Parts isn’t just parts
The meaning of life editorial
Last month, the Trump administration announced it was reviewing research involving the uses of fetal tissue. And canceling a small contract that some conservative lawmakers had objected to, one that they said supported “research using the body parts of children whose lives have been violently ended by abortion.”
This new argument is the modern version of the old stem cell debate. When is life not? When is a human not? Is it unethical to create life just to destroy it, then use the parts for research? Or maybe just . . . parts is parts.
—editorial, October 14, 2018 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
SO NOW, apparently, the review is over. This past week, the Trump administration announced it is ending medical research by government scientists that uses human fetal tissue.
Part of us thinks, well. At least somebody somewhere is admitting that fetal tissue is human after all. From all the press releases coming from the pro-abortion crowd, you’d never know that an abortion had anything to do with unborn human beings. Isn’t it just the removal of an unwanted growth, like a skin tag? In the debate over abortion, you’ll take the language without euphemism where you can get it.
Also in all the hubbub surrounding last week’s announcement, you’ll not find this among the shouters and protesters and sign-holders: The policy changes made by this administration will not affect privately funded research.
What it would do, however, is limit government money going to research
on fetal tissues, something that not all taxpayers think is copacetic. It’s the spirit of 1976’s Hyde Amendment, and the whole concept has been approved by the courts. So far.
Any private hospital using private donations can continue its research. But that’s not good enough for some. Everybody must be brought aboard the American way of death, and taxpayer dollars are the best way to do that. Fortunately, this administration isn’t the previous one.
Research into cures for, say, cancer or Parkinson’s isn’t being stopped. It just isn’t being funded by taxpayers. The paper even said that some government-funded research by universities that involves fetal tissue can continue for now, “subject to additional scrutiny.” This is anything but a return to the Four Humors.
What this might be, however, is another win for the pro-life folks among us. May their tribe increase—as fast as their political wins these surprising days.