. The state’s Democrats think this would be a better idea if Ehrlich was not a Republican and therefore evil incarnate. The state’s Republicans would rather not have to fight over this but they do have that conservative base that elected them.
Enter Susan O'Brien, executive director of Maryland Families for Stem Cell Research, a bright articulate woman that can make up a straw man argument and knock it down in a single breath. While she is waxing eloquent about the benefits of stem cell research and waltzing around those silly moral arguments, I wonder how much Maryland Families for Stem Cell Research is contributing to stem cell research.
Apparently nothing. It seems MFFSCR is in the business of educating the unwashed about the joy of stem cell research so we will demand that our government give money to biotech companies. I find this interesting as there is a contribute link right there on the home page. See this is where I get confused. It would seem to me that if stem cell research were really the answer to curing disease it might be a better idea to give money to people that are actually performing stem cell research.
My favorite argument from Ms O’Brien is that anyone that allowed the practice of in vitro fertilization (which creates more embryos than are used) has to be for embryonic stem cell research otherwise these embryos will just be destroyed for no good reason when they are no longer needed.
So let me paraphrase for those that don’t speak nonsense. Because you did nothing to stop a group of people, unknown to you and beyond your control, that elected to participate in a medical procedure with their own money that created embryos that are not your responsibility, you must now disregard you belief in the sanctity of life and let these embryos be destroyed for medical research. You got give her credit. She made it sound plausible on the radio.
The maddening aspect was the abject distain Ms O’Brien seems to hold for any moral argument against this research. Anyone opposed to her opinion on the value of potential life was simply dismissed. How can a person be trusted to respect life when they cannot even acknowledge the values of others?
Lets just call Maryland Families for Stem Cell Research what it is: a lobbying group for the Maryland biomedical industry that wants tax dollars for research because it is easier than raising money in the private sector. My advise is cut the phony tug on the heartstrings routine and lobby for securities reform that would allow more neophyte investors to put money into highly speculative ventures like stem cell research.
There are two moral issues here. The first has to do with life and respect for those with different perceptions of it. The second is the taking of money at gunpoint and using it for means reprehensible to the person robbed.
I have not made up my mind on embryonic stem cell research. The promises that are held out seem too good to be true. The justification for heading down this slippery slope could lead to places I’d rather not contemplate. It is this situational ethics that bothers me and prevents me from going along.
The use of public money for such a controversial endeavor truly disgusts me. There is plenty of venture capital to do this research. If all of the money poured into lobbying was used for research there might be results that would justify more investment. Maybe Maryland Families for Stem Cell Research should raise money for people that actually do research.