Forgive me if I still seem a little shaken. I was threatened today, physically threatened. By a man-bird.
OK, I wasn't actually threatened, but I was (and continue to be) gripped by the fear that I might be. Imagine: I'm walking down the street, minding my own business, and BAM! Man-bird! He swoops down, threatens to peck and gouge, takes my wallet, disparages the sanctity of human life and flies away.
Barely a week ago, I took comfort in the knowledge that there were no such things as man-birds. If anything in my life was going wrong, I just had to remind myself that grotesque, half-man, half-bird creatures did not exist and could never attack me with their razor talons or paralyze me with their deafening shriek. It made me feel better. But now I live in constant terror. I know that, at any moment, a man-bird can attack me or anyone I hold dear.
Thank the Intelligent Designer above! President Bush understands my concerns and is ready to act. In last week's State of the Union address, Bush issued his stance on one of the gravest problems our nation has ever faced: human-animal hybrids.
"Tonight I ask you," said our resolute leader, "to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator, and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale."
Human-animal hybrids? Patenting human embryos? Evil scientists are going to create armies of horrible man-beasts and then collect royalties from them and anyone else who was ever, at some point, an embryo.
So are you, reader, afraid of these terrible consequences of rampant human cloning? Bush hopes you are, because if you're afraid of these ludicrous scenarios, you're much less likely to think and ask questions. This is one of Bush's favorite tactics. Remember "the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud?" The message underneath the fear-mongering in both of these instances is unmistakable: Follow me and I'll protect you. No need to think about anything beyond your own safety.
So what exactly is Bush keeping us safe from? He would like you to believe that it's man-birds, but in actuality, it's stem cells. While he was expounding on his ever-growing list of Things Americans Should Fear, Bush neglected to mention that he was making no distinction between reproductive and therapeutic human cloning.
Reproductive cloning refers to taking a cloned embryo to term and having the baby. Therapeutic cloning, however, refers to implanting DNA material into an enucleated ovum with the aim of creating a blastocyst from which stem cells can be harvested. Those stem cells are blank slates and can form a healthy version of any cell in the human body, providing a possible cure for those who suffer from a variety of diseases.
Reproductive cloning is reprehensible, but not for any of the reasons that Bush describes. It is reprehensible because we don't know how to do it right, and any attempt at cloning a human would likely yield a person with inumerable genetic defects.
Therapeutic cloning, though, is capable of creating enough stem cell lines to vault stem cell research to the level where it should already be without the partisan political and ideological bickering. Stem cell research can save lives, and it is shameful that we are allowing people to suffer while debating the humanity of a clump of cells or hearing intentionally misleading horror stories from our president.
I recognize the tension that this issue evokes. There are many intelligent, reasonable people who believe that life begins at conception and to destroy a fertilized egg is murder. But I find it hard to consider a blastocyst a "life." It cannot think or feel, it cannot decide how it wants to "live." But what it can do is save people's lives, people who think and eat and laugh and breathe, people crippled by disease. The choice to destroy an embryo for any reason is saddening, but we have a long history of making hard choices for the good of humanity. An opportunity like stem cell research cannot be ignored.
So instead of ignoring it, Bush decided to disguise it science fiction. He wants to paint over opportunity with ideology and try to con the American people into supporting it. Even if Bush's man-birds don't exist, his deceptive rhetoric founded in far-right dogma is all too real.
--Zach Goodman is a junior international studies and Writing Seminars major from Warren, N.J.
