“I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there’s joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don’t you support stem cell research?”
(Via the Corner.)
Of course this is incredibly offensive, but I want to point out that it’s also idiotic. Let’s count the ways:
- Republicans (and Palin in particular) do support stem cell research. Opposing stem cell research that destroys embryos is not the same thing as opposing it in general.
- McCain has gone further than many Republicans (and further than me), and reluctantly supported stem cell research on embryos discarded by fertility clinics. This is substantially similar to the Democratic position. I’m not aware that Palin has taken an official stand on fertility-clinic embryos.
- Induced pluripotent stem cells, which carry no ethical problems, have now come to dominate stem cell research anyway.
- Stem cell research cannot cure Down’s Syndrome. The promise of stem cells is their ability to take the form of any cell in the body. There is nothing to suggest that stem cells could be used to remove an extra chromosome from a body’s existing cells. To suggest otherwise indicates that Biden does not understand stem cells, or Down’s syndrome, or both.
Internet Scofflaw 