Human embryos
Michael Kinsley makes at least one good point in his critique of President Bush's stem cell policy. (See also here. Kinsley has admitted he has a vested interest in that he has a disease--Parkinson's--that might be treated by stem cells).
A number of fertilized human eggs--embryos--are created in fertility clinics all the time. Relatively few are implanted, and even fewer survive in the womb. This means the vast majority of these embryos are destroyed on a routine basis--or are treated as if they can be destroyed simply at the wish of the "patient"--the previously infertile would-be parent.
Very few people make any complaint about that. President Bush has not only not complained, he has praised the work of fertility clinics even though, with today's technology, the mass destruction of many embryos is an inevitable result of that work. Yet he resists developing new lines of stem cells from embryos, and in principle he resists abortion on demand, because he cannot condone the taking of innocent human life.
How many embryos are there in fertility clinics? Estimates in 2001 said 200,000 were being "held" in fertility clinics in the U.S. alone, but there is plenty of evidence that embryos are destroyed by the dozens all the time.
No doubt there are some pro-lifers who have not really given up on this fight. But one can see how tough it is politically. Parents (sometimes) after long waits, and enormous sacrifice, get to bring a baby home. How can one resist that? Even if it's true that researchers support fertility clinics mainly as a source of embryos and stem cells, isn't this technology doing a lot of good?
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit likes to point out that early dire predictions about "test-tube" babies--they would never be truly accepted, etc.--have not come true. Or is it rather that there are so many more or less homeless children now, cast adrift by divorce, single parenthood, etc., that test tube babies don't stand out?
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