Life, Bio-Ethics and Our Present Political Climate
Two bio-ethical issues have recently been debated and decided at the federal level in an attempt to create a culture more favorable to human life. The first was the Senate bill to allow federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. As is widely known President Bush vetoed this bill, his first veto in nearly six years in office. Some rather consistently pro-life senators voted for this particular measure, including majority leader Bill Frist, himself a devoutly pro-life Christian physician. (Senator Frist’s dad was my late father’s personal physician in Nashville and thus our family has held highest regard for the Frist family for many years.) Those who favored this measure argued that embryonic stem-cells provide much potential for curing diseases like Parkinson’s, a disease that my father-in-law suffered from for more than a decade prior to his painful death in late 2004. For this reason I confess that I respond to the emotional arguments that surrounded this bill with some real life experience. At the same time I fear, like other social conservatives, that this bill was, in actuality, an ethical “Trojan horse.” It is […]
