Killing embryos to further an agenda

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) Two days after the scientific community heralded the benefits of stem cells taken from amniotic fluid, the US House of Representatives passed Rep. Diana Degette’s bill (again) to use taxpayer funds to kill unborn children for their stem cells, a practice that has yet to produce any benefits.

For the record, the human body creates stem cells from conception to death. These cells are special in that they can become other types of cells like muscle cells or a brain cells. In adults, stem cells are present in the blood, bone marrow, skin, brain, liver, pancreas, fat, and hair follicle. They are also present in the placenta, umbilical cord, and amniotic fluid. Stem cells can be harmlessly culled from these sources to be used in medical experiments to treat diseases such as diabetes and spinal cord injuries.

In November of last year, the Rocky Mountain News reported Swiss scientists had grown human heart valves using stem cells from amniotic fluid. Another article on the same page lauded the use of adult stem cells in mitigating muscular dystrophy in dogs. The dogs were able to walk and jump after being injected with adult stem cells. On January 9, the RMN reported American researchers had discovered amniotic stem cells “have many of the key benefits of embryonic stem cells while avoiding thorny ethical issues.”

The “thorny ethical issue” is that the process of extracting embryonic stem cells kills the donor. That embryonic stem cells cause tumors and other complications in recipients is certainly a drawback. The lack of success in curing or mitigating diseases is another, but the main opposition to using taxpayer funds for embryonic stem cell research is that it kills unborn children. While it is legal to kill children from conception until birth and to sell their bodies or tissues including their stem cells (it is also perfectly legal to donate funds to these endeavors), we, the opposition, do not want to be complicit in the death of innocents by virtue of our tax dollars.

We support non-lethal adult, amniotic, placental, and umbilical cord stem cell research which incidentally is the research with the track record of success. Embryonic stem cell research has so little promise that it cannot attract sufficient private investment. So why, two days after yet another scientific breakthrough regarding non-lethal stem cell research, did the House of Representatives vote to use taxpayer dollars for that which is ineffective and opposed by millions of Americans? Do they not read the papers? Do they not talk with scientists or investors?

Perhaps it is not a question of ignorance. Perhaps it is a question of agenda. To back away from embryonic stem cell research is to admit that there might be something wrong with killing one human being to benefit another. To back away affirms the humanity of the child, an admission unacceptable to the abortion interests that profit in its absence. While the success of non-lethal stem cell therapies gives politicians a perfect out to change their votes, the stakes are too high to permit what may seem like a change of heart.

Sizing up the Owens years

(Andrews in Denver Post, Jan. 7) Bill Owens, you done good. Colorado is going to miss you. That’s my verdict on Colorado’s 40th governor as he leaves office Tuesday. We’ve been friends and allies (as well as infrequent adversaries) for over two decades, back to his days in the state House and mine at Independence Institute. Owens’ eight years as chief executive have seen our state thrive despite challenges. His honorable and capable leadership will wear well in history.

A free society is not defined by its government, let alone by any government official. To make politics the totality of our lives is the road to serfdom. It is people one by one, individually and with voluntary cooperation, who define America. Even to put a president’s name on an era is oversimplification. Still less can a single governor stamp his state’s destiny.

A governor can make a difference, though. That’s why we fight over electing them. And Gov. Bill Owens has made a big difference here. Either of his rivals for the Republican nomination back in 1998, the moderate Senate President Tom Norton or the conservative purist professor, Terry Walker, probably would have lost to liberal Democrat Gail Schoettler. The principles on which Owens has since governed contrast sharply with Schoettler’s – as her column on this page often attests.

Under a Gov. Gail Schoettler – or a Gov. Rollie Heath, the Boulder businessman whom Democrats ran against Owens in 2002 – Colorado would not have seen billions in tax relief, an expansion of our metro and statewide highway system, a school report card with teeth, the growth of public charter schools, and suppression of crime through tough sentencing with added prison capacity.

They would not have signed, as Owens did, bills for parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion, for defense of traditional marriage, for concealed carry of a handgun to protect yourself, for flexibility of health insurance mandates to keep costs down, and for the nation’s most generous voucher to help poor kids escape bad schools. (The state Supreme Court struck down the voucher law, however, in a political bow to teacher unions.)

