My Body, My Stem Cells: A Tale of Science

Unbeknownst to Charlie, his future lies at the bottom of the porcelain bowl in his mother's outhouse. Thankfully, science's Godless mitts will be unable to take advantage of Charlie's untimely demise.

There should really be some sort of law that prevents scientists from poking and prodding our recently aborted children. These scientists remind me of telemarketers calling at dinnertime. Can't parents kill their unborn child without being solicited by grave robbers?

The last thing Charlie's mom needs as she watches her son drown in the 2000 Flushes' blue waves is a bunch of lab coat jockeys preaching about how her son could have saved thousands of lives. Thanks, but no thanks, nerds. God is not a big fan of profiteering from murder.

Okay, perhaps my sarcasm is beginning to stretch thin.

But regardless of popular opinion concerning God's will, the government's position regarding stem cell research should be consistent with its stance on abortion.

Obviously the Bush administration disagrees with the Roe v. Wade decision, but until the Supreme Court bestows civil liberties on the unborn, fetuses condemned to death have no rights.

Don't get me wrong; I do not condone homicide in the name of medical advancement. If the government extends the protection of life to the fertilized embryo, I'll toss a bouquet of flowers into Charlie's bowl and read his epitaph as he whirls down the drain. But why should we pay more respect to a dead fetus than a live one?

It's not like record producers are invading abortion clinics to gather aborted embryos in an effort to start up a new boy band. Scientists are making the best out of a bad situation.

Is there a better way to glorify someone's death than to use his or her tragic end to save another's life?

There is nothing better than to lay down one's own life for the life another. Hmmm ... Who said that? Oh yeah, it was Jesus.

Now, I'm not saying Jesus said to get knocked up at a frat party, abort your baby, give it to science, and float through the clouds toward the pearly gates. That would be just a bit crazy.

Rather, I'll stress that an opportunity has arisen that grants life from death. So as long as people insist on aborting fetuses nothing should restrain doctors from using unborn embryos' stem cells. Waste not, want not.

President Bush recently decided to support limited federal funding for research on all stem cell lines currently available for testing.

Bush's reluctance to open the floodgates to all stem cell research seems to be in response to ethical dilemmas the process raises.

But, this is a brilliant political maneuver manufactured by the government. True, Bush does not wish to anger his pro-life allies, but his true motives lie in the faltering Social Security system.

Have you noticed the number of people clinging to life these days? Many of these men and women would have been dead before they reached 50 a century ago. Today's knowledge of diet, exercise and medicine has allowed our nation's geriatric citizens to live much longer and productive lives.

Imagine how funding the research of a virtual panacea could bankrupt Social Security. This would not be good news for the administration. Sure it would take a while for the research to produce Alzheimer and Parkinson's wonder drugs, but unlimited stem cell research will eventually lead to Social Security's downfall.

Sorry to go off on a tangent there, but who knows why the government acts as it does. For all we know every bureaucrat in Washington has been enslaved by Bill Gates' extraterrestrial aliens and replaced by android replicas.

Well, let's hope this isn't the case. Perhaps Bush is just trying to secure a few votes and donations to ensure another landslide victory in 2004.

Michael Carlton is a prime example of stem cells going to waste, but he promises to cure most diseases by the end of the semester. At least the real icky ones. Reach him at

carlton@email.unc.edu.