Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Eagleton's Honesty is Scary

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read former Senator Eagleton’s op-ed piece in Sunday’s edition of the Southeast Missourian. After muddling through this former politician’s attempt to be a (Catholic) theologian, making a veiled attempt to link Pope John XXIII and even Thomas Aquinas with supporting Missouri’s clone-and-kill proposal, I encountered the most remarkable statement. Eagleton wrote:

"When the right to life of the fertilized egg is invoked in this debate, a counter right must also be recognized, and that is the right to health of persons who suffer from such diseases as mentioned above."

This is the debate in Missouri, but Eagleton evidently didn’t get the talking points from the leadership at the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures. The pro-cloners aren’t suppose to be talking about the truth, they are suppose to be mesmerizing Missourians with promises of cures. Eagleton correctly framed the issue before us, and he isn’t even a religious zealot. This was a refreshing alternative to the Coalition for Lifesaving Cures heretofore flawless propaganda. It is all about the right to life vs. the right to health. Eagleton called it “a counter right.” He meant “an equal right.”

This is the battle. The amendment is framed to deny the right to life to cloned humans embryos by giving the right to health to more fully developed (and thus “more worthy”) children and adults. But no just society can allow the right to life to be subjugated to any other right.

This was the essence of the Nuremburg codes (gasp…I’m making a connection with Nazism!). Jewish persons became research commodities because they were deemed inferior to the German people. The right to life of Jews became subservient to the right to health of Germans. Granted, some Nazi experiments were simply insane and cruel and masochistic. But some were done with a legitimate motive to advance science and health discoveries. The world, fortunately, refused to use beneficial studies and research because of how that research was obtained.

Mr. Eagleton apparently understands the issue and stands ready to deprive human embryos of their right to life by focusing on the right to health for others. His morality is chilling. Missourians must reject this proposal to maintain any resemblance of a just and moral state.

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