In an August 11 statement, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) criticized President Bush’s recent statement on federally funded embryonic stem cell research on existing stem cell lines. It qualified the compromise as a decision that has opened “a veritable Pandora’s box of moral, ethical and legal problems.”
While Mr. Bush’s efforts to avoid the killing of additional embryos are laudable, the TFP statement notes that no amount of spinning of his decision can obscure the reality that to obtain the existing stem cell lines, “those in the biotech industry and others have already killed human embryos.”
That taxpayer funded spending will be prohibited for further embryonic stem cell murders matters little, for Pandora’s box has just been blown open. The TFP fears this “Faustian bargain will come back to bite not only the president, but our nation as well.”
Voices in Congress and elsewhere already clamor for more federal funding, and the expanded use of other embryos. Contrary to what it may seem, the moral dilemma has not been solved. The moral, ethical, political, scientific and legal ramifications of this decision are only starting to be felt.
“Those who remind us of the evils of Nazism in the current context engage in no exaggeration,” the TFP statement concludes. “Today, however, the proven and continuing advances in medical treatment with morally licit adult stem cells are taking the back seat to the immoral, unethical, unproved, illegal and ill-gotten gains to be possibly obtained at the expense of the littlest members of the human race.”