![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I hope he didn't mean that...
Mar. 10th, 2009 05:42 amOn my way to work yesterday, I heard on the radio a scientist crowing about Obama's revocation of Bush's executive order regarding stem cell research. The gist of it was "I'm so glad that now scientists can do what we need to without worrying about religious or moral objections, because President Obama is restoring science to its rightful primacy." I forget the exact wording (it was about 8:30 on Morning Edition, if I have time I'll try to get a transcription later) but in the quote he definitely included both religious and moral objections as separate obstructions to getting good science done.
Now as it happens, I believe that President Obama's decision was the right one. My religious and moral beliefs (and no, they're not always the same) are that until the majority of the body passes out of the mother, a fetus has the status of potential human life, and is not an equal person with someone who has already been born. Thus, if an 80-pound 9-year-old girl's life is threatened by the twins she's carrying, not only do I believe she has a right to an abortion, I believe she has a as much of a moral obligation to get one as she would have an obligation to get treatment if she had full-bore influenza.
But I disagree with my nameless radio-interviewed scientist. Science has ethics boards and guidelines for a reason. At the far extreme of the scale (and yes, I'm about to bring in the Nazis to a discussion on abortion, sorry, but at least it's not in the usual way) is the quandry of what do we do with the valuable medical results that Dr. Mengele and his colleagues got.
So by all means, let us celebrate the lives that will probably be saved as a result of President Obama's new executive order. Let us look forward to the time when valid scientific results are not ignored or falsified because of ideology. But do not let's allow our rhetoric to suggest that the pendulum ought to swing to the other extreme, where the reach of science is unchecked by any moral considerations.
Now as it happens, I believe that President Obama's decision was the right one. My religious and moral beliefs (and no, they're not always the same) are that until the majority of the body passes out of the mother, a fetus has the status of potential human life, and is not an equal person with someone who has already been born. Thus, if an 80-pound 9-year-old girl's life is threatened by the twins she's carrying, not only do I believe she has a right to an abortion, I believe she has a as much of a moral obligation to get one as she would have an obligation to get treatment if she had full-bore influenza.
But I disagree with my nameless radio-interviewed scientist. Science has ethics boards and guidelines for a reason. At the far extreme of the scale (and yes, I'm about to bring in the Nazis to a discussion on abortion, sorry, but at least it's not in the usual way) is the quandry of what do we do with the valuable medical results that Dr. Mengele and his colleagues got.
So by all means, let us celebrate the lives that will probably be saved as a result of President Obama's new executive order. Let us look forward to the time when valid scientific results are not ignored or falsified because of ideology. But do not let's allow our rhetoric to suggest that the pendulum ought to swing to the other extreme, where the reach of science is unchecked by any moral considerations.