Take a Stand on Human Life - And Then Stick With It

Sticking up for life can be tricky business. Whether it's a hard line against euthanasia, a firm opposition to abortion or hostility to embryonic stem cell research, the most ardent pro-lifers have a challenging walk ahead of them.

They must tell the dying that they cannot arrange with a willing doctor for a dignified exit ramp. They must tell expectant women that they must carry their pregnancies to term. They must tell the afflicted that government will not help them find cures through embryonic stem cell research.

Those are not easy messages to deliver. Only the deepest faith and courage of conviction can withstand the barrages of criticism such views often draw.

Since firm resolve often withers in public office, it should come as no surprise that, from President Bush on down, politicians seeking to score points among pro-life voters have painted themselves into impossible corners while trying to remain palatable to a centrist American majority.

Witness the just completed round of debate on stem cell research. Pro-life U.S. Senate Republicans - from Utah's Orrin Hatch to White House hopeful Dr. Bill Frist of Tennessee - explained to their voters and the nation why they could support additional stem cell funding without handing in their conservative credentials.

It's because they articulated the reasonable view that, while a fertilized early stage embryo deserves to be respected as a building block of life, it is not a baby.

Contrast this with Mr. Bush, who has sculpted the best of intentions into a logical mess of his own making. Press secretary Tony Snow explained the Bush veto of additional stem cell funding this way:

"The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He's one of them.

"The simple answer is he thinks murder's wrong."

Despite a Monday White House retreat from that term, the numerous stem cell opponents who cling to it face an intellectual hurdle. The vast majority of Americans - the vast majority of humans - differentiate between a blastocyst in a petri dish and a rosy-cheeked first-grader.

This does not mean both do not deserve high regard from a pro-life position. But even the Catholic Church, which still warns sternly against birth control, does not often drop the m-bomb when describing its objections to embryonic stem cell research (or even in vitro fertilization for aiding procreation).

The building blocks of life are simply not to be toyed with, no matter how noble the intent, they say. And while my pro-life views don't reach to that extent, I can respect those who differ.

What is harder to respect is how anyone who truly views embryonic stem cell research as homicide can tolerate it, even in the private sector.

But none of the politicians carrying that fire has the guts to stay true to it, because they know scads of voters know of someone who might be cured by such research. Luddites don't get many crossover votes.

This is a close cousin of another strain of moral cowardice, the "no abortion except for rape and incest" gambit. The halls of power are filled with people who are generally pro-life but would fear political death for taking a stand for even an extremely narrow window of time for allowing a pregnancy to be terminated at the mother's discretion.

But that is one of only two principled views one can hold on the subject. The other is the opinion that the newly created human life is worthy of protection irrespective of the circumstance of its creation. Rape and incest are horrific things, but the logic accompanying universal protection of the unborn is simple: Such traumas are not the fault of the growing embryo.

A choice is required. Those preaching the inviolability of new human life must accept there can be no rape and incest exception.

Those uncomfortable with forcing such pregnancies to term must admit that the earliest human life can sensibly fall under the authority of the mother.

On the stem cell issue, one may object to federal funding for such experimentation without calling it murder, but the invocation of that comparison requires an accompanying steadfast opposition to all embryonic stem cell research, public or private.

Reasonable people can differ on what point they wish to occupy on the pro-life spectrum. They cannot occupy two points at the same time.