Diana DeGette has become the face of proponents for taxpayer funding of stem cell research on human embryos. A Line of Sight previously exposed the hypocrisy of her argument explaining that it really is a pro-abortion fight. If she were to admit that a fertilized embryo is human life, DeGette’s unfettered pro-abortion argument crumbles – as it should.  From DeGette’s perspective, with every human embryo that is destroyed her position is reaffirmed. 

The Denver Congresswoman’s efforts to expand human embryo experimentation with taxpayer funding have been thwarted by pro-life members of Congress (nearly all of them Republicans) and by President Bush’s veto pen.

On Tuesday, Nov. 20 reports were published that two separate groups of scientists have produced the much coveted stem cells from skin cells by reversing the genes that cause these cells to differentiate into all the different parts of our bodies. The announcement was hailed as a major scientific breakthrough and the potential end to the ethical debate. “Everyone was waiting for this day to come,” said the Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. “You should have a solution here that will address the moral objections that have been percolating for years,” he added.

Apparently Fr. Pacholczyk wasn’t talking about DeGette.  She still wants a fight.

“It’s terribly wrong for any politician to be trying to pick and choose one type of ethical research over another. That issue isn’t going away.”  

DeGette chooses to call the destruction of human embryos “ethical” just as she calls abortion an ethical choice.  Federal funding of human embryo research has become her signature (and only) issue in Congress.  Finding a solution that solves the moral dilemma and evaporates whatever standing she has in Congress renders her meaningless and insignificant.

DeGette likes to think she’s important. Some politicians feel they need a fight to justify their existence, and without controversy surrounding the only issue she is identified with, DeGette will be ignored.

So, for political self-interest, DeGette cannot even celebrate a scientific breakthrough that may both solve her issue and eliminate the controversy. How genuine is that?