Saturday, July 22, 2006
The Irony of Stem Cells Juxtaposed Against Pictures of Dead Children in the Middle East
I haven't written for a while because the pace and horror of recent events have left me alternating between rages and rants and utter speechlessness.
But I was finally able to write something as I considered Mr. Bush's very first veto - regarding stem-cell research (!) - coming the same week the Middle East looks like it might turn into WWIII. I wrote the following letter to the editor yesterday. Because the paper in question so rarely publishes my letters, I don't think it's going to be a problem for me to post it on my personal blog:
As I watch and read the controversies surrounding Mr. Bush's first veto, of
Federal funding for stem-cell research, which was done because the president
felt he was crossing a moral line, I keep thinking of the reason the framers
allowed presidents to veto Congressional legislation in the first place, and how
every citizen in this country - including the president - needs a refresher
course in basic Constitutional law.
Presidents enact and execute laws, which is why they are called executives.
Tradition and precedent have prompted us to forget that the framers intended
that they were only allowed to veto legislation they did not believe they had
the resources to enact or execute. At which point, the legislation goes back to
Congress for override, and if Congress feels the issue is important enough, they
make plans to allocate the resources necessary (which is Congress' job), and
override the bill. With resources in place, the president can then do what is
necessary to execute or enact the law.
Signing and Vetoing legislation was intended to be purely procedural. Just as
Members of Congress are to make a best effort to represent the collective will
of their constituents, the president serves those same constituents, who are the
Sovereigns of the nation. In this case, Congress believed Federal Funds were
available in the appropriate executive departments to pay for Federally funded
stem-cell research. Furthermore, the majority believe their constituents want
this research. So it falls to the president to confirm if such resources are
available among the departments of the executive branch. If so, they should be
used according to the Will of the Sovereign People, as expressed in the
legislation, not according to any individual politician's personal morality.
That was my nice way of calling an asshole an asshole. While the procedural matter is important Constitutionally, here's how I really feel about the issue itself:
Mr. Bush worries about the use of balls of 32 and 64 cells in life-saving research. Under the right circumstances, these zygotes could be potential life, but they will not live one way or another because they are slated for destruction before they can be implanted in a mother OR used in research. Because it is impossible for the thousands of these in-vitro zygotes created each year to be implanted, it seems to me that we should consider our definition of "potential for life": I think it can and should mean potential either as an implanted embryo OR as life-saving research for a living breathing human being.
Frankly, if we are so worried about the morality of the use of zygotes, then perhaps we should outlaw in-vitro fertilization. Half of Congress wants to outlaw abortion and anti-abortion advocates think the prevention of implantation caused by the morning-after pill is also abortion. Put that together with the fact that in-vitro inevitably results in the expellation of at least some of the zygotes (and sometimes all of them), depending on the success of the procedure, and that seems like abortion to me. (I'm being sarcastic. I'm pro-choice. I wouldn't have an abortion - and I have had to make that choice - but that's my personal business and choice. It's not my place to stick my fucking nose into other people's business.)
Of course, as was pointed out on so astutely on the Daily Show this week (leaving my mouth agape), by this measurement, among women who are sexually active, half of all their menstrual periods should be outlawed as well, as that is the number of periods in which fertilized eggs are expelled. We just can't get this idea that our bodies know more about what we need than our limited minds do. (The same applies to homosexuality, by the way.) The arrogance of humans knows no bounds: Just because we can think does not make us smart, let alone omniscient.
Mr. Bush, in case you haven't been briefed on this (because lord knows you sure as hell aren't reading it): Children ARE the highest proportion of victims in war. The United States supports the killing of living, breathing children, killed by terrorists and killed in retaliation by the state, then killed in retaliation by terrorists, then killed in retaliation by the state, and so on. (See a pattern here?) In the Middle East, whenever hostilities erupt, Palestinian children are killed and injured by several orders of magnitude more than Israeli children. (And that's not even considering the horrors ongoing in Iraq, caused by our illegal invasion and war of aggression.) If you're so goddamned worried about crossing a moral line, then THAT'S the moral line you should be concerned about. As far as I'm concerned, that you aren't makes you amoral.
(As for me and my comments about Israeli children and Palestinian children, I'm not putting a value on the lives of any particular children - or adults, for that matter. All life is precious and the death of anyone, and any child, is heartbreaking. It's just a matter of statistics: Israeli children are more likely to survive because they have parents who have built bomb shelters. Palestinians live on apartheid reservations and refugee camps and are lucky to afford WATER. Israel also has the benefit of arms provided by U.S. taxpayers that they use illegally for offensive purposes. Defending themselves is a necessary evil, but bombing Gaza and Beirut back to the stone age is another kind of evil.)
