Bush vetoes stem cell research

Politics International Politics
1

Do you think Bush made the right decision in vetoing the stem cell research bill?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Bush yesterday vetoed (his first veto) a bill funding stem cell research. Bush said the moral line shall not be crossed by using human embryos to find cures for diseases being suffered by living patients. Opponents of the veto argue that stem cell research, (which has already cured some recipients of the research), is crucial to advancing studies into possible cures for diseases like cancer and diabetes, or disorders like paralysis.

Supporters of the veto point out that the embryos would have to be destroyed during the research process, and that equates to the taking of a human life.

Most Americans polled yesterday said the president made the wrong decision. But what do you think?

2

George W. Bush IS a stem cell in the sense that he is not yet a fully formed human being with cognitive faculties. That he made the wrong decision is hardly surprising; it’s what he/it is good at.

BroonAbortion

3

And some people wonder why I am a fierce opponent of Bush and the Republican party. This is one of the primary reasons.

4

Oh I think that you were anti-Bush long before this decision ever came up. Guess what? stem-cell research funding is ongoing. Bush only vetoed federal funding for the research. Private research institutes and private companies are still funding this. I think this is just yet another “excuse” for you to “justify” your “preconceived” ideas about what Bush and the Republican party stand for.

I am all for stem-cell research but I understand why Bush vetoed this. He is responsible to his supporters and they do not support this. This, however, does not equate with no funding for stem-cell research or a law to strike down or make illegal any funding (private) into this field.

After all, how many Democrats vote in lockstep with their supporters for the same failed social policies again and again and again, specifically blocking welfare reform despite its huge success, blocking vouchers despite their huge appeal among the people who need them most, etc.

5

Obviously this didn’t work either… :loco:

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[quote=“fred smith”]I am all for stem-cell research but I understand why Bush vetoed this. He is responsible to his supporters and they do not support this.
[/quote]

It’s not my country so I don’t have much relevant to say on the funding of stem cell research in the US but I am curious if this is this how other people now see the president’s role? Being responsible, having to answer, only to his supporters?

7

Let me add that I also think he believes that this is the right decision. I disagree but I have no problem with the veto.

8

How strange one becomes when they get older. I’m not for it. As much as I disagree with the Catholic Church’s stances on certain issues, I truly believe in a life is at the moment of conception. Now, I wouldn’t support federal funding. Private is another matter. Should two adults want to enter this matter using their own money then all for them. But to use my tax dollars. Nope.

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Oh I think that you were anti-Bush long before this decision ever came up. [/quote]

It’s Bush’s position on the stem-cell and abortion debates that’s one of the primary reasons that made me anti-Bush from the very start. He made it clear during his campaigns in 1999 and 2000. His father held the same views and actually banned stem cell research, a ban that Clinton lifted immediately after his inauguration in 1992.

Clinton: :notworthy:
Bush: :raspberry:

There are many reasons I oppose the GOP, but at the very top of my list is reproductive freedom (and matters connected to it, like stem-cell research). The positions of the parties are clear and widely known: the GOP wants to take away that freedom; the Democrats want to safeguard it. I vote for candidates and parties who safeguard this most precious of freedoms.

10

Privately funded stem cell is research is not restricted.

And then there’s this:

[quote]Schwarzenegger gives $150 million loan to stem cell agency
By LAURA KURTZMAN, The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO

A day after President Bush vetoed a measure that would have expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday authorized a $150 million loan to fund the state’s moribund stem cell institute, which has been stalled by lawsuits.

The move has distinct political benefits for the governor who is seeking to put as much distance as possible between himself and the deeply unpopular president as he seeks re-election this year.

Schwarzenegger said the state cannot afford to wait to fund the critical science associated with stem cells.

“I remain committed to advancing stem cell research in California, in the promise it holds for millions of our citizens who suffer from chronic diseases and injuries that could be helped as a result of stem cell research,” Schwarzenegger said in a letter to his finance director authorizing the loan.

Lawyers with ties to anti-abortion and anti-tax groups have sued, arguing that the state’s stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is unconstitutional. Voters created the agency in 2004 when they passed Proposition 71, which authorized $3 billion in bonds to be sold to fund 10 years of research that the federal government will not fund.

