Roman Herzog Quotes

One of the extreme religious fundamentalists in the Congress, Brownback was referring to Federally funded medical research which uses embryonic stem cells. The cells are generated from in vitro fertilization procedures and potentially if implanted in the womb of a woman could produce a child. Several cells are produced by the fertilization process but typically only one or two is needed. So some religious extremists believe that just because the cell has the potential for human life, it is human life. This is the same logic which opposes birth control on the grounds that sperm and egg cells are incipient life forms. It was as late as 1973 that bans on birth control devices were declared unconstitutional be the Supreme Court.

When couples use in vitro fertilization to have children, they usually produce several fertilized embryos one of which is implanted into the womb of the mother. The other embryos can produce stem cells which are cells that can grow into any other kind of cell—brain cells, bone, cells, kidney cells, stc. Therefore they have the most promise for medical research. However, some people regard the embryos as human beings at an early stage of development and see the embryos as life. For them the notion of using that “life” for medical research where a human being will not be produced but instead a medicine or replacement cells for a sick person crosses a moral line of what is proper for a life form. Others observe that the embryos are kept alive in freezers and will be thrown away if not needed so why not use them to help mankind. At the other extreme some are opposed to allowing in vitro fertilization to begin with, but there have been over a million people born with this technique to couples who otherwise would not have been able to have children.

Kass was appointed by President George W. Bush to Chair The President’s Council on Bioethics in large part because Kass takes the position of the religious right, Bush’s basic constituency, that embryos are human beings and should be treated as such. This quotation illustrates the anthropomorphism with which Kass comes to the scientific and ethical debate.

This was written over 2 decades before Dolly the sheep was first cloned. Since his call for a societal public discussion about cloning, there has been very little, but by the 21st century there had been just a few hasty, ill-informed, almost hysterical efforts to legislate on the subject.

At the time there were some religious extremists who interfered with important research as they did not believe that man should try and do what before only God could do. In modern times the religious interference in scientific research has tended to be about research involving contraception, abortion or embryonic stem cell research. The most dangerous by the 21st century were the PETA and other “animal rights” terrorist groups who not only physically sabotaged some scientific research but harmed people and endangered human life in the process. Note that Dewey placed the moral burden on society to enable scientific research, not just to resist special interests opposing science.

Stem cells are cells of the body that transform into all other cells as needed. Embryonic stem cells are the ones most easily transformed to create other needed cells. There was and is a large supply of embryonic stem cells but religious abortion opponents were concerned that if there were enough success there would be a market for fetal stem cells which would encourage some women to have abortions so that they could sell the embryonic stem cells. President Bush, to placate his religious right wing, had banned federal funds being used for fetal stem cell research. President Obama, who had campaigned on this issue and been elected, then overturned the ban with this quote.

Most of the biological scientists and research physicians had good reason to believe that Fetal Stem Cell research could have large payoff in terms of regenerating organs and other therapies. However, there was a very passionate minority who wanted it made illegal to do research with fetal stem cells. They argued that if the research was very successful, and fetal stem cells could be used to grow new healthy organs, abortions to “harvest” the fetal stem cells would increase. There were other fundamentalists who opposed doing any kind of research in creating life or organs. Only God may create life they argue. Specter, although aa Republican whose party mostly opposed Stem Cell Research did not believe that the religious views of some Americans shuld revent others from longer life and the benfit of medical research. However, conservatives of his party remembered and ousted him aat the Primary Election even though as a Republican he could easily win the state election of ll the citizens.

Sarah Palin, former Republican Governor of Alaska, coined a new term when she charged that proposed Health Care legislation would create a "death panel" See Palin Quotation 644138. It was an absolute lie totally made up by Palin. However a number of conservative members of Congress then repeated the prevarication in Congressional Debate and elsewhere. One poll showed that after it spread, about 85% of respondents were familiar with the charge and of those who were familiar with it, about 30% thought it was true and Palin's new term won the dubius distinction of winning the "Lie of the Year" award. Despite the fact that it was totally false, in order to win Obamacare be a single vote, the President had to eliminate the part of the bill that allowed payment to physicians to take the time and explain to patients and/or their families, the various options of palliative treatment during the last months of life. Many people thought that the doctors would form death panels.