During a floor debate Tuesday night on a state House bill endorsing stem cell research, several Republican opponents compared such research to the Holocaust, including Rep. Glenn Anderson (R-Fall City):
Life sciences, biotech research – it sounds warm, sounds progressive. The potential is there, we hope, we’re betting on it…. But the cold look of history really does require sobriety. Sixty years ago in Nazi Germany, it was state policy in order to perfect humanity it would be required to destroy humanity. And the medical experiments at Auschwitz were carried out for that explicit purpose. We all say no, that’s not us, that would never happen, that’s not why we’re doing this.
Um… yeah, Glenn. Guess there aren’t too many Jews in Fall City.
Anderson refused to apologize, so today state House Minority Leader Bruce Chandler (R-Granger) apologized for him:
“The references made to the Holocaust were regarded by some, understandably, as insensitive and inappropriate,” Chandler, R-Granger, said on the House floor.
…
Chandler said he’d spoken with Jewish community leaders about the stem-cell debate. “I offer my apologies to them and to people who have committed their lives to using science to improve humanity.”
FYI, the bill passed 59-36.
I’m confused. Why should he apologize? Your comment makes it sound like the Holocaust was kind of a non-event. In fact, part of the Nazi solution was to experiment on human beings. This was a atrocity worse than killing Jews outright, since the victims were tortured to death.
Embryonic stem cell research is close to this edge. Admit it, we are experimenting on a group of cells that could, potentially, become a human being. Does the fact that they aren’t identifiable by the scientists make it okay? I am a bit queasy about it. Do I think good things can come of such experimentation? Sure. But the Nazis felt similarly justified with their experiments on Jews, who they felt were non-entities. As a civilized society, we reject the findings achieved by them, and by similar actions taken by the Japanese.
Reasonable people can disagree. I understand the arguments in favor of this research. Please give me, and Rep Glen Anderson, the courtesy of having a different opinion.
Janet S @1
“But the Nazis felt similarly justified with their experiments on Jews, who they felt were non-entities.”
On this, I must partially agree with you. This makes me involuntarily think of Nazi-Eugenics no matter who conducts it and what form of vessel it is conducted on.
However, adult stem-cell research has been providing good results according to the articles I have read. I can’t claim reading the same for embryonic stem-cell research. One must note the difference for a debate like this.
Goldy –
After exhaustive research of your link:
“[…]Chandler apologized for[…]remarks other Republicans made earlier in the week comparing embryonic stem cell research to the Holocaust.[…]Anderson did not apologize on Friday, and told reporters he saw no need to do so. He voted for the stem cell bill, and said he meant his comments as a warning that as Washington state encourages stem cell research with its possible applications of genetic engineering, it should not “drift down that road” that led to the Holocaust.”
So, what was your point? Anderson voted for the bill, and it passed.
Oh, comparison of Nazi’s to R’s…I get it…
What I have never understood is how stem cell research can be such a problem for some folks, but an issue is never raised about in vitro fertilization. What do you think happens to the extra embryos? If you oppose the former, shouldn’t you also oppose the latter?
In vitro can be justified because it is mimicking the natural process. The disposal of the extra embryos is problematic, but, then, in the natural process, fertilized eggs are regularly lost. As long as the embryos are disposed of respectfully, then I don’t see a conflict. I’m not particularly comfortable donating the embryos to science for research, for the very reasons you state.
Touchy subject, but the hour is late and I am not at all ready to call it a day. When I looked at Goldy’s post, like Marks and Janet S, I didn’t read anything in or into Anderson’s remarks at which to take offense, other than that they seemed a bit overwrought. But my family suffered from the Holocaust only in the sense of John Donne’s famous poem.
The unstated but pivotal question in the stem cell comments here is, what is a human being? Is a human being that which exists as soon as an individual sperm penetrates an individual egg, or is this zygote simply that, a fertilyzed egg, and nothing more? How we answer this question likely determines our response to embryonic stem cell research.
I wonder if bringing in the fear of our scientists turning into neo-Nazis or the pawns of neo-Nazis is historically accurate and thus relevant. The Nazis killed and maimed beings every undemented person would agree were human beings. As I understand (here and always a potentially critical qualifier) the objections to embryonic stem cell research are twofold. First, that the destruction of the zygote is the destruction of a human being. To believe this requires the believing that a human being is created precisely at the moment that the sperm penetrates the egg. Second, the objection is that embryonic stem cell research requires the unnatural creation of life by cloning of the embryo. The Nazis may have been aiming to create what they thought would be a superior “race” by killing off undesirables and having the desirables breed, but I don’t see how embryonic stem cell research is going to get us to that place. There is a giant leap between cloning days old (development-wise) embryos and destroying them in the research process, and cloning embryos to create a superior, or inferior, race, if that is the fear.
