Jan 27 2008
McCain Is No Pro-Life Conservative
Folks, McCain is not a conservative in one key area – he is not pro-life. He opposes abortion, but that is the choice of one mother over one pregnancy. However, McCain is all for corporations slaughtering thousands of young humans each year for research and spare parts (e.g., profits):
Campaigning in South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate John McCain reaffirmed his support for embryonic stem cell research. Pro-life groups have been upset with the Arizona senator for years because he has voted repeatedly to require taxpayers to fund the research, which involves the destruction of human life.
“It’s very tough for those of us in the pro-life community,” McCain told reporters. “I’ve come down on the side of support for embryonic stem cell research.”
Anyone who supports massive farms of human beings who are destroyed by corporations to make money is not pro-life. There is an enormous difference between an individual woman making a decision regarding her pregnancy, her child and corporations slaughtering thousands of young humans which are not even ‘theirs’. There is no way anyone should call McCain or anyone like him ‘pro-life’ is he is all for our government sanctioning corporations built on the vacated carcasses of young human beings. I am not so stupid not to see the difference between a mother’s choice and an entire industry built upon making money from dead humans.
I think this issue will take care of itself as the technology improves. Something like 70% of the people in this country do support this kind of research.
Romney might have changed his position, but at one time he also supported embryonic stem cell research. I remember seeing him on Fox with a man from Mass who had a sick child. They were there to lobby Bush to expand funding. I remember Romney saying he was disappointed in the president’s position.
I don’t think that people all agree on what this is. I know a lot of people who do not support abortion who think that the use of existing embryos for research is acceptable, if those embryos are going to be destroyed anyway.
But McCain has always voted a pro life record. Way back before stem cell research was even something people talked about.
And if you sit this standard, then I am not sure any of the candidates except for Huckabee will actually fit your definition of pro life.
This is an interesting site. It is the Pew forum and it has a synopsis of all the candidates’ views on embryonic stem cell research.
If you check the Pew Forum you will discover that the information you are using isn’t the whole truth. You might also want to check out Michael Medved’s Six Conservative Lies About John McCain. http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/blog/g/817ee854-0a2e-4a71-bb6e-38e1b2b48388
Last time conservatives went after McCain for adopting a child, claiming that she was his “black” love child.
When does this stop, when he is declared the anti-Christ? I guess I thought better of you, not to go around repeating the conservative anti-McCain party line.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
This is a subject I try to avoid. It makes me shudder, and I have so many friends and family who are underinformed on the subject and very much inclined to support “stem cell research” without understanding the embryo part. It makes me ill to think about it for too long — and yes I personally agree with your personal position on this A.J.
I have read stories about Romney’s businesses making money off ESCR and somewhat vague or conflicting statements by many Pubbies. Think Nancy Reagan, among others. I was under the impression McCain held basically the same views as GWB, which I found acceptable but still difficult to think about for too long. The truth is, I really REALLY don’t want to talk about this and it has zero chance of affecting my vote. There’s the ick factor, and there is also the God factor… as in, only God can sort this one out… I know what my choice would be but I have a real hard time telling everyone else how to think about it. I’m a wuss! Now, ask me about sleeper cells instead of stem cells and we can talk for hours.
SJ:
I like you site. And I am sure that the Pew forum does not have the whole truth. I am not sure there is any such thing.
SJ,
Sorry, but my BS in Biology gives me cred here. How can you confuse adopting a child (and some inane idiot’s conspiracy theory) with the biological facts about embryos? Did you not get the difference between the personal decision about a single abortion and the creation of embryo factories filled with young humans killed every day for spare pars and profits? This is NOT opinion folks. What an embryo is biologically is scientific fact. And Sally Vee, I hate to say this, but if you cannot stand tall for the ‘ick’ factors then your not standing tall when it counts. Embryos are young humans – just as you were once. If you let them live they grow into fetuses, babies, toddlers, etc.
