Idiotic Stem Cell Moment

Wednesday's Houston Chronicle brought us the touching story of Trey Jones and his parents, Tracy and JJ. Trey is a former "snowflake" , ie. he was once a frozen embryo. He is also not the couple's biological child, but was adopted with ten other frozen embryos because the Joneses had infertility problems. The Jones family flew to Washington D.C. to protest expanded stem cell research. As born-again Christians they believe that embryos are human beings from conception. They believe embryonic stem cell research is free to exist with private capital, but object to tax money paying for it.

This is so infuriatingly inconsistant. As I have stated in previous posts, if people believe that embryos are alive and have souls from the moment of conception, it is their right. But if so, then they need to accept all of the ramifications of this belief and be consistant in their actions before asking the country to take them seriously.

The creation of embryos for use in fertility treatment is a scientific manipulation of egg and sperm. As part of the process an excess number of embryos are created because the failure rate is high. Are these Christians willing to demand only one embryo be created and implanted at a time to ensure no excess embryos are created only to be discarded. No, like everyone else who desires a baby, they accept the need for a redundency of embryos, and besides, the unused ones are frozen, not destroyed, which is where the snowflake babies come from. But over half the frozen embryos do not survive the thawing process. How is this acceptable if each and every one has a soul? Christians no doubt say that when God blesses them in the old fashioned way there is no guarentee the embryo will survive, but these Christians should not be playing acceptable risk if they believe destroying any frozen embryos is a sin. They can not play the right in my case, wrong in yours game.

The statement that it is okay for research with private capital, but wrong with tax dollars is ludicris. Wrong is wrong. If you are going to stand against something on moral ground, take a stand, don't parse to make yourself look reasonable. Also, our country is not a theocracy, we are not bound by religious ideology. Tax dollars should be available for research that is how we choose to spend them, in support of the living. Moralizing about the unborn, especially when it is done inconsistantly hurts everyone. Just ask the Reagans.