On April 21, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled the institute was a legitimate state agency. But if opponents continue to contest the agency in court, they could hold up the institute’s financing until at least next year.

Published: Thursday, July 20, 2006 11:37 PDT
pe.com/ap_news/California2/C … 37CA.shtml[/quote]

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Yes, but government funding would bring faster progress, paying off in the long run by finding cures to expesnive diseases.

12

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Privately funded stem cell is research is not restricted.

And then there’s this:

[quote]Schwarzenegger gives $150 million loan to stem cell agency
By LAURA KURTZMAN, The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO

A day after President Bush vetoed a measure that would have expanded federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday authorized a $150 million loan to fund the state’s moribund stem cell institute, which has been stalled by lawsuits.

The move has distinct political benefits for the governor who is seeking to put as much distance as possible between himself and the deeply unpopular president as he seeks re-election this year.

Schwarzenegger said the state cannot afford to wait to fund the critical science associated with stem cells.

“I remain committed to advancing stem cell research in California, in the promise it holds for millions of our citizens who suffer from chronic diseases and injuries that could be helped as a result of stem cell research,” Schwarzenegger said in a letter to his finance director authorizing the loan.

Lawyers with ties to anti-abortion and anti-tax groups have sued, arguing that the state’s stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is unconstitutional. Voters created the agency in 2004 when they passed Proposition 71, which authorized $3 billion in bonds to be sold to fund 10 years of research that the federal government will not fund.

On April 21, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled the institute was a legitimate state agency. But if opponents continue to contest the agency in court, they could hold up the institute’s financing until at least next year.

Published: Thursday, July 20, 2006 11:37 PDT
pe.com/ap_news/California2/C … 37CA.shtml[/quote][/quote]

Yea he’s gonna need it in a few years after all those steroids he took in the 70’s.

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Things seem to be working OK for Arnie…a 2003 pic of his family.

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Things seem to be working OK for Arnie…a 2003 pic of his family.

[/quote]

This is why I read the Star Magazine. You get the “Truth”

15

washingtonpost.com/

Let’s see if I got this straight- embryonic stem cell research involves the taking of innocent human life, so Bush has banned Federal gov’t funds, but will allow state and private groups to continue to…take innocent human life!!!

So if it turned out that some hospital was chopping up abandoned new-born babies for research, Bush would take the moral high-ground and stop Federal funding, but if Arnie wants to dump 150 million into it, that’s cool?

16

Bush’s position on this is simply so ridden with contradictions that with anyone else you’d just assume they were a lying sleaze-bag trying to game a bunch of Fundie rubes.

However, I’m willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s simply too stupid to understand it.

If this is the wanton taking of innocent human life, as the Prez assures everyone he believes, then he should ban it- or at least try to get a ban through Congress. Simply halting Federal funding while allowing the practise to continue is a little inconsistent with that moral boundary, if those are little snowflake babies.

And the greater hypocrisy is of course that these unwanted blastocysts are necessarily produced during the course of artificial insemination. Even totally banning their use in research will not save them. As of 2002 there were 400,000 embryos frozen. Some will be used for women who want a second child (or whose first pregnancy was unsuccessful) ; the vast majority are destined to be discarded.

Bush was on stage with a handful of babies who had been implanted into women who could not otherwise conceive-are there half a million women in the US willing to bear someone else’s child? Even if there were, most couples who have undergone fertility treatment are unwilling to pass out their fertilised eggs to strangers.

The only consistent approach here if you believe life begins at conception is to either

a)condemn pregnancy implants altogether.
b)only allow one at a time to be created (impossible with our levels of technology) or
c) insist that wombs be made available for all embryos created.

The political problem is of course that fertility treatments are very popular, and no-one (in national office at least) is going to come out against it.

So Bush is either a hypocrite seeking political advantage while allowing babies to be killed, or someone who is too dumb to understand- we present, you decide.

