Wednesday, July 19, 2006

President uses veto pen for the first time

This utterly blows my mind. The man has been POTUS for 5+ years and the first thing he decides to veto is a bill for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research?

Don't get me wrong. I think this is a monumental waste of my tax dollars. Embryonic stem cells have shown absolutely zero, zip, nada promise in curing anything. Unlike adult stem cell therapies and umbilical cord therapies which are actually curing real people with real medical problems every day there has not been a single person cured of so much as a hang nail with embryonic stem cells. The animal testing isn't even promising. It could turn out that embryonic stem cells will be able to produce cures not possible with adult or umbilical therapies. It could just as easily turn out that either by chance, our inability to understand, or God's design they will never prove useful. At any rate I want my medical research tax dollars to go to research more likely to produce real results than are possible with embryonic stem cells today.

That said, the Congress went to great lengths to ensure that the funding could only go to research on embryos that would be otherwise destroyed. This, in my mind, gets rid of the argument that you are destroying human life. I, personally, believe the embryos are at least potential human life if not actual human life. That said, the embryos in question would be destroyed anyway. I am not a medical ethicist, but how is this different that taking my kidneys, eyes and other useful parts after I am brain dead for use in the living?

So we are left only with the argument that it is a waste of tax dollars. In the grand scheme of the enormous waste the President has chosen not to veto, not to mention some of the stupid legislation that he has signed or allowed to become law..... how in the world does he choose today to finally find a veto pen?

Again, I am personally glad he vetoed it and that the House couldn't override. The problem is that he should have vetoed a lot of things he didn't. I just wonder, why the heck now? If he had been regularly using the veto pen this would be a non-issue. Given his lack of use of the veto pen in the past this is a huge political mistake IMO. The Democrats who were trying very, very hard to discredit themselves are now going to run around the country declaring that the Republicans have been overtaken by lunatic religious fanatics who skipped science class in high school. Never mind that there are no scientific indicators, let alone proof, that this research will lead to anything useful, the average American who does not follow the science will be persuadable.

Let's raise funds for a Howard Dean Network. Howard and Nanci and Cynthia 24x7x365, commercial free.

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