Stem cells and human lives
President Bush was quoted today on public radio saying that when we consider embryonic stem cell research, we should remember that we are dealing with "real human lives."
The only real human lives we are dealing with are the lives of people who could be helped by treatments that might be derived from research on stem cells. The embryos themselves are only potential human lives. An embryo is a cluster of living cells that can become a real human life only if a woman nurtures it for nine months, feeding it through her own body, carrying it about on her own legs, and delivering it at the end of that time in agonizing labor.
To equate an embryo with a real human life is to utterly devalue what a woman gives to turn one into the other. I mean, let's compare the contributions of the male and the female to the creation of a living newborn child. The man experiences a few minutes of sheer pleasure and then he can go away. The woman bears the child for nine months, as above, with morning sickness, backache, food cravings, all that good stuff. But as far as Bush is concerned, as soon as the man has done his "job," that's it, it's done, we have a "real human life." But that's Bush.
The only real human lives we are dealing with are the lives of people who could be helped by treatments that might be derived from research on stem cells. The embryos themselves are only potential human lives. An embryo is a cluster of living cells that can become a real human life only if a woman nurtures it for nine months, feeding it through her own body, carrying it about on her own legs, and delivering it at the end of that time in agonizing labor.
To equate an embryo with a real human life is to utterly devalue what a woman gives to turn one into the other. I mean, let's compare the contributions of the male and the female to the creation of a living newborn child. The man experiences a few minutes of sheer pleasure and then he can go away. The woman bears the child for nine months, as above, with morning sickness, backache, food cravings, all that good stuff. But as far as Bush is concerned, as soon as the man has done his "job," that's it, it's done, we have a "real human life." But that's Bush.
posted by GrumbleGrouch at 4:26 PM
3 Comments:
what a great perspective. further contributing to my utter disdain for the man.
You are one of the very few wonderful men who can honestly say that a woman goes through so much more than a man to create that "real life" Bush is so hard-up to protect. Wanna bet if one of his precious ladies had Parkinson's or was paralyzed how fast that "real life" would become a medical breakthrough-STAT? Thanks for your words!
Thanks, Christa, I guess. "One of the very few wonderful men"? I calls 'em as I sees 'em; facts, facts.
Years ago my wife gave me a T-shirt that says "a man of quality is not threatened by a woman for equality." I took that as a compliment: I am that man of quality. I wear it, not often, only because I seldom wear T-shirts.
"Wonderful men"? I took one of those stupid "Tickle" quizzes and it told me I'm 53 percent masculine. Barely over the midline. I wondered why. To begin with, I don't go ape over spectator sports. I'm secure enough in my masculinity, I told myself, that I don't need to put on the trappings of machismo.
Well, I just rethought that. Why do I have to be secure in a predefined gender role? I really don't know what I am, I don't care what I am, I'm secure in what I am, whatever that is. I sit here and watch the rest of the world go by-by.
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