I think I understand Janet S’s concern, but I disagree with her about the naturalness of invitro fertilization and the use of fertility drugs. These strike me as very unnatural. Not bad, just unnatural. Also, modern science is applied in many very unnatural ways to human beings everyday, and we applaud the results, as in medicine.
If the basic restrictions now in place stay in place, I am not very concerned, and am quite hopeful, about embryonic stem cell research. But I long ago settled my conscience on the issue, because it has parallels with the abortion issue. I believe that in law a human being should exist when it is born, and not before. I believe also that in fact there is some point in an embryos development when it becomes too much like a human being to be tampered with, and in conscience and in law, shouldn’t be tampered with. I don’t know precisely where that point is, but it is at the very least weeks, and probably months, away from its zygote stage.
For all who disagree with this point of view, I give to you the response that H.L. Mencken routinely gave to those who wrote him:
Dear Sir/Madam:
You may be right.
The point is, that at concentration camps like Auschwitz, the Nazis experimented on live people, usually Jews, and often children. To equate experimenting on stem cells with experimenting on children, belittles the Nazi atrocities.
People make reference to the Holocaust for a reason… it evokes the horror. This was an insensitive exercise in cheap rhetoric, and Rep. Anderson deserves to be called on it.
Of course it was insensitive and inappropriate.
Of course it was designed for emotional response.
Comparing anything to the holocaust requires a reasonable comparision. Rep. Anderson should not only be ashamed…he should apologize.
jim@8. Short and to the point Jim and I agree. For everything that exists for good, someone will eventually find a way to abuse it, use it for bad. Hitler’s breeding camps, gas chambers and all other barbaric atrocities he committed are closer to the fallen leader of Iraq.
Goldy, this pains me to admit, but I now understand your point, and have to agree with you. There is a very big difference between experimenting on live people and zygotes. I still think there are ethical questions regarding embryonic research, but there is room for discussion. There is no room for discussion about the ethics of the Holocaust or the Nazis actions.
Embryonic stem cell research is not remotely comparable to genocide.
Representative Anderson, Janet S, marks — if you think that cloning embryonic stem cells is the moral equivalent of the Nazi party’s systematic effort to murder every Jewish man, woman and child, you have lost all perspective, and any moral authority on this subject.
Thanks, Janet S.
Goldy,
It is insensitive. I do apologise.
I would say that, if we fail to remember the past, we are doomed to repeat it. So the possibility that such research could be abused (as exists in any endeavor), cautionary historical fact should indeed be used to balance our more extreme desires.
Cheap politics, of course, can only come from the opposition.
David @11
I’m sorry. Can I have my moral authority back now?
RDC @6
You shame me…
Hey I agree that it is murder you may consider it justifiable, but so do the Palestinians when they are killing the jews with suicide bombers. I agree that he used a STRONG comparison but sometimes that’s what it takes for people to pull their heads out of the sand.
“However, adult stem-cell research has been providing good results according to the articles I have read. I can’t claim reading the same for embryonic stem-cell research. One must note the difference for a debate like this.”
I have read the same thing, so why are these Scientists so arrogant as to think that they should kill a young life when they damn well know the answer lies elsewhere?
I have read the same thing, so why are these Scientists so arrogant as to think that they should kill a young life when they damn well know the answer lies elsewhere?
So, in a couple of places you’ve read that some scientists believe adult stem cells are more promising than embryonic stem cells. I have read many articles that point to the opposite conclusion. More importantly, how dare you (or I) be so arrogant as to claim that you should dictate the direction science should take. To claim that stem cell research is a “solved issue” is remarkably ignorant of the current state of science and how science works. Science is not a democracy where the majority gets to decide what is investigated and what isn’t.
Scienctists often investigate what appear to be dead ends before remarkable breakthroughs are achieved. Even promising research can take 15-20 years and hundreds of “failed” experiments before it can be considered publicly useful.
Yes, there need to be some limits on the bounds of scientific research (The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment anyone?), but embryonic stem cells do not feel like a place where that line needs to be drawn (beyond a prohibition on human cloning).
I am content to let scientists to make up their own minds as to when they feel they’ve exhausted that area of research.
