Who Really Believes that Blastocysts are Human Beings?
Who Really Believes that Blastocysts are Human Beings? Friday April 13, 2007 Once again, politicians have been debating whether the federal government should fund stem cell research. Such funding is currently prohibited, and entirely because of opposition from religious conservatives who, with President Bush, believe that the destruction of blastocysts in stem cell research is the deliberate taking of innocent human live. In Bush’s moral calculus, a blastocyst has the same moral value, weight, and interests as a newborn infant or a fully grown adult. If that’s really true, then why does Bush deny that the destruction of blastocysts is “murder”? Michael J. Sandel writes in The Boston Globe: A further reason to be skeptical of the notion that blastocysts are persons is to notice that many who invoke it do not embrace its full implications. President Bush is a case in point. In 2001, he announce
