Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, September 29, 2008 1:38:20 PM
The McCain campaign launches a new radio ad today, “Stem Cell
Response”, after Barack Obama and his campaign repeatedly
mischaracterized John McCain’s record on the issue in ads and stump
speeches. This corrects the record, all right, but does little to
explain the real issues behind the stem-cell controversy, and about the
myth of “banned” research
Unfortunately, this ad doesn’t explain the more basic dishonesty in
Democratic attacks on this issue. Obama and the Democrats keep talking
about research bans, but no bans on research ever existed. The Bush administration only blocked federal funding
for human embryonic stem-cell (hEsc) research, but never outlawed it at
all. In fact, California spent billions of state money on hEsc
research.
In truth, no one opposes stem cell research in general, not
even those bitter, Bible-clinging Republicans. Most don’t oppose
federal funding for it, either, although a few conservatives do on
general federalist principles. The only significant opposition arises
when human embryos are destroyed for experimentation, and even then is
only politically expressed in terms of federal funding for that
research. No one proposed banning it altogether.
And, in fact, hEsc has turned out to be a useless dead end.
Researchers have discovered ways to turn adult stem cells into
plenipotential stem cells, making the destruction of embryos
unnecessary.