PS. After Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, he was asked, “How does it feel to have failed 10,000 times in making a lightbulb”. He responded, I didn’t fail 10,000 times, I succesfully eliminated 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb. That’s science.
“I am content to let scientists to make up their own minds as to when they feel they’ve exhausted that area of research.”
You poor soul, we could go right back to that Holocaust parallel with what you just said. Embryonic stem cell reseach is genocide, Maybe you are not religious like I am but if you are then why don’t you try asking God what he thinks.
marks @ 13
No need to flog yourself. Posters’ syndrome (mouth first; brain later) is a malady I have succumbed to more than once. As you note, there is wide room for discussion and debate on how stem cell research should be conducted.
Goldy — Glenn Anderson voted FOR the stem cell and cloning bill — one of the few Republicans to do so. (The bill had provisions to increase stem cell research and to outlaw human cloning. GOP opposition was largely based on the stem cell research issue on human embryos.)
Glenn Anderson was simply pointing out that the Nazis did improper human medical research, and took it to an extreme, all based on mistaken ideology and lack of scientic ethics. He did not compare stem cell research to the murder of millions of innocent human beings by the Nazis, just to the Nazi medical experiments.
Simply because someone points out some evil done by the Nazis does not mean that one is cheapening the most terrible evil that the Nazis committed. One can criticize the Nazis for denying political liberty, denying freedom of speech and press, supporting gun control, performing inhumane medical experiments, or opposing women’s rights and abortion — without taking away from their cold blooded murder of over ten million human beings, or their singling out of Jews and Gypsies for systematic extermination.
Thank you, RDC.
Anyway, hope I didn’t ruin anyone’s thoughts on the matter. :(
Embryonic stem cell reseach is genocide
Thanks for your opinion. You’re wrong. QED.
Maybe you are not religious like I am but if you are then why don’t you try asking God what he thinks
No, I’m not religious like you are, thank God. I have talked to God, and he’s angry that you keep invoking his name to support your efforts to impose your personal beliefs on the rest of us. He asked me to tell you to pray for some wisdom.
Richard – Well argued, but I do have to disagree on one point. The invocation of Nazis and their actions as a rhetorical device has a long history of being used for extreme shock-value, rather than as a reasonable debate tactic. It’s rarely used merely to illustrate, and instead is used as the ultimate “trump card”.*
There are lots of examples in history of improper human medical research (Tuskegee Experiment) and Anderson could use those to make his point. These examples have the added advantage of realistically pointing out that a scientists sometimes unthinkingly over the bounds of deceny, without drawing parallels to a genocidal, racist, homophobic movement bent on world domination.
Instead, like many before him, he invoked the Nazis specifically hoping that people would consider scientists who perform embryonic stem cell research as an “arm” of a government bent on genocide, interested in eugenics, etc. That’s completely over the top, considering what the scientists specifically are doing (working a clump of cells that would otherwise be discarded).
I’m not going to argue that the genocide and/or the Nazis are never appropriate as a rhetorical device (for example, what’s going on Sudan could be called genocide, and one might compare Mugabe to the Nazis), but it’s pretty rare that a comparison is warranted.
* See “Godwin’s Law” on Usenet.
** PS. For those that are wondering, my “QED” comment was in jest (stating something “it’s genocide” is not much of a proof).
Richard @ 18
I am in agreement with you to the extent that, while we know that his words exhibited a lack of sensitivity, we do not know that they were uttered with any craftiness or ill intent. They may have been, but the fact that he voted for the bill persuades me that he should get the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t agree with your concluding paragraph. Parsing it word by word, what you have said is so. The problem is that Nazi atrocities committed against those they thought of as “inferior” were so beyond the pale that any mention now of the word Nazi in this regard conjures up the whole. It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to make a comparison with some narrower aspect of this aspect of the Nazi regime without it immediately bringing up the entirety. I don’t think that this is the case with all aspects of Nazism. For example, a reference to “brown-shirted thugs” doesn’t necessarily conjure up the evils of the concentration camps.
The other issue in this thread, stem cell research, is a good topic for discussion. It’s not hard to understand why someone like Adriel is opposed. He apparently believes that the destruction of a day old zygote is the moral equivalent of the murder of a five-year old child. End of discussion. There really is no arguing with someone who holds such a belief. But there must be more nuanced considerations for those who oppose it on less absolutist criteria; other ethical concerns.
jcricket@20. About that “try asking God what he thinks” statement. Freedom of religion adds to not subtracts from. So which God? Looks like jcricket is expected to be talking with a “HE” that has the answer. Some history: Pre-era religion was female, the “SHE” God. It was replaced by the male line, Patriarchal religion which overthrew the female line, Matriarchal religion. All depends on what voice you want to hear. Then there is hearing voices also. Example: Andrea Yates. God gets a lot of credit that is not due him or her.
