A Pro Stem Cell Research Advocate’s Defense of Bush

Columnist Jeff Jacoby has written a very good column in the Boston Globe about the hue and cry among pro ESCR advocates in the wake of President Bush’s veto of expanded federal funding criteria. Jacobi, who inhabits the right of center political realm, disagrees with President Bush’s veto. But he noticed something off kilter about many of the anti-Bush statements that are worth repeating here. From the column:

To judge from the criticism of Bush’s stem cell veto last week, nothing outranks the claims of science, and only a zealot could think otherwise.

“With one pen stroke,” charged Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, “President Bush has ignored hard science, embraced misplaced ideology, and turned his back on the millions who stand to benefit from . . . stem cell research.”

Similarly, Senate majority leader Harry Reid blasted Bush for “putting the politics of his narrow ideology ahead of saving lives.”

So did Senator Hillary Clinton: “This is just one example of how the president puts ideology before science.”

And Senator Barack Obama: “The promise that stem cells hold does not come from any particular ideology; it is the judgment of science, and we deserve a president who will put that judgment first.”

What these statements have in common is their use of “ideology” as a pejorative for the principles and ethical values that have guided Bush’s thinking on the stem cell issue. They treat “science” as an unqualified good, and reproach the White House for letting ethical qualms impede scientific progress. Yet not all science is progress. Not all ethical qualms are impediments.

Anyone who doubts Jacoby’s last statement hasn’t paid attention to history.