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Let decision on cloning spur more free thought
© St. Petersburg Times WASHINGTON -- The anti-abortion lobby is engaged in something the military describes as "mission creep." Unable to alter the political balance of power on the central issue of abortion, these groups have been gradually expanding their agenda to include opposition to doctor-assisted suicide, campaign finance reform and human cloning. With the exception of campaign finance reform, which has united many advocacy groups on the right and left, all of the new issues embraced by the antiabortion lobby have fallen into the general category of "pro-life." But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, an antiabortion stalwart with a well-known quirky streak, argues that opposition to therapeutic cloning is not pro-life. In Hatch's view, those who advocate cloning for medical research purposes are on the pro-life side in this debate. "It enhances, it does not diminish, human life," Hatch said last week when he made the surprise announcement that he would support a measure sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that would allow human cloning for research. Hatch was persuaded to support the bill by the many victims of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other nervous disorders who are counting on research using cloned human embryo cells to produce a medical breakthrough that could save their lives. He said he believes "a critical part of being pro-life is to support measures that help the living." This is consistent with his decision last year to support federal funding for stem cell research using embryos created and frozen in fertility clinics. At that time, he argued the embryos would not qualify as human life unless implanted inside a woman's womb. Leaders of the antiabortion lobby are furious about Hatch's stance. The tone of their response has been unusually harsh. The Concerned Women for America issued a press release with this headline: "Senator Hatch Kisses Pro-Life Views Goodbye." "Does the senator not understand that a lifetime of good choices can be obliterated by one bad one?" the group's president, Sandy Rios, demanded. "His decision to proudly champion the sacrifice of young human lives for the flimsy promise of cure of disease for more mature human life, life more like him, more like us and more like the aging senators he joins, will disqualify the record he has tried to establish on the sanctity of human life." Hatch's decision is important because he is likely to influence other fence-sitting senators, such as Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and John Breaux, D-La. We are not used to seeing politicians do what Hatch is doing on this issue. Seldom do they rely on their consciences to contradict the judgment of their ideological soulmates. In today's political climate, such independence is as close as anyone ever comes to showing genuine courage. Hatch's argument seems logical enough. He weighs real human lives against theoretical lives and opts for a sure thing. Even in the event that a cloned embryo might become a real person, he asks, why would it be more deserving of life than a person with Parkinson's? Unlike Hatch, the pro-life groups seem to be strangely hostile to some existing forms of human life. Rio's statement, for example, strongly suggests that the lives of aging senators are expendable -- or at least less valuable. Such sentiments seem to be inconsistent with the pro-life cause. Whenever lobbying groups engage in mission creep or embrace causes that are not logically consistent with their mission, they usually have one objective: money. I suspect the antiabortion people see cloning as a hot, new issue that they can use to attract new donors. Unfortunately, this joining of two somewhat inconsistent causes tends to make difficult political issues like cloning harder to resolve. We might have fewer political stalemates in Washington if every politician did a little more independent thinking, as Hatch has done. -- Sara Fritz can be reached by e-mail at fritz@sptimes.com and by telephone at (202) 463-0576.
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Times columns today Howard Troxler John Romano Sara Fritz |
