11/27/2006

the ridiculousness continues

It's football time. Do you know what the means?

Get ready for stem cell ads! Apparently the group Do No Harm, which has backing from some members of the President's Council on Bioethics, has put together a nice little post-election spot. The scene is in a lobby or cafe kind of place in a hospital or clinic. You see a trustworthy looking woman in nursing scrubs walking to the table talking about stem cell research. Someone else is on her laptop at the table, reading off the football score. 72 for adult stem cells, 0 for embryonic stem cells (despite decades of research, of course).

The woman in scrubs gives the SCNT is human cloning line, then, the money shot.

Woman (with authoritative expert tone): You remember Dolly the sheep? It's the same process.

Man (with glasses, overhearing from next table, in a caring, concerned voice): You mean they want to clone human beings?

Oh, snap. We caught you now evil scientists. It's bad enough you don't support productive adult stem cell research but do support the shut out, baby-killing embryonic stem cell research. You just want to clone human beings!

Let's see, how was Dolly born? She must have been grown in a petri dish.

Here's the website they leave at the end of the ad.

Oh, wait, you mean Dolly was born by a sheep, not in a test tube? You mean scientists do support adult stem cell research? You mean there have been lots of barriers enacted to prevent embryonic stem cell research, barriers not faced in examining adult stem cells? You mean there are hundreds of thousands of fertilized embryos lying around and many more that have already been killed?

Shh, don't upset anybody with nuanced thought. Embryonic stem cell research = Dolly the sheep. That's all you need to know.

2 comments:

Shawn said...

Nathan,

I just came across the bookmark to your blog. It's been awhile since I've visited. I've been busy fighting the lie-mongers and their propaganda - sorry I haven't stopped by sooner to say hello. I've read most of the posts on your site and am impressed with your style of presentation - direct, yet not too serious, and funny, but not to distraction. It's very engaging and your points are well taken.
I saw the commercial you're talking about and man, I totally agree with you. In an earlier post you mentioned that these people may have legitimate concerns, and they do. If they focused their platform on the fact that, in their estimation, any and all fertilized embryos constitute human beings then they truly could argue that this is murder (as they see it). That would be (and has been) a powerful argument, easy to get across and honest enough to believe.
However, as you point out, they instead have chosen to hammer home lie after lie, and even worse, they choose to do it in cheesy ads that come off as suspicious even if you're on their side. People sense something fishy going on, and rightly so. In the end I think most people find the ads insulting to their intelligence and don't want to be associated with such a group. I can't say that I'm sad to see these extremists shoot themselves in the foot (maybe they'll aim higher next time). It actually gives me hope that maybe we're not a state of mindless conservative syncophants, as I've feared for the last 6 years.
Anyways, nice to see you're still posting - stay loud and strong.
-S

Nathaniel said...

Good to hear from you again. I appreciate the feedback; this is really the only kind of writing I do whose purpose is just to let me meander toward some honest assessment of how I see things without really worrying about who the audience is or what I get out of it, like so much writing for school and work tends to be.

This particular initiative focused a variety of issues that have bothered me/interested me for a long time in very clear, stark terms, and I really just reached a point where I'd had enough. In general, my personality is rather nonconfrontational, diplomatic, tactful, and so forth; prone to seek reconciliation, not escalation. But at some point if you don't draw the line, if you don't reject disingenuous argumentation and distortion of truth designed to be manipulative and misleading, you forfeit your claim to having a better, healthier perspective on what truth is.