Somedays our Effed Up education system really, really bugs me.
AJ I agree with your position but to disqualify somebody as being pro-life for support escr is, once again, ridiculous. First of all, the meaning of pro-life is well known and has never included stem-cells. Whether is should have is another story. This is an issue where the pro-life movement, esp the Catholic Church has been so delinquent that they qualify as negligent. Never, and I mean never, in going to church each week have I heard a priest even once mention this. As the Pro-life march approached, never once did this get mentioned. And my pastor teaches at a seminary.
George Bush took a principled decision and I support him for it. Would I like John McCain to make the same decision, yes. What are the alternatives, Guiliani, who is pro-choice ( he still hasn’t reconciled in my mind how he can be pro-choice and be against judicial activism) and Mitt Romney, who will change his position tomorrow if he had to to get elected. As somebody said above, tha leaves Huckabee. Is that your objective?
Rich,
I can reject anyone who claims raising humans to slaughter them for their spare parts is not pro-life without any hesitation or duplicity. There is NO NEED to kill embryos for stem cells – or have you missed the news that skin cells can now be transformed into stem cells???
If you cannot stand up to the idea of a business built on harvesting living, healthy and viable human beings and say that is not pro-life than you are not pro-life. You are part time pro-life. You are only pro-life when it is a personal decision by a mother, but not when corporations kill tens of thousands for profit.
Sorry dude – you are the one in a ridiculous position. And note, I don’t belong to any church or religion. This comes straight from respecting life and and know the science of life very deeply.
AJ, I think what SJR was trying to point out is how conservatives used a living human being (an adopted kid for God’s sake) to start a whispering campaign against a man with a stellar pro-life rating over 25 years. They whispered that the kid was black and illegitimate, as if that would make him 3/5 of a person or something. I am betting the same people who used those tactics in that instance are against abortion and against ESCR. So “life” can be a flexible term for people aiming to score political points. To me, it is almost too sacred to listen to it discussed by some silly FoxNews anchorette or a bunch of guys running for president, or a bunch of congressional committee members.
I think the pre-birth life issues have a great deal to do with one’s religious beliefs. Personally, I have never found it useful to pin people to the wall over it or use it as a political weapon. My ideal candidate on that issue seems to be Mike Huckabee or Alan Keyes. So why am I not beating feet to join either of those campaigns?
Pat Robertson is supporting Rudy Giuliani in spite of his “issues” on the “life” front. I heard him give an eloquent statement about how zero progress has been made during the pro-life presidency of GWB. He said the only thing that can make a difference is judges, and he trusted Rudy to nominate and appt good judges, especially Supreme Court.
AJ,
You are standing tall on human life. And, yes, it is being assaulted in numerous ways. And religious agreement isn’t necessary to understand what constitutes being “human.”
If we sacrifice the dignity of human life, there’s not much else worth preserving.
George Soros is funding the euthanasia movement in California. A Princeton “ethicist” advocates euthanizing some children, but is a staunch supporter of animal “rights.” Eugenics was part of the Nazi philosophy. My point is that diminished respect for human life is part of a whole array of degradations and will undermine any civil society.
The thing is none of the candidates {other than Huckabee} could be considered pro life using AJ’s criteria.
Sally Vee has it exactly right. I’m simply sick and tired of all the political posturing on the right. It’s getting quite old. I think John McCain’s pro-life record is far superior to that of Mitt Romney.
I know nothing about biology, and frankly I really don’t care to learn much more than what I know now. It is never interested me. I do know something about geology and right now we’re dealing with people who have heads that are pure metamorphic in composition. I also know the SC based rumors about the child the McCain’s adopted are proven fact and they came from the Tompkins political machine in South Carolina (the Palmetto Scoop has been featuring the story for months) the same consultants hired by Mitt Romney.
All I know about embryonic stem cells is they are at times akin to Frankencells. I wouldn’t want anything dealing with them applied to anyone in my family. There is far more promise in adult stem cells.
