Many thanks for your many emails. The best defense of embryonic research in this respect that I’ve read was in Slate’s Fray. Check it out here. On the fundamental point, I do indeed concede that there is a distinction between embryos that never make it to implantation in the uterus and those that do. Left alone, the former will never become a human being; the latter, by and large, will. The female body disposes of countless such embryos; IVF would be impossible without them. So, in fact, would regular sex and conception. I don’t believe that such embryos constitute the same moral weight as a fetus. I’m also only mildly worried by the inevitable over-production of such embryos in sex or IVF. Nevertheless, actually using such embryos for medical research, and creating them for that purpose, does strike me as more morally problematic. I don’t think I could personally engage in it. Still, none of this invalidates the president’s position. In such morally difficult waters, I favor the conservatism of doubt: keep the federal government as far away from such activities as possible, but allow private entities and even state governments, with popular consent, to finance them. I don’t see why this position is so unreasonable. In fact, to demand aggressive government endorsement of what some sincerely and resonably believe is the taking of human life is to push the envelope. Of course, some conservatives of faith might well argue that such research should be positively banned. I disagree with them as well; and wonder why they are not arguing for bans on IVF as well. Has anyone asked Santorum whether he believes IVF should be made illegal? It would be a good question to pose to him. Bush as well.
BEAGLE LIT: A lovely little new book from Emily Yoffe has given me some reassurance that my own miscreant beagle isn’t the only one ransacking the trash and puking on the carpet afterward.
ANOTHER CATHOLICISM: Benedict XVI isn’t the only definer of Catholic witness to the marginalized. Here’s another: a bishop in Kentucky.
The Dish 