On stem cell research: Another debatable point is whether or not the State of Washington should be involved in this at all, beyond establishing the rules of the road.
Chee @23 Good point. I’ve never studied this, but it is a reasonable guess that what we think of as religion came into being with the development of agriculture. If so, this suggests that early gods would more likely have been female than male.
jcricket@20. :-) You can conclude I agree with you. The “he” theory was a stretch of the imagination introduced by Adriel @ 16; voice of He-She told me so.
RDC@ The scientific world is a world of it’s own that advances civilization by degrees; unexploring unexplored, providing new ways and means. Stem research should be left to the scientific community. Anytime you tie it to state, you bring in moral majority fear and fever. Mixing of Church and State leaves Americans no better off than foreign countries where Holy Wars abound. You can not take the religion out of it. Like is said, you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Indoctrination is a form of legal brainwashing. The Catholic’s used a saying, “Give me a child till he is seven.”
I was at a town hall meeting yesterday, not in the 5th, where people and elected officials expressed outrage at Rep. Anderson’s inappropriate remarks. The republican there stood up and said Rep. Anderson’s remarks were embarassing to all people, espeically those in Rep. Anderson’s own party/caucus. This resulted in a strong round of applause from the attendees…some of whom had been quite vocal supporting unrelated conservative causes.
Here’s hoping the good folks in the 5th have learned something very important about their representative and use their full power to prevent hime from saying such things in the future.
It’s bad enough that he said it. It’s much worse that he wouldn’t apologize afterwards.
jim@27. There is a point where a line is crossed and public sentiment takes over. That crossover is rightly called an overkill.The Reublicans are feeling the effects of those within their own party that are adding fuel to their already blazing furnace. Politics is a like a game of chess. Those who endanger the party will be weeded out by their own in order to salvage the remains. In chess, pawns one by one are sacrificed to save the King and Queens hide.
RDC @22
“For example, a reference to “brown-shirted thugs” doesn’t necessarily conjure up the evils of the concentration camps.”
I was always a fan of “jack-booted thugs” but that is just a personal preference…
As for the day old zygote, I claim Catholicism…leading me to:
Chee @26
“The Catholic’s used a saying, “Give me a child till he is seven.”
Perhaps (I never heard such a thing), but I was only indoktrinated beginning at age 7.
Marks @ 29
Chicago’s finest were referred to as “jack-booted thugs” during the 1968 Democratic Party convention. So my question is, are you really Abbie Hoffman?
As to Chee’s comment, I think the statement about twisting a child’s mind at an early age comes from the Jesuits, a group some Catholics consider to be only shirttail cousins in the Faith.
RDC@ 30 and Mark@29. A child’s informative years are set by age seven and some experts say by three. Automatic response center is like a fresh plowed field, sinks in deep. A child born and reared in a Catholic envirement has much early-on exposure prior to attending classes later. So be it for all faiths and any kind of early impressions. Impregnated thoughts and how the world is viewed are mimiced by the very young. What goes in comes out is backed by behaviorial sc. Ripe seeds planted in fertile soil sprout early. The Catholics added, as did the Christians. to the term of bringing in the sheaves at an early age under the “forbid them not” scripture by clearly making mention of “they will not depart.” Simply an doctrination process. Young minds are like parrot minds; repeat after me. After reaching the age of accountability to self, many rebel and stray from indoctrinated views but many are left to deal with their leftover religious dragons. Fear has been a strong base for control and many of our religions have centered on arousing fear and stiring guilt. Hell, Damnation and Brimstone stuff. Scientists and psychologists claim a child is able to learn more earlier than we teach them. Proven theory.
Chee @ 31
No argument here, except to say that you (inadventently, I assume)drew a distinction between Catholics and Christians. Get ready to be crucified.
RDC @29
On jack-booted thugs, I was reminiscing about my days of talk radio addiction in the early 90’s. Like my Catholic issue…they are both in remission, but can still simmer to the surface at times.
Chee @31
A childs’ development follows what you describe, but the primary factor (perhaps you implied this, but I am dense)remains the parent or guardian. I won’t quibble with your remaining assertions, since they seem likely true…
you all are a bunch pf idiots to say some of the things that you all say you need to grow up and look at your facts