Murderous Logic
Tim Russert kicked Josh Bolten’s ass this morning on Meet the Press over Bush’s stem cell bill veto. Of the human embryo, Russert asked (emphases mine):
MR. RUSSERT: Then if the president believes it is human life, how can he allow private stem cell research to go forward, go forward, if, in fact, that is murder?
MR. BOLTEN: It’s a very, it’s a very difficult balance. I mean, the president recognizes that there are millions of Americans who don’t recognize that as a human life, and that the promise of that research for the saving of life is so important that they, that they want that to go forward. What the president has said is that as far as the federal policy is concerned, no federal funds, your tax dollars and my tax dollars, will go towards promoting the destruction of that human embryo.
MR. RUSSERT: But you’re using federal funds for existing lines, which were of embryos. So were those embryos that the federal government is experimenting on obtained by homicidal means?
MR. BOLTEN: Those, those embryos, those stem cell lines, were already—those embryos were already destroyed, and, and that’s where the president—the president’s policies draw the line. That is that our tax dollars, from the point that the president made his policy statement forward, our tax dollars are not going to go to further incent the destruction of those fertilized embryos. Let me, let me…
MR. RUSSERT: The logic, Mr. Bolten, as people are listening to this, the president is saying no, we can’t use embryos that are going to be discarded by in vitro clinics because, according to a spokesman, that’s murder. But we can use embryos that were existing before I became president, that’s OK. And if you have a private company and you want to use those embryos, that’s OK. Back to the central question: does the president agree with his spokesman, Tony Snow, that the research on the embryo in, in fact, to use that embryo is murder?
MR. BOLTEN: The president thinks that that embryo, that fertilized embryo, is a human life that deserves protection…
First of all, Josh, it isn’t necessary to say that an embryo is “fertilized.” We got past that tautology in high school biology.
Second, if Bush issued that veto to appease the morons who believe that human embryos are inviolate and soul-infused human beings, then he is wrong to accept their use in research in any context. If it’s murder, it’s murder. Right? It should not matter when those embryos were used.
Third, it is somehow offensive to resort to the idea that this is a taxpayers’ concern. Is that Bush’s cover? That he’s out there defending the American taxpayer who does not want his money going towards something as awful as researching stem cell science that might actually lead to health benefits for all? Ridiculous! Just as it is stupid for atheists to complain that their rights as taxpayers are being abrogated when public schools administrators allow a pre-game prayer at a high school football game, it is stupid to argue that it’s a moral crisis for us as taxpayers whether these stem cell programs are Federally funded.
If that’s the essence of conservatism in America, I’m laughing.
