SLATE, By William Saletan, Jan. 24, 2008 --

Admiring portrayals of George W. Bush always expose, inadvertently, what's wrong with him. "Steady leadership," the theme of his 2004 re-election ads, was a case in point. Bush has always been too certain to admit error, too steady to turn the wheel when the road bent, and too preoccupied with principle to understand that principle wasn't enough. That was his downfall in Iraq. It's also why he pushed through his 2001 tax cuts even after the circumstances that originally justified them vanished.

Now the former White House aide who coordinated the formulation of Bush's stem-cell policy has published an account of how the president reached his decision. The reporting is new, but the story is familiar. Once again, the case for Bush is the case against him.

The account, published in Commentary, comes from Jay Lefkowitz, who served as a senior domestic-policy adviser to Bush until 2003. Lefkowitz calls Bush's 2001 deliberations "a model of how to deal with the complicated scientific and ethical dilemmas that will continue to confront political leaders in the age of biotechnology." He describes Bush swatting away a National Right to Life polling memo. The president "came to a moderate, balanced decision that drew a prudent and principled line," based not on polls but on "lengthy study and consultation with people of widely divergent viewpoints," Lefkowitz writes. That's Bush: serious, principled, indifferent to pressure.

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Bush decided to fund research on stem-cell lines made from embryos that were destroyed before Aug. 9, 2001—the day he announced his policy—but not afterward. He pegged this compromise to factual calculations. He claimed there were "more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines," enough "to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research." Three days after his speech, in a New York Times op-ed, he wrote, "According to the National Institutes of Health, these lines are genetically diverse and sufficient in number for the research ahead."

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The facts began to change right away. New information and analysis challenged Bush's assumptions about the existing cell lines' numerical sufficiency, genetic diversity, and stability. People who worked with Bush argue that these problems never became consequential enough to change the policy. But Bush's comments show no sign that he was willing even to consider this possibility. A day after his op-ed ran, Bush cut off reporters' questions about the policy. "I spent a lot of time on the subject," he reminded them. "I laid out the policy I think is right for America. And I'm not going to change my mind. I'm the kind of person that when I make up my mind, I'm not going to change it."

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And, in that instance, Bush spoke the truth. He hasn't changed his mind, even though last March, his own NIH Director, Elias Zerhouni, "confirmed that Bush's initial rationale no longer matched the facts." According to a spokeswoman, Bush "weighed this issue very carefully back in 2001, and has thought about it since. And he believes that that clear moral line that he established back in August of 2001 is a good place for the country to be."

I encourage you to read the complete article.

Labels: embryonic stem cell research, embryos, George W. Bush

From REUTERS:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters)- Thu Oct 11, 2007 - Pope Benedict appealed to scientists on Thursday to stop using human embryos in stem cell research, saying it violated "the dignity of human life".

The Vatican is a proponent of stem cell research as long as it does not harm human embryos, which the Catholic Church holds are humans from the moment of conception.

"The destruction of human embryos, whether to acquire stem cells or for any other purpose, contradicts the purported intent of researchers, legislators and public health officials to promote human welfare," the Pontiff said.
Keep reading.

And this from the AP:

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI appealed Thursday to South Koreans' "inherent moral sensibility" to reject embryonic stem cell research and human cloning after the country decided to let embryonic stem cell research resume.

Benedict also praised South Korea's efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear ambitions in comments to Seoul's new ambassador to the Vatican, Ji-Young Francesco Kim, who presented his credentials to the pontiff.

"It is my ardent hope that the ongoing participation of various countries involved in the negotiation process will lead to a cessation of programs designed to develop and produce weapons with frightening potential for unspeakable destruction," Benedict said.

Separately, the pope noted South Korea's "notable successes in scientific research and development." But he said such research must be carried out with "firm ethical standards" that always respect the dignity of human life.

