Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published May 15, 2002

Taking care of business

Why do our elected officials have plenty of time to take care of things that shouldn't be any of their business, but fail to deal with important issues which are their responsibility; such as our depleted national defense, our porous borders that admit all sorts of miscreants, our illegal drug problem, our newly federalized and increasingly ineffective airport screening procedures, and the continued threat of home-grown terrorism?

Remember the Congressional action that limited the water content of toilets, so it now takes two or three flushes to do the job? Or the spotted owl fiasco that cost thousands of lumber industry jobs in the Northwest, before admitting that it had been a mistake? Well, they are at it again. This time it's human embryo cloning.

The headline in the Christian Science Monitor reads, "The Senate is gearing up for a historic decision on human embryo cloning that could affect which party controls Capitol Hill in 2003." Well, forgive me, but I hardly think the majority of the politicians we have in Congress are qualified to pass judgment on such a technical and moral issue. And even if they were, it is hardly the subject that should determine which political party controls Congress!
Same thing with abortion. And prayer in schools. These are moral and religious decisions, and ought to be determined by each individual on those grounds, not on the basis of what is most likely to get some bureaucrat re-elected. But that's another story.

The National Right to Life Committee says, "Can't they see that it's just not right to make human embryos and harvest them like crops?" Meanwhile, left-wing political action groups accuse the Right to Lifers of watching too many TV horror shows, and claim that cloning will aid medical research in wiping out cancer, heart disease, diabetes and, of course, AIDS. They have even rolled out the TV commercial duo of "Harry and Louise," who gained fame in the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign, to promote the virtues of therapeutic cloning.

The truth is, it really doesn't make any difference what Harry, or Louise, or Senators Daschle or Lott, think or say about it. The cloning issue is larger than the Congress of the United States of America. Italian scientists have reported having six women already impregnated with cloned embryos, and you can bet there are more on the way. If U.S. scientists want them, cloned embryos will be readily available on the world market, regardless of what action Congress may decide to take.

So it's just business as usual. Candidates for public office posturing in an election year (And aren't they all election years any more?) while other important and more appropriate political issues stagnate and die during the birthing process.

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.