I absolutely refuse to get drawn into any sort of a discussion on abortion, which I consider (for the most part) murder. I am simply sick and tired of the constant conservative hits on John McCain. It’s getting old and annoying.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
While I am in the same ballpark as most of the commenters here, I’d like to come more from the science angle on stem cells.
Since mid 2005 I have been a lone voice in the wilderness—the only voice in America with the chutzpah to say out loud, and in print seven days a week, that embryonic stem cells will not be implanted safely into a human being until 2018, while fighting to the death the American Lie that Adult Stem Cells (ASC) cannot do much of anything.
Why “to the death?†Because over 100,000 LIVES (not embryos) can be saved every year, simply by using ASC technology that was described in a scientific paper accepted by the American Heart Association in 2003. Since then, many thousands of lives have been improved, and dozens of American clinical trials have proved it and reproved it in the past three years…but not one researcher will come up against the establishment and tell the truth about stem cells in order to save those 100,000 who will die this year and the 100,000 who will die next year, and the 100,000………………………..
I have been attacked for that statement, usually by someone with a lot of letters after his name who wants to know who the heck I am to differ with a lot of other guys with a lot of letters after their names; not to mention medical journals and the liberal media….all those spin doctors—who have convinced America that embryonic (ESC) cures will come rushing out of the pipeline the day that Bush leaves office–
But in Great Britain, ASC and ESC are studied by the same researchers all over the country. And they ALL know that ASC work and ESC do not. But until now, not one had the cajones to say what I say all the time, that it will be at least a decade until ESC can be implanted into a human, and by then ASC will be the standard. Looking at ESC from a scientific standpoint rather than its status of political correctness, going backwards to embryonics, even now, would be like Boeing switching from jet engines to propellors….stupid, wasteful, and VERY harmful.
Then, suddenly, a shocking interview in England hit the international press (no, it could NEVER be printed in the USA where ASC are merely scientifically correct, while ESC are politically correct; so you are excused for not knowing about it).
Professor Colin McGuckin is professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University, UK and one of Britain’s leading embryonic researchers. His team was the first to characterise a harvesting and culture strategy to produce embryonic stem cells from umbilical cord blood, and the first to grow an organ from umbilical cord stem cells cultured in vitro. But it turns out that he has this strange medical condition which no embryologist in America is known to suffer from….he cannot help telling the truth!
Here is what the good doctor says: “For me, the unnecessary row over stem cells has obscured the very real issue that patients are waiting to be treated. Some of those can be, here and now with cord blood. Cord blood has no ethical controversies whatsoever – it’s accepted by every major religion on the planet. THE BEST ESTIMATES OF THE EMBRYONIC SCIENTISTS IN OUR OWN UNIVERSITY IN NEWCASTLE IS THAT EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HELP PEOPLE THIS SIDE OF 50 YEARS. THAT’S MY LIFETIME. AND THAT’S WORRYING. WE CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG.â€
Suddenly, without any change in myself, I have been morphed from the world’s most negative ESC critic to an ESC optimist! I say 2018, this chap suggests 2058. And even the worst news manipulators in American media cannot twist this one—so—you’ll simply never read about it in any of the three giant liberal “newsâ€papers, and therefore also not in the other American rags that blindly follow their spin on embryonic science fiction.
For the full article:
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/513114-the-hard-cell?ln=en
Please do not wait for a McGuckin to surface in America, where the Medical Mafia “whacks†those who “rat out†money-making medical frauds such as embryonic science fiction. The best that now-dying Americans can hope for is to wait five or ten years for ASC treatments, now working in a dozen countries, to be “approved†by those who will lose billions when they are, or wait ten (or fifty?) years for embryonic “cures.â€
Don Margolis
http://www.donmargolis.com
Linked to your post from Jeremiah Films’ McCain vs Obama on stem cell research