The recent debate on Stem Cell Research shows the need to separate medicine
from the control of religion in the same way that the operation of government
needs to be free from theocratic control.
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Our forefathers wisely devised a strictly secular government to avoid the
troubles previous countries had experienced with religion. This Separation
of Church and State has succeeded in protecting each American’s religious
liberty, though its doors are being increasingly battered by denominations
seeking political power.
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Now medical research is being held hostage to religious beliefs. This began
in the 1980’s when abortion opponents convinced President Reagan to ban
research using fetal tissue discarded from induced abortions. For the most
part, the mainstream media ignored the event, so the public was never made
aware of this promising research, letting religion fly under the radar. Nor
was there alarm raised when President George H.W. Bush extended the ban.
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The 90’s brought a medical breakthrough with stem cells, but research
progressed slowly, since publicly funded scientists were banned from the
field. Federal guidelines for the ethical conduct of this new research
languished unfinished, the victim of political wrangling over abortion.
Again, the public was largely unaware of the medical research or the
political hold religionists exerted.
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Now, with President G.W. Bush’s recent decision on Stem Cell Research,
everyone at last knows about the tremendous potential of these cells -- the
possibility that medical science will be able to cure diseases, grow new
organs, and restore bodies to good health. A tremendous hope worth pursuing!
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So where is the anger? Why isn’t every person who has seen a family member
suffer and die, outraged over the needless delay in bringing us this far?
Why aren’t more people clamoring for government funding WITHOUT the
limitations that President Bush has imposed? Why shouldn’t our researchers
be allowed to develop as many stem cell lines as needed?
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The American public is still being held hostage by religion -- by those who
consider using fertilized human eggs for research to be wrong, even when the
eggs are excess from fertility treatments. These same people, as Christopher
Reeve points out, make no effort to shut down fertility clinics which
routinely destroy unused eggs, though if you believe that life begins at the
moment of fertilization, they are committing murder by doing so.
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Nature does not accord the same "reverence" to the embryo as these
religionists attempt to do, since nature spontaneously aborts 30-50% of
conceptions. Even the early Catholic theologians, Aquinas and Augustine, did
not believe the early embryo has a soul. Now, however, modern Catholics
aggressively promote the idea that a soul is present at fertilization.
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What if a different religion had gained control of our political process?
What if our president dictated laws based on the religious teaching that
blood transfusions are wrong? Or that cancers create living cells which
should never be destroyed? Suppose the majority of our Congress believed in
faith healing, could funding for Medicare be cancelled?
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Any governmental law or edict which favors one religious doctrine, is, by its
very nature, unfair to Americans not sharing that religious faith. How sad
that President Bush’s decision on stem cell research falls into that
category. How tragic for those who wait for a cure!
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