'Pro-life' Americans

Sometimes listening to the news makes my head want to explode. Ok, more than sometimes.

I was listening to a story on NPR on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The purpose of this essay is not to discuss that issue, but to discuss commentaries about that issue.

Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback compared the use of embryonic stem cells to raiding the organs of the condemned on death row. "This person is going to die - why not harvest his organs?" he asked. The answer is that "it violates his human dignity."

A presidential spokesman said that "This legislation crosses a moral line that would use taxpayer dollars to destroy human embryos, and that's a moral line the president said he would not cross."

It's good to know that those who support the state murdering its own citizens want to make sure that murder is done with the utmost 'human dignity.'

And it's also reassuring to know that those who advocate destructive militarism that inevitably leads to massive human carnage actually believe there is a moral line somewhere, even if it only applies to cells and fetuses and not full-fledged human beings.

The sickening part is that Brownback and Bush are hardly in a tiny minority of self-described 'pro-life' Americans who believe these things.