Stem Cells, Democrats, and Moral Vision: California Election is Crucial to Medical Advances

Another race in which stem cells play a role is the Bowen-Macpherson contest for California Secretary of State. Debra Bowen strongly supports stem cell research and has resisted the efforts of Senator Ortiz to impose draconian restrictions on the ICOC.

Across the nation as well as in California, the alliance of research advocates with Democratic candidates is stronger this election year than it has ever been before, enabled by the emergence of the patient community as a progressive force in the United States. Since President Bush ruled five years ago that there would be no federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, advocates of the research have evolved into an authentic and passionate social movement. This movement includes doctors and scientists -- who are nearly unanimous in recognizing the healing promise of the research -- but at center this is a grassroots movement of patients and their families and friends.

Severe illness is often suffered in isolation, and there is a traditional stigma attached to it. In Medieval times, it was often thought that sick people were being punished by God for their sins. As a civilization, we haven't yet entirely overcome that prejudice. (Susan Sontag has written about the widespread view that cancer happens to people who are blameworthy because they aren't living right.) That's why the emergence of a powerful patient advocacy movement in this country -- a movement that wants the public to know about its plight and its aims -- deserves all the attention and support that it is beginning to receive.

In fact, the support given to that movement by voters -- support that may prove decisive in a number of close political races this election year -- is motivated by ethical ideals. Recognizing the potential of stem cell research to further the well-being of humanity, many religious educators and ministers find a theological and ethical mandate for this scientific effort, in keeping with the biblical prescription of (quoting theologians Ted Peters and Gaymon Bennett) “a selfless love of one’s neighbor that inspires struggle against suffering and death.” As John F. Kennedy said, "Here on earth, God's work must truly be our own."

In the midst of commonplace cynicism about the empty rhetoric of political campaigns, let's remember that it's on behalf of fundamental values of human caring and solidarity -- values shared by the world's major religious and humanist traditions -- that progressives fight.

Let's use email and blog messages to get this information out to voters in all fifty states, requesting that they vote for pro-research candidates (who are, in almost every instance, also progressive on a wide range of issues).

Raymond Barglow lives in Berkeley California, holds doctorates in philosophy and psychology, and is a member of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club and the Stem Cell Action Network (SCAN).

The SCAN websitereports the positions on stem cell research taken by incumbents and challengers in Congressional races nationwide.