{"id":6435,"date":"2009-03-19T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T16:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/voxnova\/?p=6435"},"modified":"2009-03-19T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T16:37:00","slug":"kinsley-vs-douthat-on-stem-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/voxnova\/2009\/03\/19\/kinsley-vs-douthat-on-stem-cells\/","title":{"rendered":"Kinsley vs. Douthat on Stem Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Kinsley fires<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I felt you were serious, we would have a quandary as well. But there\u2019s no quandary because you\u2019re not serious. Your actions are too different from your words. You are doing absolutely nothing about the millions of fertilized eggs that are destroyed naturally every year (in miscarriages so early that the potential mother is not even aware of them), or the thousands that are produced and unused by fertility clinics going about their normal work (which are either discarded or pointlessly frozen in the hope of some miraculous ethical breakthrough).\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Douthat responds<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPro-lifers are often damned for being uncompromising zealots; here Kinsley is taking a case where the pro-life movement pretty clearly has<\/em>gone in for compromise \u2013 drawing the line at having their tax dollars used for embryo-killing, rather than trying to get the practice banned outright \u2013 and damning them for being morally unserious. Heads he wins, tails we lose, I guess.\u00a0..As should be clear from other examples, at home<\/span><\/a> and abroad<\/span><\/a>, most pro-lifers would<\/em> like to heavily regulate fertility clinics, and would<\/em> support efforts to give every embryo a chance at life<\/span><\/a>. (I will pass over his line about miscarriages, which seems to imply that a \u201cserious\u201d pro-life movement would be trying to pass laws against accidental deaths.) But that\u2019s not where the national debate is at the moment, to put it mildly, so instead pro-lifers have done what you\u2019re supposed to do in a democracy, which is to meet the general public where they are. This doesn\u2019t make them insincere; it makes them sensible. \u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Douthat says much that is sensible, and I especially appreciate his on-the-mark response to the idiotic comment about miscarriages (I fail to understand why people think this constitutes an argument). But he doesn\u2019t fully address Kinsley\u2019s main point, which is that there is an inconsistency between those who oppose ESCR but who are content to leave the IVF clinic more or less alone, even if they might personally disagree with the act. If this sounds familiar, it is. While pro-lifers might differ on strategy, very few would argue that what really matters is public funding of abortion and that the government turning a blind eye to private abortion is fine. Focusing on ESCR while ignoring the IVF clinics is tantamount to the same thing. Don\u2019t get me wrong: I fully realize that the use of public funds steps everything up a notch and that the discarding of human life in the service of a cold and calculating consequentialism is particularly odious, but I am still surprised by how little attention is devoted to what goes on inside these clinics.<\/p>\n

If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that there is a general reluctance to interfere in the so-called \u201cprivate\u201d decisions of middle class life. That is why we hear so little about divorce, about adultery, about contraception, and about attempts to \u201cimprove\u201d fertility. After all, in many circles, having a child is seen as an individual\u00a0right, to be coveted as yet another possession that goes with the big house and the SUV. Is the reluctance to denounce IVF as the evil it is a matter of culture?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kinsley fires: \u201cIf I felt you were serious, we would have a quandary as well. But there\u2019s no quandary because you\u2019re not serious. Your actions are too different from your words. You are doing absolutely nothing about the millions of fertilized eggs that are destroyed naturally every year (in miscarriages so early that the potential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2951,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[217,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embryonic-stem-cell-research","category-mornings-minion"],"yoast_head":"\nKinsley vs. Douthat on Stem Cells<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kinsley fires: "If I felt you were serious, we would have a quandary as well. But there's no quandary because you're not serious. 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