Chicago Tribune
May 15, 2003
By Jonathan Turley. Jonathan Turley is a professor at George Washington Law School
My father is dying for the religious right.
While most political debates in this country are often passionate, few are really personal. Stem cell research is one exception and this may prove a serious problem for the Republicans in the coming elections.
In the world of single-issue politics, there is nothing more lasting or absolute than a policy that endangers a loved one. My single issue has a name. John Kenneth Turley.
My father has advanced Parkinson’s disease and it was recently reported that promising research into a cure for Parkinson’s, and other diseases, is being stymied by the Bush administration’s restrictions on federally funded stem cell research.
Recent polls show that about 67 percent of Americans want federal restrictions on stem cell research lifted. Most citizens, including many anti-abortion activists, reject the opposition to stem cell research as extreme. However, the minority view opposing such research is shared by President Bush and, by way of the White House, the religious right has prevailed in forcing Americans to live, or more accurately die, according to their religious beliefs.
Two years ago, the White House adopted a “compromise” position after earlier reports suggested that President Bush wanted to ban all funding for stem cell research. The president’s political advisers apparently concluded that many voters would not forgive or forget a complete ban on research that could benefit an estimated 130 million citizens with illnesses that are potentially treatable through stem cell research. So, after the president publicly consulted with clergy, the White House announced that researchers could use the existing “stem cell lines,” groups of genetically identical cells, created before Aug. 9, 2001, but could not create any new lines. President Bush assured the public that this was an ample pool for research demands. Back then, it was said that there were about 70 cell lines, but the National Institutes of Health reported last week that there are only about 11.
President Bush has barred any creation of new blastocysts, early embryos that are left over (and normally discarded) after in-vitro fertilization procedures. Now researchers who believe they are on the verge of breakthroughs in curing diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s find themselves struggling with legal obstacles.
Leading researchers estimate that between 100 and 1,000 new lines will be required to produce matches for the entire U.S. population.
Worse yet, the existing stem cell lines were created by using what are called mouse-feeder cells, mixing human cells with mouse cells. However, this method has been found to contaminate stem cells with potential viruses. New methods do not use mouse cells, but they cannot be used because Bush has barred new stem cell lines.
Like many families, I have watched this debate with a sense of frustration and helplessness. I have watched politicians court the religious right by working to stop this research as I watch my father diminish by the day. The greatest toll of Parkinson’s is not simply the death that it eventually brings but the countless indignities that it imposes as a precondition for death.
My father, who lives in Chicago, is an accomplished international architect; one of a handful of architects trained by the famed Mies van der Rohe. He now struggles to maintain his dignity against a disease that relentlessly robs you of every ounce of dignity.
Every morning my father resumes his war against Parkinson’s and every day I look for a new cure that might save him. Yet promising cures are being slowed by the president’s policy against federal funding. Despite recent pleas from fellow Republicans like Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, the president has struggled to maintain his earlier political position notwithstanding its lethal consequences.
This country was founded on a principle that one religious group would not be allowed to use the government to impose its tenets on the rest of society. This is generally viewed as part of the promise in “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” However, for my father, it is not about liberty, it is about his life.
