A MOJ Reader Responds to Danforth

[I received these comments from a MOJ reader--and thought other MOJ readers would be interested in them.  -mp]

I followed your link to Senator/Ambassador Danforth's piece. While interesting I would also argue that it is at times intellectually incoherent.

 

He writes:  "It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law."

 

I wonder how Senator Danforth understood his work on the behalf of the unborn and against abortion.  Why was this not an "extension of religious doctrine into statutory law"?  And if it was not that, what was it?  What makes working against embryonic stem-cell research religious but working against abortion non-religious?  I, for one, think advocating against abortion and the intentional destruction of embryos (in petri dishes, test tubes, or where ever they may be) is of one piece and that piece is not a religious one.  That is the arguments against both abortion and embryonic stem-cell research are grounded in secular, rational reasons.  Put another way, reason demands that we refrain from abortion and from embryonic stem-cell research.

 

Now I will grant two things.  First, many people of good will don't see the argument against embryonic stem-cell research.  Second, many, nay most, of those arguing against such research are religious. Yet it does not follow from this that 1) the argument against such research is wrong and 2) that the reasons for prohibiting such research are religious.

 

There are other problems with the op-ed but I do think he misapprehends the arguments against embryonic stem-cell research and does so in a way that would call into question the justification for his own work against abortion.