17

[quote=“MikeN”]
If this is the wanton taking of innocent human life, as the Prez assures everyone he believes, then he should ban it- or at least try to get a ban through Congress. Simply halting Federal funding while allowing the practise to continue is a little inconsistent with that moral boundary, if those are little snowflake babies.[/quote] No,IMO I don’t think it’s a little inconsistent with moral boundaries. To me like what my parents said “While you’re living under my roof you have to abide by the rules, in your own house you can do as you please.” :smiley: I believe BUSHgasp is trying to allow people to have the freedom of choice in this matter but not involve the government. That’s my interpretation of it.

[quote]And the greater hypocrisy is of course that these unwanted blastocysts are necessarily produced during the course of artificial insemination. Even totally banning their use in research will not save them. As of 2002 there were 400,000 embryos frozen. Some will be used for women who want a second child (or whose first pregnancy was unsuccessful) ; the vast majority are destined to be discarded.[/quote] But that still makes it right to science to futz around in the relm of God? Women discard eggs every month, so what’s your point?

18

[quote=“Namahottie”]
No,IMO I don’t think it’s a little inconsistent with moral boundaries. To me like what my parents said “While you’re living under my roof you have to abide by the rules, in your own house you can do as you please.” :smiley: I believe BUSHgasp is trying to allow people to have the freedom of choice in this matter but not involve the government. That’s my interpretation of it.[/quote]

Your parents told you it was okay to chop up babies if you were living in your own house?:eek:

So Bush is allowing people to have the freedom of choice in the matter of “taking of innocent human life”.

The eggs discarded by reproduction clinics are fertilised, which according to Bush and his supporters makes them human beings with the same rights as any others.

And while many fertilised eggs fail to implant in the womb, or later miscarry, that’s God’s Will and not to be questioned; we as humans aren’t allowed to make those decisions (this is the religious anti-abortion position,of course, not mine).

If you believe, like they claim to, that blastocysts are children, try one of those experiments in moral philosophy:

A fire breaks out in the maternity ward. At one end of the hall is a room with one baby, at the other end, a room with another (that’s all you know about them- sex, race, etc are irrelevant). and you only have time to save either one. Which one do you save?

The answer for most people is it doesn’t matter; one or the other.

How about five babies in one room, so it’s either one baby or five?

Most people would say five rather than one.

How about a baby and a fertilised egg in a tube?

A baby and a hundred frozen blastocysts, aka "snowflake babies?

19

As I understand it, this is a hot topic in the science community now. There is a lot of funding money out there for labs willing to work. The UK has already endorsed stem cell research. Canada probably has too. This veto will not hurt the fate of the advancement of stem cell research. The US government just won’t get any of the credit. I perosnally, don’t have a problem with stem cell research, but understand why the president did it. Got resote the faith in the GOP amongst it’s hardliners before the mid-terms or else…sound of donkeys marching the elephants out of congress.

20

[quote=“MikeN”][quote=“Namahottie”]
No,IMO I don’t think it’s a little inconsistent with moral boundaries. To me like what my parents said “While you’re living under my roof you have to abide by the rules, in your own house you can do as you please.” :smiley: I believe BUSHgasp is trying to allow people to have the freedom of choice in this matter but not involve the government. That’s my interpretation of it.[/quote]

Your parents told you it was okay to chop up babies if you were living in your own house?:eek: [/quote] HAHA. :wink:

[quote]So Bush is allowing people to have the freedom of choice in the matter of “taking of innocent human life”.
[/quote]Seems to me he is when he allows for private funding. We still have Roe VS Wade on the books, although that will probably be next on the Bush axe block.

[quote]The eggs discarded by reproduction clinics are fertilised, which according to Bush and his supporters makes them human beings with the same rights as any others.[/quote]Okay I’m open to that arguement. But how do they exerise those right when they can’t even talk? So, I guess I have to read more about this side of the arguement.

If you believe, like they claim to, that blastocysts are children, try one of those experiments in moral philosophy:

[quote]
A fire breaks out in the maternity ward. At one end of the hall is a room with one baby, at the other end, a room with another (that’s all you know about them- sex, race, etc are irrelevant). and you only have time to save either one. Which one do you save?
[/quote]Both. I wouldn’t think about time, just saving a life. But I guess that isn’t really answering the question.