But I was finally able to write something as I considered Mr. Bush's very first veto - regarding stem-cell research (!) - coming the same week the Middle East looks like it might turn into WWIII. I wrote the following letter to the editor yesterday. Because the paper in question so rarely publishes my letters, I don't think it's going to be a problem for me to post it on my personal blog:
As I watch and read the controversies surrounding Mr. Bush's first veto, of
Federal funding for stem-cell research, which was done because the president
felt he was crossing a moral line, I keep thinking of the reason the framers
allowed presidents to veto Congressional legislation in the first place, and how
every citizen in this country - including the president - needs a refresher
course in basic Constitutional law.
Presidents enact and execute laws, which is why they are called executives.
Tradition and precedent have prompted us to forget that the framers intended
that they were only allowed to veto legislation they did not believe they had
the resources to enact or execute. At which point, the legislation goes back to
Congress for override, and if Congress feels the issue is important enough, they
make plans to allocate the resources necessary (which is Congress' job), and
override the bill. With resources in place, the president can then do what is
necessary to execute or enact the law.
Signing and Vetoing legislation was intended to be purely procedural. Just as
Members of Congress are to make a best effort to represent the collective will
of their constituents, the president serves those same constituents, who are the
Sovereigns of the nation. In this case, Congress believed Federal Funds were
available in the appropriate executive departments to pay for Federally funded
stem-cell research. Furthermore, the majority believe their constituents want
this research. So it falls to the president to confirm if such resources are
available among the departments of the executive branch. If so, they should be
used according to the Will of the Sovereign People, as expressed in the
legislation, not according to any individual politician's personal morality.
That was my nice way of calling an asshole an asshole. While the procedural matter is important Constitutionally, here's how I really feel about the issue itself:
Mr. Bush worries about the use of balls of 32 and 64 cells in life-saving research. Under the right circumstances, these zygotes could be potential life, but they will not live one way or another because they are slated for destruction before they can be implanted in a mother OR used in research. Because it is impossible for the thousands of these in-vitro zygotes created each year to be implanted, it seems to me that we should consider our definition of "potential for life": I think it can and should mean potential either as an implanted embryo OR as life-saving research for a living breathing human being.
Frankly, if we are so worried about the morality of the use of zygotes, then perhaps we should outlaw in-vitro fertilization. Half of Congress wants to outlaw abortion and anti-abortion advocates think the prevention of implantation caused by the morning-after pill is also abortion. Put that together with the fact that in-vitro inevitably results in the expellation of at least some of the zygotes (and sometimes all of them), depending on the success of the procedure, and that seems like abortion to me. (I'm being sarcastic. I'm pro-choice. I wouldn't have an abortion - and I have had to make that choice - but that's my personal business and choice. It's not my place to stick my fucking nose into other people's business.)
Of course, as was pointed out on so astutely on the Daily Show this week (leaving my mouth agape), by this measurement, among women who are sexually active, half of all their menstrual periods should be outlawed as well, as that is the number of periods in which fertilized eggs are expelled. We just can't get this idea that our bodies know more about what we need than our limited minds do. (The same applies to homosexuality, by the way.) The arrogance of humans knows no bounds: Just because we can think does not make us smart, let alone omniscient.
Mr. Bush, in case you haven't been briefed on this (because lord knows you sure as hell aren't reading it): Children ARE the highest proportion of victims in war. The United States supports the killing of living, breathing children, killed by terrorists and killed in retaliation by the state, then killed in retaliation by terrorists, then killed in retaliation by the state, and so on. (See a pattern here?) In the Middle East, whenever hostilities erupt, Palestinian children are killed and injured by several orders of magnitude more than Israeli children. (And that's not even considering the horrors ongoing in Iraq, caused by our illegal invasion and war of aggression.) If you're so goddamned worried about crossing a moral line, then THAT'S the moral line you should be concerned about. As far as I'm concerned, that you aren't makes you amoral.
(As for me and my comments about Israeli children and Palestinian children, I'm not putting a value on the lives of any particular children - or adults, for that matter. All life is precious and the death of anyone, and any child, is heartbreaking. It's just a matter of statistics: Israeli children are more likely to survive because they have parents who have built bomb shelters. Palestinians live on apartheid reservations and refugee camps and are lucky to afford WATER. Israel also has the benefit of arms provided by U.S. taxpayers that they use illegally for offensive purposes. Defending themselves is a necessary evil, but bombing Gaza and Beirut back to the stone age is another kind of evil.)
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