The Daily Background

Okay, totally hypothetical situation here.

Let’s say you’re running for President as a Republican, and even though you used to be a socially liberal independent, you’re trying to really play up your conservative credentials to get past such critical events as the South Carolina primary. So you’re taking as conservative a stance as you possibly can, regardless of your socially liberal and politically moderate past, in order to play to your party’s base.

Again, totally hypothetical here still.

But there’s a problem. Even though a clear majority of Americans support federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, the most conservative part of your party thinks it’s the worst thing since gay people were invented.

But for you personally, it’s even more complicated than that. You see, your wife, the woman who you hope will someday become First Lady, has multiple sclerosis– a disease that scientists and doctors believe can be treated successfully with embryonic stem cell research.

So what do you do? Do you take the stance that America has? The stance that the world’s leading doctors and scientists have? The stance that has the most promise to cure your wife? Or do you take the stance that will make you more popular with the most conservative parts of your own party? This is totally hypothetical, remember.

Okay, you’ve got me. It’s not hypothetical at all. That was the situation facing Massachusetts’ former Republican Governor Mitt Romney. Until today, when he came out against embryonic stem cell research because he says he thinks its immoral. Regardless of his own family, his wife, or the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose lives could be better with cures for such ailments and their families.

Filed under: War on Science, Z-TDB Blog