I remember now!
It was a letter in yesterdays Contra Costa Times, which I read at work during lunch hour. I wanted to answer it, but when I got home and looked for it in our issue of the West County Times, I couldn't find it! Apparently the CC Times and the WC Times are not always identical. And to make matters worse, I couldn't remember just what it was I found to comment on. But it just came back to me. Somebody was complaining about the fact (however much of a fact it may be) that Senator John Kerry has missed many votes in the Senate, and we can't tolerate having a president who is not on the job 24/7.
Which brought the immediate thought: just where was it that George W. Bush was spending much of the summer before 9/11? The words "ranch" and "Crawford, Texas" spring immediately to mind ...
I see that, according to Maggie Farley of the L.A. Times, the Bush administration, with the aid of around five dozen small countries with "strong Catholic or Muslim majorities," wants the U.N. to sponsor a global treaty banning: (a) human cloning; and (b) stem cell research.
The argument, of course, is that one purpose of cloning, so-called "therapeutic cloning," results in the taking of human life, which is "unethical and morally reproachable," an argument which, coming from the perpetrator on Iraq of "shock and awe," should be noted for what it is: hypocritical. Still, for those of us who had little or no use for "shock and awe," it deserves attention, no matter who uses it.
This is pretty much the same argument we see from the self-styled "pro-life" camp with respect to abortion: life begins at conception, and is sacred. This is also a hypocritical argument, at least if it comes from somebody who has ever eaten at Sizzler's (even if they've only visited the salad bar: shrimp, tuna and artichokes, too, are living things, and heaven help the pro-lifer who's ever put chopped egg on his salad ...).
The self-styled "pro-choice" camp, or at least certain of its members, may respond that, in fact, life only sets in at some time later, and so early termination is perfectly legitimate. This, too, is a spurious argument. In fact, life does not begin at conception, but a considerable time before ― would anybody argue that those swarming sperm cells, racing down that duct towards that defenseless egg, are not alive? Heck, the chain of life that leads to every single blastocyte could, if you had the ability to travel in time, be traced back at least a billion years, and probably more. No question, that fertilized egg is alive. The real question is: when does human life begin? A human being ― well, at least his sentience ― pretty definitely has starting and stopping points.
Question may be posed in two ways: When is the body ensouled? or, When does sentience set in? The first, of course, assumes that the "soul" is restricted to human beings. Anybody who has ever lived with a dog or a cat may have leave to doubt this, of course; and in any case, no one that I know of has ever succeeded in demonstrating the existence of a soul in a court of law, even in a full-grown human being. Let us then restrict ourselves to sentience. At what point in the development of sentience should the fetus become sacrosanct? Well, it's still considered proper to drown unwanted kittens ― at what point does a human fetus pass the developmental stage of a drownable kitten? I don't know, but it's certainly well beyond the stage at which "therapeutic cloning" for the purpose of harvesting stem cells is terminated. So it looks to me as though there's no ethical or moral harm ― at least when compared to other actions that modern society deems permissible ― in that sort of therapeutic cloning.
Foreign Minister Roberto Tovar of Costa Rica, of course, points out the potential dangers of such activities. For example, he warns of the potential danger of exploiting women as "egg-making factories." This isn't a spurious danger, of course; such things have already happened (rarely) to women who have surrendered their eggs for in vitro fertilization, a recognized and accepted technology in this early 21st century. Any system is subject to abuses; rarely do we permit the mere possibility of such abuses to deter us from initiating a useful system such as therapeutic cloning.
More dangerous is the fact that the term therapeutic cloning could easily be extended not just to stem-cell research but to the production of full-grown clones, human beings who would be seen not as individuals in their own right but as sources of easily harvestable organs, tissues and liquids to maintain their "progenitors" in good health. This would be a detestable use of cloning, but could be avoided (I won't say "easily" ― money always talks, particularly in a world where slavery is practiced even in countries where it is considered illegal such as the United States) by laws recognizing all clones as individual human beings, distinct from their progenitors and with all the rights and responsibilities of humans who come straight out of the womb, just as is the case now for identical twins, which are, for all intents and purposes, identical to clones.
In fact, far more dangerous than human cloning (which is considered, for reasons I have never understood, as intrinsically unethical) is the cloning of other species, plant and animal, to increase production. While human clones will always have interested advocates to at least minimize their abuse and the abuse of human cloning, plants and animals have no such advocates; and in the long run, the least we can expect is a reduction in genetic diversity within commercially useful species as clones of the most "useful" individuals in the species replace naturally born individuals. The worst we can expect, of course ― and in the long run, it's almost inevitable ― is the extinction of several such species when some disease or blight hits that would have minimal or temporary effect on a genetically diverse species but maximum and permanent effect on a species with no genetic diversity.
Maybe the U.N. should sponsor a treaty banning cloning of tomatoes, corn or sheep? Don't expect the Bush administration to support it, however.
Working over at the Elections Department (Contra Costa County, CA), I get a chance to hear some of the misconceptions people have about their ballots and what they ― and others ― can or cannot do with them. Here, in my opinion, are the big three.
"I want to change my party affiliation from Republicrat to Democan, because I simply cannot see voting for the cowardly weasel my party nominated for president, and as long as I'm a Republicrat I can't vote for his opponent in the election."
In any election held in November (because primaries are always held earlier ... and earlier ... and earlier...) you can vote for anybody you want to on the ballot that is given to you (and everybody else). Your party plays no role in this. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
"I like Arnold Schwarzenegger well enough, even if as governor he just seems to be Gray Davis on steroids, but I really have no opinion one way or the other on Proposition 1984, 'Shall April 1 be declared Conan the Satrap Day in California?' But if I don't vote one way or the other on this proposition, my entire ballot will be declared invalid!"
You can vote, or not vote, for any office or measure on the ballot; whether or not you vote will have no effect on anything else you do on the ballot. Your ballot will always be counted ― even those parts that, since you didn't vote on them, count for nothing.
"I got an absentee ballot, but I heard that absentee ballots are never counted unless the election is really close. So maybe I'll throw it away and go to my polling place to vote."
There may be polities here and there in this country where absentee ballots are not counted ― though I suspect this is more likely to happen when the race is close than when it is not ― but this is more likely to be the rare (and illegal) exception than the norm. Contra Costa County, for instance, spends lots and lots of dollars and man hours to prepare absentee ballots so that they will be ready to count right along with the ballots that come from the polling places. (Actually, they could be counted earlier, though I don't think that's done.) By the time it is known whether the race is going to be close or not, the absentee ballot number will already have been included.
There are enough forces in this country already trying to convince you not to let your ballot count. Don't let them get away with it. Don't fall for pernicious urban legends.