Diana DeGette (D-CO) isn’t about to give up her political turf without one heck of a fight. In her eleven years representing Denver, DeGette is singularly known as the unsuccessful proponent for taxpayer funding of embryonic research. And in the face of a new scientific breakthrough, the true roots of her position come to light.
Recently, separate teams of researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Tokyo were able to successfully create much coveted stem cells from genetic manipulation of skin cells. The announcement was immediately hailed by scientists and global media reports as potentially ending the ethical debate that has surrounded the destruction of living human embryos for at least a decade.
Dr. James Thomson, a member of the University of Wisconsin team announcing the stunning news, has devoted much of his career to embryonic stem cell research.. Reflecting on the ethical turmoil created by his initial research on embryos Thomson said, “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.”
Now with the discovery from Thompson and his colleagues, researchers may continue to explore possible disease treatments from stem cells absent the ethical conundrum. Dr. Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University, called the new skin cell technology “ethically uncomplicated.”
But for DeGette, elimination of the ethical complication also erodes her political platform. She needs a fight to appear politically important. Ever since the recent stem cell announcement, DeGette has been deluged with questions about whether the battle is now resolved and the debate ended. Far from it in her opinion.
DeGette told the Denver Post, “I think it’s going to be a key issue in the election,” she said. “I’m fully committed to having a pro-stem cell president and pro-stem cell Congress in January 2009.” She means “embryonic” stem cell, because as the Post deciphered correctly, that “may be the only way she’ll eventually win federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.”
DeGette and the embryonic stem cell proponents have long maintained that this fight is about the endless quest for better science. Her interview with the Post uncovered the hypocrisy of that claim, for as Dan Haley, Editor of the Editorial Board concluded, “it’s all about politics, not science.”
As A Line of Sight previously explained, the embryonic stem cells debate is really an abortion debate. Were DeGette and her proponents to admit to the ethical dilemma of embryo destruction, they would be admitting that an embryo is human life. At that point their entire abortion rights argument collapses.
Advocating yet again with the Denver Post for federal funding of embryonic destruction research, DeGette said, “Congress needs to stop playing God, Congress and the White House need to stop telling researchers what types of cell research they should be doing.”
It would seem that DeGette may have misspoken. What she may have meant to say was, “Congress needs to forget that there is a God.” Because it has been the belief in the Creator of Life and the moral imperative to protect, not destroy, the most innocent of His creation that has stood in the way of DeGette’s political plans.