In a glittering gem of subtly slanted reporting, the Washington Post on Wednesday reports:
Harvard University announced yesterday the launch of a privately funded, multimillion-dollar program to create cloned human embryos as sources of medically promising stem cells.
If I read one more article from the Mainstream Press about how “medically promising” these untested, unproven cells are, I might have to take a vacation. We all know what “medically promising” means. It means entirely theoretical. If the mainstream media had as much blind faith in religion as they do in science and biotechnology, they would be more Catholic than the pope.
This is not about stem cells!
The glittering gem continues:
The collaborative effort, involving several Harvard-affiliated medical research centers, the New York Stem Cell Foundation and Columbia University, marks a new phase in the long-simmering U.S. culture war over stem cell research, pitting some of the nation's most prestigious institutions against a vocal conservative movement that opposes the work.
First of all, this “long-simmering US culture war” is not over stem cells. How many times do we have to go over this? It is over the embryos who are being destroyed in the process of having their stem cells taken away for research purposes. The least our friends in the mainstream press could do is accurately report precisely what the source of the controversy is.
Three out of the four possible sources of stem cells are considered perfectly licit by the Catholic Church and pro-lifers. There’s adults, there’s fetuses, and there’s postnatal umbilical chords. The last one is no longer living so it’s fair game. The first two can have stem cells extracted without being killed or maimed. There’s nothing wrong with researching stem cells. There’s something very wrong with killing innocent people in order to do it. And as Fr Tad Pacholczyk at the National Catholic Bioethics Center points out, it’s these sources of stem cells that are actually being used right now to treat disease and are actually succeeding! No blind faith needed here. But the Washington Post makes it sound like all of us grandfather-clock, anti-technology Christians are opposed to all the stem-cell research that’s happening when they fail to simply and clearly identify precisely the kind of stem cell research to which Christians and pro-lifers are opposed and why.
Borderline editorializing
Now I just have to observe here: How does the mainstream press describe those who perpetrate this research? They are “collaborative” and “pres-tee-gee-ous.” Whereas who are we? We are “vocal” and “conservative”! Well gee whiz Washington Post, why not throw in “meddling” while you’re at it? The contrast is so obvious it borders on editorializing. Could they not have at least suffered to give us the label “pro-life”? “Why no, Mark, that would bring a positive spin to the story and keep the paper from being fair-and-balanced.” Okay fine but if that’s true, then why is it okay to call these scientists “presteegeeous”?
“Sincerity” versus truth
The folks spearheading the latest embryo-destructive research campaign for whatever reason feel the need to pander to us scrupulous, antiquated, simple-minded, churchgoing pro-lifers who have opposed the utilitarian practice for years. Harvard President Lawrence H Summers had this to say:
“While we understand and respect the sincerely held beliefs of those who oppose the research, we are equally sincere in our belief that the life-and-death medical needs of countless suffering children and adults justifies moving forward with this research.”
Make no mistake folks. This is textbook relativism. Look at the premises behind what President Summers is saying. It doesn’t matter what you believe. All that matters is that you believe it sincerely. We dogmatic simpletons can believe that embryos are human beings who have rights and deserve not to be exploited even for ostensibly noble purposes. And our presteegeeous colleagues in the biotechnology industry can believe that embryos are industrial material, to be drained of resources and then discarded.
Surely embryonic research proponents like President Summers are aware that we antiquated religious pro-life types aren’t swayed by all of this “sincerity” talk. If we sincerely believe that Hitler’s final solution to the Jewish problem is a good idea, it is still a very bad idea. That kind of ideology of “sincerity” is precisely what justified those atrocities then, and it’s what justifies these atrocities today. It’s not enough to be sincere. I am reminded of something I heard Archbishop Fulton Sheen say on Relevant Radio a few days ago, that history shows us that what is happening today is not new. They are the same things that have always happened, just in different ways to different people.
Injustice has always been justified not by claiming that it is right but by claiming it is for a good end and it is nobody’s place to judge the means. And injustices have always been rectified by those who sincerely strive to do what is really right, even if it means being vocal, and meddling, and uncompromising.
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