At the White House

I attended President Bush’s stem cell speech yesterday, and I have to say, it was a real thrill as an American to be invited to the White House to hear the President of the United States give a major policy address.

Taking the stars out of my eyes, as promised, here is my impression of the day: I was seated in the third row on the right side of the podium, and so had a very clear and close-up view of the president. His body language and particularly, seeing the “on fire” look in his eyes, convinced me that, agree or disagree with Bush, he believes in his stem cell policy wholeheartedly. And, he is keeping a campaign promise—imagine that in a politician! In other words, Bush is not “pandering to his base,” as some have said. Nor is he being uncompassionate about people needing medical treatments. He truly believes that he has drawn an important moral and ethical line that does not place the imprimatur of the United States on harvesting nascent human life as if they were so many ears of corn, but which at the same time, does not impose his moral view on a country that substantially disagrees (at least when the embryos are “leftover IVF embryos due to be destroyed anyway”).

At a deeper level, Bush’s policy has kept the ethical debate where it belongs: Does human life have intrinsic value simply because it is human? With his stem cell policy and advocacy to outlaw all human cloning, Bush says yes. And whether the issue is the ethical propriety of embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, redefining death so that people like Terri Schiavo can be harvested for their organs, human enhancement, personhood theory, or a myriad of other biotechnological and bioethical controversies of the day, that is the fundamental issue that our nation and our world faces. Kudos to President Bush for understanding this and acting accordingly.