theology 22

At many pivotal moments in American history, leaders have turned to the Bible to justify their actions. The Founding Fathers, at the advent of the Revolution, inscribed the Liberty Bell with a line from Leviticus proclaiming freedom throughout the land. Martin Luther King Jr. thundered that he had gone to the mountaintop and, like Moses, was ready to show his people the promised land. Church and state are separated by law, but our country's visionaries assume a mantle of morality by invoking the priests and prophets of Scripture. President Bush seems determined to thwart any loosening of the restrictions he has imposed on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research, despite rising sentiment in Congress and the nation at large for greater federal support of this fast-emerging field. His actions are based on strong religious beliefs on the part of some conservative Christians, and presumably the president himself. Such convictions deserve respect, but it is wrong to impose them on this pluralistic nation. Last week, in opposing a bill that would allow discarded early embryos to be used as sources of stem cells, House Republican leader Tom DeLay cast himself with the originators of the three major monotheistic faiths. "An embryo," he said, "is a person, a distinct internally directed, self-integrating human organism. We were all at one time embryos ourselves. So was Abraham. So was Muhammad. So was Jesus of Nazareth." Mr.Bush threatened this week to veto a modest research-expansion bill that was approved by the House and is likely to be passed by the Senate. The reason, he said, is that the measure would "take us across a critical ethical line" by encouraging the destruction of embryos from which the stem cells are extracted. Never mind that this particular ethical line looms large only for a narrow segment of the population. It is not deemed all that critical by most Americans or by most religious perspectives.

Stem Cells Theology