"The destruction of human embryos, whether to acquire stem cells or for any other purpose, contradicts the purported intent of researchers, legislators and public health officials to promote human welfare," the pope said.
Keep reading.

You know, I'd be more tolerant of the Pope's position on such issues if I didn't find him to be so out of touch with reality. Here's a dose of that reality:

More than 75% of U.S. Catholics believe the church should allow the use of contraception, according to a [2005]Gallup poll (Roylance, Baltimore Sun, 4/10). And I think I read somewhere that those numbers are now up to over 80%. Still the Church maintains its stand against birth control when over three quarters of its members believe in it or use it.

Then there was this from Medical News Today , 07 Jul 2006 - Cardinal Alfonso Lopes Trujillo, Head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research should be excommunicated, according to Famiglia Cristiana, a Catholic magazine. In an interview with the magazine, the Cardinal says he believes embryonic research is no different from abortion.

He specified that all women, doctors and scientists who eliminate embryos should be excommunicated. Trujillo said "Even talking about the defense of life and family rights is being treated as a sort of crime against the state in some countries - a form of social disobedience or discrimination against women. God will judge."
For the rest of this bizarre article, click here.

Cardinal Trujillo apparently does not know or does not care that in 2005, a poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 61% of white Catholics support embryonic stem cell research. And those numbers were rising every year.

Labels: beginning of human life, birth control, Catholic Church, embryonic stem cell research

It's almost impossible for someone to (a) run for any public office in the United States and (b) avoid stepping on the toes of every single one of the people upon whom he or she depends for success; (a) and (b) are mutually exclusive activities. Raise the stakes by running for a statewide or national office, and the odds against you approach infinity.

The latest warrior in the political trenches to fall upon his own sword is Republican Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and currently a candidate for the GOP 2008 presidential nomination. The sword in question? His stance on embryonic stem cell research.

Here's how Wikipedia describes that stance:

Mitt Romney believes research using human embryos created during fertility treatments is ethical but opposes using federal funds to support it.[65] He opposes research using cloned embryos created by implanting human DNA into donated eggs.[65]

When he ran for governor in 2002, Romney strongly advocated stem-cell research in general terms, and he promised to lobby George W. Bush to embrace such research.[65] During his presidential campaign, however, Romney renounced his 2002 position and said that he now agrees with Bush's decision to ban federal funding for research on excess embryos.[65]

(If you'd rather not see the Wikipedia article, all of those duplicate bracketed links eventually take you to this Boston Globe story from February.)

Okay, so -- for whatever reasons, opportunistic politics or sincere change of heart -- Romney appears to have reversed his position of five years ago.

It's not quite that clear-cut, by the way. Romney's campaign now claims -- indeed, a careful reading of the Wikipedia quote avers -- that his earlier support for embryonic stem cell research is, well, philosophical. He agrees that the need for the research exists. However, he does not agree that this research should be conducted using public monies.

Whether this hair-splitting will sit well with voters at any portion of the spectrum will become obvious only over time. Still, it has led Romney into one uncomfortable corner. According to a Boston Herald article published today:

Despite his “pro-life” campaign pitch, former Gov. Mitt Romney owns stock in two companies involved in embryonic stem cell research, a controversial field of study he previously cited as the reason for his rightward shift on abortion.

Romney holds stock in the biomedical firms Novo Nordisk and Millipore Corp., both of which use human embryos to research cures for chronic diseases, records show.

Whoops!

The Romney campaign's backing-and-filling on this latest news involves pointing out that the stock ownership is in a blind trust. Wikipedia again:

A blind trust is a trust in which the executors or those who have been given power of attorney have full discretion over the assets, and the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust. Blind trusts are generally used when a trustor wishes to keep the beneficiary unaware of the specific assets in the trust, such as to avoid conflict of interest between the beneficiary and the investments. Politicians often place their personal assets (including investment income) into blind trusts, to avoid public scrutiny and accusations of conflicts of interest when they direct government funds to the private sector.

