Death Takes A Holiday

President Obama proudly issued an executive order that expanded federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Making his announcement he said, "it would hasten a day when words like terminal and incurable are finally retired from our vocabulary." Wow! What a statement! Sounds like he's into taxidermy, or Dr. Frankestein where are you?" Or perhaps he thinks he's fired poor Peter at the Pearly Gates.

Obama made this announcement in March of last year, when he dismantled the Bush policy on embryonic stem-cell research. In issuing his executive order, probably from the Pearly Gates, the President claimed, "it's about protecting free and open inquiry, and letting scientists do their job - free from manipulation and coercion and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient. When science wins, we all win." Really? So Dr. Frankenstein is going to keep us alive forever? Peter has been given his walking papers by Dr. Frankenstein.

There's an inconvenient truth here that the President omitted. In order for the original Dr. Frankenstein to give his monster new life, he had to borrow body parts from the grave. At least that Dr. Frankenstein's donors died of natural causes. President Obama's donors are alive, and have not consented to be killed for their contributions to "science".

Enter Congress ... In 1996 there was a restriction (Dickey - Wicker Amendment) that was passed and repeatedly renewed that said, "Federal money may not be used for research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed". In a move that would put Chicago gangsters to shame, the Obama Administration evaded this ban by stipulating that Washington could fund such research, as long as it didn't fund the part where the fetus is terminated.

Enter a Federal judge with sense - Embryonic stem-cell research, he said, "requires the destruction of embryos". The federal prohibition encompasses all research in which an embryo is destroyed, not just the piece of research in which the embryo is destroyed." So any funding of experiments using embryonic stem cells is forbidden by law.

President Bush's policy allowed research only on stem-cell lines that had already been established. The idea was to facilitate studies without creating incentives to destroy any additional embryos. Obama, by contrast, took the view that the destruction of additional embryos, (those left over at fertility clinics) is essential to science. Wow! What a comparison of theology!

Now enter two Illinois wannabe Congressmen - one Democrat - one Republican - both united in their opposition to the federal judge's ruling. One has to ask, when a federal judge enjoins an executive order, because it violates federal law, why are two candidates for Congress saying they don't support the judge's ruling? That is unless we live in a divine monarchy. Where's Peter? Maybe he needs his old job back. Where are the town's people, torches in hand, who go after Dr. Frankenstein and his monster to destroy them before any more damage is done.