Speaking of the justices, Schoettler or Heath would not have appointed such constitutionalists as Nathan Coats and Allison Eid. Nor would they have named, as Owens has, scores of appellate and trial judges who resist activism and sympathize with victims not criminals. They never would have defunded Planned Parenthood, or ended the coddling of public employee unions.

The Democrats whom Bill Owens bested for governor would not have cast almost 100 vetoes in the past two years as he did, protecting our liberty and prosperity against unwise bills ordered up by labor, educrats, trial lawyers, environmental extremists, and the minority grievance lobby – wheelhorses of the Democratic coalition.

Asked how his wife was, a man retorted: “Compared to what?” That’s the question in sizing up the Owens years, both for Republicans who are disappointed with him, and for all Coloradans as we welcome a new governor. Bill Ritter, decent but every inch a Democrat, will quickly undo many of the 2005-2006 vetoes and continue left from there. Last summer’s immigration reforms may wither legislatively this winter.

Billy O. will look better and better in retrospect. His bargain on Referendum C, bending but not breaking TABOR, turned off many of us. But Ref C was preferable to any deal Rollie Heath would have made, and we may feel nostalgic for it when Dems move to repeal the taxpayer amendment entirely.

Politics is the art of the possible, despite the occasional philosopher such as former Czech president Vaclav Havel, who titled one book “The Art of the Impossible.” Gov. Bill Owens gets pretty high marks for making the best of his circumstances to the benefit of our state. Godspeed, sir.

New Year's Resolutions for Republicans

Earnest resolutions to change and do better, upon the occasion of turning a new calendar page, don't usually appeal to me. But after a terrible 2006 for the GOP, it's time to sober up and begin anew. Here are five promises to ourselves for 2007 that I believe we ought to make as Republicans : 1- Be as devout as Washington in understanding America as a nation under God.

2- Be as forceful as Lincoln in upholding the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as the political religion of the nation.

3- Be as implacable as Churchill in defending the great heritage of Western civilization and the English-speaking peoples.

4- Be as resolute as Reagan in pursuing victory over the Islamofascist enemy in World War III until, in his words, "We win and they lose."

5- Fight fiercely, cheerfully, and relentlessly for our convictions and against our enemies, with one focus each morning: "What can we do to them today?"

Ford, Reagan, and the sour '70s

Two Republicans look back and ahead Fellow Coloradan Steve Mueller (SRMueller1@msn.com) took friendly exception to my year-end email reminding Republicans that the late Gerald Ford, rocklike as he was in the political crucible of 1974, still compares unfavorably to the man who challenged him in 1976 (and Nixon in 1968), Ronald Reagan. Here's our exchange of views - JA

Andrews: Let's face it: America could have done better with its leaders in the 1970s. President Gerald Ford, rest his soul, was a good and honorable man who rose to the unsought challenge of cleaning up Richard Nixon's presidential mess. Indeed he was in some ways heroic at that hour. But as we eulogize Ford, don't forget the "road not taken" by Republicans who twice missed a chance to nominate Ronald Reagan -- instead of Nixon in 1968, then instead of Ford in 1976.

Could Reagan, if nominated, have won the White House? No one can know. But Nixon, Agnew, Ford, Rockefeller, Dole, Carter, and Mondale were not inevitable. Our country (and the free world) could have done better. That is we can know, because in 1980 we did do better. An honest reading and evaluation of the past, including its "what ifs," is essential to doing better in the future, it seems to me.

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Mueller: I'd like to respond to your comment below about supporting Reagan in 1976. I was very active in Republican politics back then, and even though it was 30 years ago, I remember it like yesterday. I was a two-term State Chairman of the College Republicans, and spent about 60 hours a week working for the party for a couple of years. I ran as a Ford delegate at both the State convention and the 2nd Congressional District Convention, but Natalie Meyer organized a better campaign for Reagan in Colorado than we had for President Ford.. and Reagan won in Colorado, with the exception of Gordon Allot and John Love being elected as Ford delegates.

It was beyond my belief that certain folks in the Republican Party turned their backs on a sitting Republican president -- President Ford -- and failed to go to the polls on election day. That sort of adherence to "principle" gave us Jimmy Carter, when we could have easily had four more years of President Ford... if only they had gone to the polls. The right wing of the party, which I support and embrace, was just plain stupid in 1976 after the convention in Kansas City... and it cost the Party and the Country. Don't be blaming those who supported Ford -- your blame is completely misdirected.

