Bill Frist's "See No Evil" Stance On Stem Cell Research

Today, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist made a speech (transcript here)endorsing government funding for the stem cell research President Bush banned in 2001. This is a good sign in the clash between science and religious fundamentalism, because his endorsement will probably force to the floor the bill that allows the stem cell research that Bush has vowed to veto, isolating Bush in his increasingly unpopular stance on the issue.
In his speech, Frist says:

I am pro-life, I believe human life begins at conception... I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported...Thus, with appropriate reservations, I will support the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.

His position is that government funding should only be used to destroy human embryos if those embryos "would otherwise be discarded or destroyed". However, the human embryo being destroyed for research is already past the stage of conception. So it is difficult to see how any pro-life individual who believes that human life begins at conception (as Frist describes himself) could possibly support this research.

Bill Frist's defense is that these embryos were already going to be destroyed anyway, but doesn't that just beg the question of whether it is ethical for them to be destroyed in the first place? The process of in vitro fertilization has existed for years, with little criticism from pro-life activists of the fact that surplus fertilized eggs are routinely discarded, in effect, aborting what the pro-life camp calls "human beings". If Bill Frist really wants to be true to his conception-stage pro-life views, then not only should he oppose all stem cell research on the grounds that it murders "human beings", but he should also oppose the very process of in vitro fertilization, and any other process that produces fertilized eggs that "will be discarded".

Obviously, it would be that much more tiresome if the Bill Frist camp began to oppose basic medical procedures that are taken for granted to be morally sound, such as in vitro fertilization. Still though, if conception stage pro-lifers are ever going to come to their senses and compromise their position a bit, they need to realize the magnitude of the stance their position requires them to take. So critics shouldn't let them take the easy way out with phrases like "will be discarded", or, for that matter, Bush's policy of supporting research only on stem cell lines that were already created by what he considers to be illegal means. Both Bush and Frist are in effect taking "see no evil" positions, allowing government research to benefit from what they consider to be murder, but not allowing them to participate in it themselves.

They might as well just spare us the pretense, and allow scientists to do whatever they want, as long as they keep their hands over their eyes.

The Half Blood Prince: Seeing Social Commentary In Harry Potter

Brilliant novel. What has impressed me most about The Half Blood Prince, is JK Rowling's unwillingness to baby her readers like so many of the great children's authors, from CS Lewis to JRR Tolkien, have done. Those past authors simply couldn't bear to confront the issue of death with the honesty Rowling has. In those other works, strong, good characters could only die of natural causes, while gruesome, premature deaths were reserved for characters like Tolkien's Boromir, who had been led astray by evil. This babying approach tends to promote the fairytailish notion that death is somehow just. Rowling's deaths, on the other hand, promote an sense of the profound unfairness of life that really rings true in a world where geopolitics have become so dominated by terrorist threats. I see Dumbledore's naive trust as a metaphor for the trust that has allowed open-societies to flourish, but is now, sadly, coming apart at the seams.