Monday, December 20, 2004

Stem cells and Safire

Thanks goodness William Safire is giving up his Op-Ed column in the NY Times. Every time he talks about cloning or embryonic stem cell research he gets a little riled up because he says things that are simply not ture.

His column on December 15th while not entirely bad or as bad as this column 6 months ago was at times either dishonest or ignorant. For example:

" The moral issue of destroying potential lives to save actual lives may be dealt with by scientists who are not in conflict with ethicists."

Even though he goes on to discuss adult stem cell research I can't let the phrase "potential lives" go by. There is no such thing as potential life- things are either dead or alive. These living human embryos that are killed for their stem cells are human beings not potential lives.

He continues with, " Therapeutic cloning of cells for the worthy purpose of curing disease, however, troubles people who fear the slippery slope leading to attempts to clone human beings. A majority of Americans disagree with the slippery-slopers, and come down on the side of running that danger in the hope of finding cures."

Cloning of cells? Leading to attempts to clone human beings? Come on Safire. Do you mean cloning of embryonic human beings and leading to attempts to bring these clones to birth. I mean this is cloning 101. His article might play with those that have no knowledge of how cloning works but anyone who has done any research on this subject can tell that Safire is being misleading.

Compare this with Michael Fumento's well-researched and fact based article on adult stem cell research in the National Review.

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