To me, the distinction between the two reveals the specious logic that typifies fundamentalist, and not so fundamentalist, Christianity. I can't remember the exact quote in an article in Medjugorje Magazine (to which my grandmother subscribes, much to my feckless chagrin), but I remember the gist of an awful point that the writer, a laughably lunatic Catholic priest, was trying to make. Alas, I thankfully do not have a subscription, but I promise you that I am not distorting the content of the article, or exaggerating the pure stupidity of its logic.
The author likened the proliferation of embryonic stem cell research to the Holocaust--I shit you not--as well as a number of other various sites of human-rights atrocities, from Tuskegee to Rwanda. This is one of the major problems of religion (Catholicism in this case). Acolytes sensationalize as if they were writing for a tabloid, and mindless non-thinkers with a proven ability to discriminate racially and socioeconomically cannot apply this discernment to bullshit propaganda.
Now, I hate to tell this to all of you religious, proselytizing morons, but a group of random cells is not life as we all know it. To compare embryonic stem cell research to genocide should infuriate any rational, halfway-intelligent individual. In many repositories across the world, frozen embryos wile away while actual human beings--adults--murder and rape and commit acts that approximate the aforementioned atrocities. If you're religious, which I adamantly am not, this should throw you into a fugue state. Instead, inexplicably, self-righteous religious vermin prattle on about the sanctity of life. If I have to explain the paramount hypocrisy here, I feel sorry for you.
My own personal impending stem cell procedure uses the adult variety--my own, in fact--so religious hypocrites (I think this is a redundancy, for the most part) can rest easy. However, I wish wish wish that it used the embryonic kind, just so I could shut up all of the idiotic religious monsters in my sphere.
If you want to impede embryonic stem cell research, I suspect that you are too dumb to understand how it could lead to revelations that could then lead to treatments or cures for some of the most debilitating disorders in the world. I have multiple sclerosis, which can be aggressively crippling, and I mean this in the most literal sense, for some. I can still walk of my own volition, but it is quite possible that eventually I won't be able to do so. This doesn't bother me, because I'm lazy as it is, but I imagine it can be a terrifying prospect for others (maybe even most of the afflicted and sick).
Christianity famously exudes hypocrisy. Think of the molestation by priests of today or even (if you want to think way back) of the Protestant Reformation that began in the 16th century with Martin Luther's indignation at the selling of indulgences by the Catholic Church. I know that this picks on the Catholics, but they can, or should be able to, handle it. (I went to Catholic parochial schools for most of my life, so I know how ridiculous some of the dogma is, and have been railing against it for years, without an authentic stab at rebuttal from anyone.) If not, bring it on--and don't condescendingly dismiss me with an empty "I'll pray for you."
To quote Christopher Hitchens (which I do occasionally, begrudgingly), "religion poisons everything." In this case, though, it could cost lives. Real ones. The ones that some particularly vehement and despicable pro-lifers hypocritically snuff out with righteous indignation, which nearly always hides profound stupidity.
Rick
