A courageous decision

We are allowed unrestricted access to newspapers in here and, although I do not normally concern myself with news from the colonies, I chanced upon this piece in the Daily Telegraph (under World News).

President George W Bush yesterday shunned public opinion and scientific appeals, vetoing legislation substantially increasing government-funded research using human embryo cells to fight serious illness.

Good for him. It just shows that there are still some world leaders around with the moral fibre to swim against the tide of public opinion. And it is a measure of the man’s convictions
that this is the first time he has used his veto during his five years in office.

And let me quickly silence the cynics (many of whom, I am sorry to say, being Britons in exile) who may sneeringly suggest that this is because Mr Bush has only just learned how to use the veto.

No, he has recognised that stem cell research is the first step down the slippery ladder of … well you know what I mean. Next thing we’d be having ‘designer people’ – probably designed to vote Democrat!

If nature produces seriously handicapped children with crippling and painful diseases, then there must be a reason. And who are we to question Mother Nature? Are we going to try and play God? We’d probably lose.

And on a religious note, I see that the Vatican has warned that Roman Catholic scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research and politicians who enact laws allowing it will be excommunicated. Nice one. There’s nothing like a good excommunicating to bring people to their senses.

I should like to make one final point – so I will. We have become morally flabby. If we have been given the capacity to feel pain, then why should we deaden that experience with anaesthetics? Look at the number of women wanting epidurals and ‘gas and air’ to help them through the perfectly natural experience of childbirth.
I, myself, always refuse a pain-killing injection when having a tooth filled – unless I know it is really going to hurt.

Anyway I have to stop now – here comes Greta with my sleeping pills.