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The Washington Post Pro-Life With an Asterisk By Richard Cohen Tuesday, July 10, 2001; Page A21 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, once Stalin's foreign minister but better known now as a "cocktail" -- a crude gasoline bomb -- was a man who knew how to separate the personal from the public. When Stalin ordered Molotov's wife jailed and cruelly put the matter to a vote of the party leadership, Molotov -- sensing a conflict of interest -- abstained. Ever since, he has to me been a model of the pathetically disinterested public servant. At the moment, fortunately, countless other current and former public servants are using their personal situations to influence public policy. I am referring now to a collection of important pro-life Republicans -- a virtual redundancy -- who are beseeching the White House to fund stem cell research. Citing the personal -- the travail of some family member -- they are asking that public policy be set accordingly. Probably the example most familiar to us all is Ronald Reagan's. He suffers from Alzheimer's -- just one of the diseases that stem cell research could possibly cure. As a result, some of his former aides are championing government funding of stem cell research. It's too late for Reagan, of course, but it may not be for others. Similarly, public figures with Parkinson's disease in their family have also taken sides in this dispute. One of them reportedly is Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, whose father died of the disease in 1994. In fact, given the almost endless list of diseases that could theoretically be cured or alleviated by stem cell research, the lobby for government funding is formidable. It includes many figures who consider themselves pro-life, yet nevertheless endorse research that entails the destruction of a human embryo. As a result, some of the Republican leadership in the House felt obliged to remind one and all that the destruction of a human embryo was a no-no -- a form of abortion by another name. They oppose it and so, for that matter, does the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and most of the organized antiabortion movement. That statement -- issued by the triumvirate of Dick Armey, Tom DeLay and J. C. Watts -- was more than a shot across the bow of the White House. It was also a refreshing reminder that common sense has no place in the abortion debate. The three GOP leaders are saying, simply, that if you're pro-life then you ought to be pro-life all the time, regardless of the situation or the suffering you have seen in your life. Ralph Waldo Emerson comes to mind. It was he who said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Here we have three of them. But their foolish consistency adds up to a momentous question: How can anyone be opposed to abortion across the board -- always and under all circumstances -- and yet permit it when it comes to stem cell research? After all, if an embryo is human life when it is in the womb, then why is it somehow something else if it is in a petri dish? As that implacable threesome in the House well knows, you cannot start making exceptions to antiabortion doctrine, because once you do, you wind up at this position called "choice." This is a slippery slope greased by common sense. Once you say it's okay to destroy an embryo for the sake of medical science, then why is it not okay to destroy the embryo for the sake of some woman's mental or physical health? I have the utmost sympathy, empathy and support for those normally pro-life Republicans who want to make an exception where stem cell research is concerned. But I want to ask them why they will not allow the same sort of exception to an addled teenager who had a bad night a month ago and now seeks an abortion? Is it because she's an abstraction and not a relative in the next room? Is it because she is not an innocent victim but a supposed sinner who is responsible for her own plight? And, if she was in the next room, would they make an exception for her, too, while of course maintaining a pro-life position for everyone else? I, too, know people who could conceivably benefit from stem cell research. I, too, want George Bush to fund the research. But the (asterisked) pro-lifers who favor the research have to understand that in principle what they support on behalf of those they love is pretty much what they oppose for those they don't care about. For what ails them -- an affliction as old as mankind -- no cure is in sight. It's called hypocrisy. SOURCE: The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38743-2001Jul9.html * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn