PREPOSTEROUS
by Thomas A. Droleskey

August 12, 2001

     Shortly after the Lambeth Committee of the Anglican 
Church in 1931 endorsed the use of the condom for 
married couples facing "extraordinary circumstances," 
the WASHINGTON POST editorialized that the "suggestion 
that the use of legalized contraceptives would be limited 
is preposterous." To suggest, as President George W. Bush 
did in an embarrassing address to the nation on August 9, 
2001, that federal funding of research on stem cells 
derived from living human persons who were killed 
specifically to harvest such cells would be "limited" to 
existing "stem cell lines" is just as preposterous.

     A man who believes that innocent human beings, 
whose lives are always sacrosanct from direct attack, 
can be sliced and diced in the cases of rape, incest, and 
alleged threats to a mother's life can obviously convince 
himself that research on stem cells derived from human 
beings conceived illicitly outside of a mother's womb 
will be limited and carefully monitored. George W. Bush 
is wrong about exceptions to the sanctity of innocent 
human life. He is wrong about funding research on stem-
cell "lines" derived from living human beings who were 
killed so that those lines could be created and multiplied. 
And he is wrong in believing that he has not opened the 
door, as the National Organization for Women's Patricia 
Ireland noted very accurately, to total funding for all 
stem-cell research at some later point, including those 
stem cells derived from human beings created 
specifically for the purpose of providing a source of 
stem cells.

     There was nothing for President Bush to agonize about 
as he reached this decision. The answer was a simple 
"no." Period. Once again, however, we see the tragic 
consequences of the de-Catholicization of the world. 
George W. Bush was told point blank by the Vicar of 
Christ, Pope John Paul II, that embryonic stem-cell 
research was immoral. All Bush could say after he met 
with the Pope on July 23, 2001, was that he had to find a 
way to "balance" respect for human life with the promise 
of medical science. There was nothing for Bush to 
balance.

     Indeed, this whole controversy is the direct result of 
the rejection of the teaching authority of the Church on 
matters of faith and morals, as well as on matters of 
fundamental justice. For it is the rejection of the 
Deposit of Faith our Lord entrusted to Holy Mother Church 
that gave rise to the ethos of secularism and religious 
indifferentism, which became the breeding grounds for 
secularism and relativism and positivism. A world 
steeped in all manner of secular political ideologies 
comes not only to reject the Deposit of Faith but to make 
war against all that is contained therein, especially as it 
relates to matters of the sanctity of marital relations 
and the stability of the family. Contraception gave rise 
to abortion. Contraception also gave rise to the mentality 
which resulted in artificial conception. If a child's 
conception can be prevented as suits "partners," then it 
stands to reason that a child can be conceived "on 
demand" by using the latest technology science has to 
offer. The Church has condemned artificial insemination 
and in vitro fertilization on a number of occasions as 
offenses to the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity of 
marital relations. Yet it is the very rejection of the 
Church's affirmation of what is contained in the binding 
precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law 
which leads people, including George W. Bush, into 
thinking that artificial insemination and in vitro 
fertilization are morally licit to help couples deal with 
the problem of childlessness, ignoring the simple little 
truth that no one is entitled to a child. Children are gifts 
from God to be accepted according to His plan for a 
particular couple. If a married couple cannot have a child 
on their own, they can adopt -- or they can use their time 
to be of greater service to the cause of the Church in the 
evangelization of the true Faith. No one, however, is 
entitled to a child. Indeed, the whole tragedy of 
harvesting the stem cells of living human beings has 
arisen as a result of discoveries made by scientists 
experimenting on human beings conceived in fertility 
clinics to help couples conceive artificially.

     That George W. Bush endorses this immoral enterprise 
(which is big business, by the way) and actually 
commends it as a way to "help" couples is deplorable. It 
is as though he is saying the following: "We are not going 
to kill any more Jews for their body parts. We will only 
use the body parts of the Jews we have killed already. 
After all, we have people who will benefit from this 
research, do we not?"

     Living human embryos do not have the "potential" for 
life, as Bush asserted on August 9, 2001. They are living 
human beings! To seek to profit from their destruction is 
ghoulish, and will only wind up encouraging the private 
sector to fund all stem-cell research, creating more 
"stem cell lines" from the destruction of living human 
beings.

     George W. Bush took the advice of all the wrong 
people. All he had to do was to listen to and obey the 
Vicar of Christ.

     Alas, a world which has overthrown the Social 
Kingship of Jesus Christ as it is exercised in the person 
of the Supreme Pontiff winds up making popes of 
everybody but the Successor of St. Peter. We do not need 
an "ethics committee" appointed by a professor at the 
University of Chicago. We have a magisterium founded by 
our Lord to guide us, and to which we must be docilely 
submissive. It is our specific rejection of the Church's 
teaching authority which leads us to believe in and to 
promote the preposterous notion that we can limit the 
evils of immoral actions while attempting to profit from 
those immoral actions. The only antidote to all of this is 
to pray and to work for what seems an impossibility in 
human terms: the right ordering of the world once more 
to the primacy of the Church founded by our Lord upon the 
Rock of Peter, the Pope.

     The rejection of that primacy winds up in our 
believing in and funding the preposterous and the 
immoral.

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Dr. Thomas Droleskey, speaker and lecturer, is a 
professor of political science, the author of CHRIST IN 
THE VOTING BOOTH and THERE IS NO CURE FOR THIS 
CONDITION (www.hopeofstmonica.com), and editor of the 
CHRIST OR CHAOS newsletter.

This column is distributed and archived by Griffin 
Internet Syndicate, http://griffnews.com. All rights 
reserved.

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