The American Spectator

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12.9.04 @ 12:01AM

UNETHICAL BIOETHICS
Re: George Neumayr's Compromising Bioethics:

In one brief column George Neumayr has restored right order to moral reasoning on bioethics.

This sentence...

"Moving reproduction from marriage to science tore the door off the dignity of embryonic life."

...restores my confidence in the value of human language. Who dares to lift the banner of "the dignity of embryonic life" from the bloody battlefield of modern culture and hold it steady under the fire of "reasonable people"?
-- Martin McPhillips

It is evidence of the tragic world in which we find ourselves that supposedly eminent scientific minds are even contemplating the termination of embryonic life to develop a treatment for physical injury. What happened to this country in the last fifty years?

This is the country where three hundred thousand men (most of them not slaves and not likely to become slaves) gave their lives to end the immoral dominance of one group of men over another. This is the country where the "weaker" sex fought for the right to have their own voices heard at the polling places and to be able to directly elect their representatives, thereby ending another immoral dominance. This is the country in which people of all races marched together to end the shameful and immoral dominance of racial segregation and discrimination and later that of sexual discrimination.

That has changed now. Now it is all right to terminate the life of an unborn child without do process, as long as it is sanctioned by the child's mother. Now we are discussing, not whether to terminate the potential life of frozen embryonic organisms, but under what circumstances it can ethically be done.

The answer is simple: it cannot be done ethically. The termination of life is worthy of serious consideration, the more so when it involves human life. And make no mistake, if a man can be put to death for causing the death of an in vivo embryo in its first trimester by injuring the mother, then the termination of embryonic life for scientific purposes can not be done ethically. Right, Dr. Mengele?

If the scientific value of embryonic stem cells is as great as some would have us believe, then some other way must be found to harvest them, possibly from placental blood. Next, the whole concept of fetal abortion, both in vitro and in vivo must be addressed. The victims of this practice are not the same as those on death row. The unborn have committed no crime other than being conceived and pose no evident danger to society by their continued existence.

This ethical debate is a no-brainer. The fact that such eminent scientific minds are even engaged in it does not bode well for the future of science in this country.
-- Michael Tobias
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Neumayr's excellent article hits squarely at every point on every level. I was one of the ignorant many who never knew that IVF meant that embryos sat in limbo indefinitely, or were ultimately destroyed, all for the benefit of desperate infertile couples. If it is so terrible not to be able to create your own children, why is it not equally terrible to play god with each genetically different potential human individual sitting on the shelf? Why mourn over the inability to procreate when the excess of the science you advocate is never mourned?

I do not understand the mentality that predominates today. I do not understand what is so awful about Western Culture that it must be attacked and annihilated from every direction. The scientists on this government panel are clearly in line with the ideals of eugenicism, married with socialism, in bed with totalitarianism, governed by the absurd notion that 2000 years of Christian tradition be damned.
-- Brendan R. Merrick
Budd Lake, New Jersey

BERRY CHUCKED
Re: The Washington Prowler's Quite Contrary:

As delicious as the prospect of having this ridiculous woman forcibly removed from the building by U.S. Marshals might seem, I would advise against it. It would simply provide Ms. Berry, and her allies on the left, another phony excuse to cry foul and (gasp!) racism. Just imagine the glee that ABC. CBS, the New York Times, et al, would feel at having video and/or photos of the eviction that they could use as a cudgel against the Bush administration.

Letter to the Editor

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