WASHINGTON -- When it comes to medical science, President Bush hears nothing, sees nothing -- and knows nothing.
He dug in his heels this week in opposition to human cloning for research, which many scientists -- including 40 Nobel Prize winners -- believe could lead to the cure of serious, painful diseases and the repair of spinal cord injuries. To justify his ideological cruelty, the president wrapped himself in exaggerated moral absolutes, equating embryonic cell clusters with breathing, flesh-and-blood mortals.
To allow research in which such fetal cells are destroyed, he said, would be unethical because "no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another." He described the process in dramatic, hyperbolic terms as "a significant step toward a society in which human beings are grown for spare body parts and children are engineered to custom specifications."
Oh, for pity's sake. What a stretch. Bush is a politician, not our theological or medical adviser. He should leave science to the professionals.
The decision the Senate will make soon about whether to criminalize human cloning for any purpose is a political as well as medical decision. It has become muddied by the intrusion of an unproved ideological theory, held by some religions but rejected by others, that life begins at conception, the instant an egg is fertilized. Those who believe that theory regard an embryo at any stage to be the moral and legal equivalent of a living human and its destruction to be murder.
But many others, myself included, regard as unrealistic and impractical the notion that a tiny ball of cells is a person. The president says he wants to preserve human dignity. So do we all. But there is nothing dignified about preventing the advancement of a field of research with rare life-saving potential. Failure to investigate the possibility of easing the suffering of millions would be the real crime against humanity.
Cloning involves putting the genetic material of a donor into an egg from which the nucleus has been removed to create a genetic copy of the donor. No politician is on record as favoring cloning for the purpose of creating a child. But the absolute ban demanded by Bush would also outlaw cloning for research or medical treatment as well as the importation of stem cell therapies created by cloning in other countries. The House has already passed such a measure. The Nobel laureates warned that this provision would intimidate researchers and discourage "unfettered and responsible scientific investigation."
Bush intervened in the cloning debate to undermine the backers of an alternative bill that would separate reproductive and therapeutic cloning, permitting research into the development of stem cells that could eventually treat people with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other awful diseases. Bush has signaled he will veto it if that moderate version passes.
Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the only physician in the Senate, supports the Bush-endorsed ban. Frist would make an exception, however, to allow the importing of foreign therapies from abroad.
So far, the Senate appears to be roughly evenly divided on the issue, with 20 members still undecided, torn between helping the sick or bowing to anti-abortion advocates. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who favors cloning for research, has promised to bring up the issue for debate before the late-May Memorial Day break. That gives both sides plenty of time to lobby for their cause.
And time is needed. Many people are confused about what is involved. There are conflicting claims and counter-claims about the significance of human cloning for research and whether other laboratory methods might work as well. Bush says the benefits are "highly speculative." But unless the research is allowed to go ahead, such speculation can never be resolved.
The cloning debate has taken on sudden urgency because science is racing ahead of the politicians. A cat recently bore a healthy cloned kitten at the University of Texas. Other kinds of animals have also been cloned. By screening the eggs of a woman whose family had a rare hereditary gene causing a devastating form of early-onset Alzheimer's, a doctor recently assured the birth of a baby girl free of the gene.
Even if they are banned here, the medical experiments will continue abroad -- as they should. Some American scientists are already fleeing to foreign places where they feel free to continue their research. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., an opponent of the total ban, points out the folly of ignorant governments in centuries past that tried to stifle science. He mentioned Galileo, the Italian astronomer who was imprisoned by local authorities for accepting the then-heretical view that Earth revolved around the sun.
Bush likes to fashion himself a "compassionate conservative." It is sad that where cloning is involved, he has forgotten the part about compassion.
Marianne Means is a Washington, D.C., columnist with Hearst Newspapers. She can be reached at 202-298-6920 or means at hearstdc.com