CNN quotes Romney:

My investments have been held in a blind trust, which means I have not directed where they invest nor do I know where they invest... The trustee of the blind trust has said publicly that he will endeavor to make my investments conform with my positions, and I am confident that he will.

Translated, this roughly works out to I have no knowledge or control over where my money is invested. However, in this case, I now know where my money is invested and am exercising control over it. Um, okay...

In appraising the former governor's handling of this situation, the Washington Post went back to Romney's public statements on blind trust and dug up this gem (from his 1994 run for the Senate against Ted Kennedy):

"The blind trust is an age-old ruse," Romney was quoted as saying back then. "You give a blind trust rules. You can say to a blind trust, don't invest in properties which would be in conflict of interest or where the seller might think they're going to get an advantage from me."

The politics of "Gotcha!" really is no basis upon which to assess a candidate's honesty; there are simply too many issues, too many nuanced positions to hold on them, and too many interest groups to whom the candidate must attend. But when candidates run for office, as Donald Rumsfeld might say, they must go with the political realities they have. And when philosophy conflicts with reality -- so long as CNN's got its lens trained on you, and the press is plumbing your public statements -- reality always wins.

Labels: embryonic stem cell research, Mitt Romney, politics

FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU
CHRIS CHRISTOFF
August 9, 2007 --

A Christian activist organization charges in a federal lawsuit that [Michigan] Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s online petition to promote embryonic stem cell research discriminates against those opposed to it.

The Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor filed suit in U.S. District court in Lansing today on behalf of three anti-abortion groups. The suit claims Granholm’s petition – on her official state Web site since April 2006 – violates the free speech of embryonic stem cell research foes because she won’t allow them to post their opposing petition on the Web site.

Those who sign Granholm’s online petition have their names sent to House and Senate leaders, urging them support legislation that would lift state restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. Such research is opposed by anti-abortion groups because it uses the cells of discarded human embryos.

No question on whose side the writers for this blog line up. Why can't a Governor promote her own agenda on the state Web site? It's ludicrous to think Gov. Granholm would have no preference on any issue. And it's beyond ludicrous to suggest that she should post opposing views in the interest of Democratic fairness. People, she was not elected because she sat on a fence. She was elected because she espoused a particular platform with definite opinions. Her opinion is that the state should lift restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. More power to her for her advocacy on an issue she obviously cares about. You go, Governor!

Read it here.

Labels: embryonic stem cell, embryonic stem cell research, Jennifer Granholm, Michigan

The Associated Press, via USA Today, reports on recent "international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics":

Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.

For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.

Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.

"Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier...

Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Maucau, San Marino and Singapore.

Now yes, it's true what Mark Twain said about statistics as the third sort of lie, after plain lies and damn lies. It's also true that for a baby born in the US in 1980 (roughly the "two decades earlier" mentioned in this passage), the life expectancy is 73.7 years -- so the expectancy within the country has indeed gone up by over four years.

And finally, it's true that the heading of this post is deliberately provocative. I know that just because someone opposes abortion and embryonic stem cell research, it cannot be concluded that they care little about quality-of-life issues like poverty and medical care.

But the world of public attention -- and thus how a democratic society allocates it resources -- is measured not by what's in someone's heart, but by how much light and heat and noise is generated by what's in there. By any reasonable standard, the clamor on the part of social conservatives in this country about quality-of-life issues is far out-shouted by their clamor about the evils of abortion and embryonic stem cell research. That Roe v. Wade continues to be the law of the land may or may not be a national shame, as these social conservatives maintain, and history may or may not condemn our society on that basis. But shoddy health care, poverty, widespread nutritional deficiencies, racial and economic injustice, desperately superficial education, a poisonous natural environment -- our attention to those, and to matters like them, are the true reasons why we should fear Judgment Day... and the long memories of our children and grandchildren.

Labels: Abortion, embryonic stem cell research, poverty, quality of life, statistics