The Ignorance Of Creigh Deeds

Got this fascinating little e-mail from Creigh Deeds today:

Dear Friend,

Yesterday, I was so proud to have a Democratic President.

As you may have heard, President Obama signed an executive order to lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research. Once again, America will take the lead in conducting research that has the potential to improve the quality of life of countless Americans. I'd be grateful if you could take a moment to join me in support of President Obama.

Show your support for President Obama on stem cell research.

While we should celebrate this historic day, the fight for stem cell research is far from over. Here in Virginia back in 2005, I exposed Bob McDonnell’s radical stance on this issue. I fought tooth and nail against him. And let there be no doubt that if elected Governor, Bob McDonnell would do everything he could to close Virginia's doors to the cures and hopes of stem cell research. We as Democrats simply can’t afford to lose in 2009.

I believe that yesterday was a beginning, not an end. I want Virginia to lead in the development of stem cell research. I believe our research institutions should lead in this fight, which not only would create 21st century jobs here in Virginia, but also help find the way to cures. Let’s show President Obama how important a step yesterday was.

Thank President Obama for supporting the promise of stem cell research.

Thank you for joining me in support of President Obama. Together, we can continue to move this Commonwealth forward.

Sincerely,

Creigh Deeds

Now, aside from the fact that I'm no friend of Creigh Deeds --- don't even know how I got on his e-mail list --- this missive is rife with revelations about the guy who apparently wants to sell himself as a "conservative" Democrat.

First, there's the implication that America can't "take the lead in conducting research that has the potential to improve the quality of life of countless Americans" unless government funds it. Remember, of course, that the so-called "ban" on embryonic stem-cell research was only a ban on government funding of it (which, to his credit, Deeds apparently recognizes); the private sector was completely free to use embryonic stem cells --- importantly, for foes, from aborted fetuses and discarded embryos from fertility clinics --- to their heart's content.

Does Creigh Deeds really believe this? Wow.

Moreover, while I don't pretend to understand the science of it --- my degree is in law, not genetics or biology --- the issue here isn't whether embryonic stem-cell research would occur. It clearly could occur, even under the eeeeeeevil! Bush Administration. Whether it did occur, I don't know. But to the extent that it did, it occurred with private or state funding, not federal funding.

But that raises this important little question: if it didn't occur, or if you're worried that it didn't occur, doesn't that raise a question as to whether it might not have occurred because its potential is not what the abortion lobby wants you to believe it to be? My layman's understanding is that the most practical applications of stem-cell research has not involved embryonic stem cells. With that being the case, might it be that private entities chose not to fund it based upon a disciplined cost-benefit analysis of its potential?

And if private entities subject to the discipline of the market have made that determination, how is it that government --- subject to no apparent discipline, at least in the age of the Obamorons --- can make a rational contrary determination?

Aside from the profound moral questions at issue, it is utterly clear that the decision to fund federally embryonic stem-cell research is the result of the damnable confluence of a pro-abortion lobby that would impose no limitations on the unbridled "choice" over the life and death of the most innocent, and a Big Government lobby which arrogates unto itself the authority to interpose itself into all manner of individual decisionmaking other than a mother's decision to kill her unborn child.

How either attitude is consistent with the scheme of "ordered liberty" created under our Constitution by great Virginians like Madison, Jefferson, and Washington remains a mystery.