Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International, in a statement today suggested that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's announced support of embryonic stem cell research contradicts his claimed "pro-life" stand:
A medical doctor should know better than to say irresponsible things like he believes that embryos are "nascent human life" but that it is also okay to kill those little human beings. This is the insanity that we have to face with so-called "pro-life" politicians such as Senate Majority leader Bill Frist who just announced that he is in favor of killing embryos for science�but as long as we do it in a pro-life way of course.
Here are his words: "I am pro-life. I believe human life begins at conception. It is at this moment that the organism is complete -- yes, immature -- but complete. An embryo is nascent human life. It's genetically distinct. And it's biologically human�. And accordingly, the human embryo has moral significance and moral worth. It deserves to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported."Source: Human Life International press releaseThen he goes on to say: "It's not just a matter of faith, it's a matter of science." But that's exactly the point! Pro-lifers have been arguing for years that the need for the legal protection of human life is not a matter of faith. Science proves to us that this is distinctly human life, and therefore it should be definitively protected by law. Shifty politicians wanting to bear the pro-life mantle and reap a harvest of pro-life votes are playing politics with sacred realities, and the ones who suffer are always the tiny human beings who don't have lawyers to plead their case.
The worst aspect of this story is that Senator Frist has definitively gutted the term "pro-life" of any meaning. If he admits that the embryo is human life, and clearly he does, but at the same says that there are circumstances under which we may legally kill her for our purposes, then how is he pro-life? That is how abortion and euthanasia advocates talk! They said the same about unborn babies thirty years ago; they said it about Terri Schiavo last March; and they are now saying it about human embryos. Let's just hope that our lives don't fall under some special interest legislation that comes before opportunistic senators who want to run for president. Then we might find out that we too are considered human�but expendable. More pro-life traitors like Senator Frist we do not need.
Life is precious from the moment of conception, and unless we are willing as a people to defend it from ideology, special interests, federal funding and politicians, then we are not pro-life and we should not dare to hide under that moral mantle.