Secondly, a careful post-election analysis showed that even considering the conservatives staying at home, the outcome of the election ultimately hinged on a NY State Supreme Court decision that did NOT allow John Anderson to appear on the ballot in New York. In other states, Anderson pulled enough votes from the Democrats to give the Republicans a slight majority... and the vote in NY was so close that this would surely have been the case. At the time, NY's 30 electoral votes would have provided Ford enough to shift the election to our favor instead of Carter's. (If you have any doubts about this, call Rove... he did the analysis!)

One of the main reasons I was so excited about your efforts at Judicial Term Limits was because of the NY case cited above. I know there are many other reasons why they are a good idea, but having liberals embedded in the judiciary can impact more things than most people realize.

Finally, I will indeed be mourning on Tuesday January 2 during our National Day of Mourning for President Ford. I met him several times, I worked hard for him and the Party, I respected him, and I will miss him.

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Andrews: Steve, thanks for the vivid bit of history. I was far less involved that year. But you are reading too much into my "could have done better" remark. There is no word of blame in what I wrote, if you want to look at it again. My point was simply that the deserved tributes to Jerry Ford shouldn't float in a vacuum of disregard for what other paths the GOP and the nation might have followed in those years.

I gave my best as a staffer for Nixon and Agnew, but objectively it's not very hard to wish that Reagan's gifts and beliefs, not Nixon's, had been at the helm from 1969 on. That in turn would have unfolded a scenario where Ford never moved to the executive branch at all. You get the idea.

It was risky for me to verbalize this whole line of reasoning in the days just after an honored ex-President's passing. Your rebuke, even if based on a misunderstanding, is fair and I accept it.

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Mueller: I do agree with you that the tributes to President Ford shouldn't float in a vacuum of disregard for the other potential paths the GOP and the nation might have taken. I wanted to enlighten you (in case this comes up on the radio) that you seemed to be overlooking the most obvious one -- that the Reaganites had gone to the polls to support the party in 1976, and we could have had a Republican president instead of Jimmy Carter. I can name several activists from the time who told me that they voted for Anderson, because they just couldn't vote for Ford... who was our party's nominee, but not perceived as conservative enough by some. (Unjustifiably, they thought it was an ok strategy since they weren't voting for a Democrat.)

I've NEVER voted against (or failed to cast a vote for) a Republican whom I've known to be a good and honorable person, and I have a difficult time understanding or respecting my fellow Republicans who don't support our general election nominees, particularly from the old days when we enjoyed a stronger caucus system. (There is less scrutiny of our candidates as the system moves away from caucuses, so there is a greater likelihood of some questionable candidates moving forward.)

These thoughts still haunt me as I think about this year's HD38 race, and I saw a bunch of supposed Republicans publicly endorsing Joe Rice - who I'm sure is a decent person, but won't be adhering to a Republican philosophy during his tenure at the legislature. (I just wish all the Republicans would all adhere to the philosophy to which they purportedly subscribe.)

There is a lot of work to do to turn around the tide that swept the Democrats into office this year. I'm pretty sure that seeking a higher level of philosophical purity is a better idea than being fuzzy about our values, so using the passing of President Ford as a catalyst for a discussion might be worthwhile. We certainly need to identify and mobilize those people that support Republican values, and many need to be reminded what those values are. Good luck, John!

Two cheers for newest State Rep

Matt Dunn will serve out the final month of a legislative term for Rep. Joe Stengel (R-Littleton), who quit early to avoid the lobbying restrictions that take effect soon under Amendment 41. The past year has been a political roller coaster for Dunn, a former Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute who helped me establish the institute's Denver office and my radio show. The rookie candidate tied for first at the Republican assembly convened to nominate Stengel's would-be successor, then won his August primary before losing the November election to Democrat Joe Rice. The local GOP organization honored him with interim duties to fill the vacancy until Rice takes over on the legislature's opening day, Jan. 20. Note: the Rocky Mountain News story of Matt's Dec. 28 swearing-in erred in suggesting he and I aren't acquainted -- we're old friends. It was another new member present that day, Steve King, whose nonrecognition I was referring to.