Politics

Obama and ‘Laboratory Plantations’

Yesterday I wrote about President Obama’s executive order that forces tax-payers to fund the destruction of innocent human life. Today, Ben Mitchell comments on the irony that President Obama would be the one to give this order. He writes:

“If anyone should see the irony in all this it should be the nation’s first African-American president. Of all people, he should know the lessons of our history. The consequences are disastrous when one group of human beings is regarded as less than human in order to serve what other people think is the greater good. American chattel slavery certainly served the ‘greater good’ of those plantation owners in the South.

“What our forebears learned through a bloody war was that as long as any member of our race is deemed less than human — unworthy of protection against unnecessary harm — all of us are vulnerable. Following his mentor Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Obama should be the emancipator of human beings, setting them free to flourish. He should authorize funding for adopting human embryos, freeing them from their clinic freezers. He should release them from their sterile laboratory plantations. Finally, he should authorize the NIH to think about ways to reduce the number of embryos created for IVF procedures.”

As I argued in my previous post, Obama’s order excludes a whole class of persons from the human community, and that is exactly what happened when Americans of previous generations endorsed slavery. Mitchell is right about this one. The parallels between the two immoral practices are obvious. Read the rest here.

2 Comments

  • Phil B

    My wife and I have just been through two rounds of implanting adopted embryos — neither of which resulted in a pregnancy. We are saddened not only that we were not able to grow our family (we already have two children); we were also saddened that these little babies that had been abandoned did not survive. There are still tens of thousands more embryos waiting to be adopted and given a chance at life. It is something that all those concerned with the pro-life cause should consider.

  • Harrison Lewis

    I am very suspect when I hear a Southern Bapist spokesperson talk about the irony of the first African American President (who is as much white as he is black)and human value. If I am not mistaken, It was this church that stood with the perpetuation of devaluing African American life and assisting the pertutation of slavery in this country. These comments are unnecessary on highlights an irresponsible use of a podium.

    Sticking to the current argument of Pres. Obama’s executive order to lift the ban on federal funding on stem cells harvested after 2001 does pose problems. Specifically if congress overturns the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. I do not think this will happen if you look at the actions of congress in 2001.

    In my opinion, it is irresponisible to create fertilized embryos for the purpose of academic research. I am somewhat mixed to my impression of cell harvesting from embryos derived by other mechanisms, i.e. Natural abortion (miscarriage), harvested from deceased mothers, etc. I think that in the current climate we aught to be very careful. This is both a Moral and a Science issue, despite either side polarizing it to one direction. We should work together to come up with solutions that are RIGHT. We have all benefited from the advancements of medical science. Believe it or not, there are many people who have died from virtually every therapy you receive today. Just to pass on a little medical doctrine. “In order to achieve medical advancement, sometimes I have to loose a patient.” While I am not justifying embryonic cell research, I am merely stating a fact of medicine. So the next time your love one has bypass surgery or chemotherapy, please remember the ones that were sacrificed for your own personal comfort.

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