Barack Obama gets it wrong (again).

Those of you who have been on Mars recently may not have heard that our president, who on the campaign trail once referred to pregnancy as a "punishment", signed an executive order allowing federal funding for stem cell research. This involves the destruction of human embryos which are "left over" from fertility clinics so that their stem cells may be harvested and used to research treatments and cures for various diseases. What has been so frustrating listening to his commentary as well as that of some of the news networks is that they say that 1) this is "sound science", and 2) that the Bush policy put political ideology over science. First, there is no evidence that I have heard of that harvesting these stem cells will lead to any miracle cures. They have decided a priori that embryonic stem cells (and no other kind) are the source of miracle cures, therefore that we have a "moral obligation" to destroy these human beings and use them to save others. But they have not proved that these stem cells will do anything to help anyone! And second, the Bush policy put morality - not political ideology - over over science, which is precisely what we need. This language that Obama is trying to throw out there is quite dangerous and I have seen it in the church. He suggests that abortion and infanticide is a "political", not moral issue, and people in the church pick up on that and start to believe it. Therefore when you discuss abortion from the pulpit some people accuse you of bringing "politics" into the church. This is a moral and scientific issue. It is Obama who is putting politics over science. There are other types of stem cells that may be used for this sort of research, as well as other human-made cells that scientists are developing for this type of research. Yet Obama has to use tax payer dollars to fund this scientifically dubious and morally wrong research, getting a whole bunch of people (like me) worked up when he doesn't have to.