Stemming Debate: Obama, McCain Similar on Stem Cells

In an election season dominated by contentious bickering over reproductive rights, in which extremists in South Dakota and Colorado are trying to elevate the zygote and even the fertilized egg as rights-bearing people above women, it's strange that stem cell research hasn't played as dramatic a role as it did in 2004.  Opinions about stem cell research tend to be tied to opinions about abortion rights, because stem cells create the perfect cover story for anti-choicers looking to be viewed as deeply loving of life so innocent that it hasn't graduated to the cell differentiation stage.

Interestingly, John McCain is running ads highlighting his support for stem cell research.  Why interesting?  You wouldn't guess that McCain, who has a consistent 0% rating from NARAL, would break with anti-choice activists on this issue.  But his political instincts aren't off on this.  It's understood that opposition to abortion rights is tied to and often co-exists with opposition to sex education and hostility to contraception--in other words, it's about controlling sex and curtailing women's health, not about the sacredness of unspecialized cellular life.  But stem cell research doesn't have anything to do with restricting women's rights, except to function as a political stalking horse, so as a strong anti-choice plank, I doubt it will ever resonate even with voters who do oppose reproductive rights. 

McCain isn't lying about his support for stem cell research, as his voting record shows.  There's been a great deal of interest in Sarah Palin's opinions on this matter, but the confusion and evidence of evasion on the issue suggests that her opinion was strongly negative and that the McCain campaign is focusing on prioritizing McCain's opinion.  It would be highly unusual for a stalwart culture warrior such as Palin to break with other hard liners on the issue of stem cell research, so skepticism is justified when the McCain campaign claims her unwavering support on this issue.

Usually I'd caution about making that big a deal out of a wedge between a candidate and a running mate on this issue.  The Vice President's opinion on these matters doesn't matter unless there's a tie in the Senate on legislation, a rare enough occasion that's unlikely to happen on stem cell research.  But McCain's advanced age and health problems mean that if he wins, we run a much higher risk than usual of seeing a Vice President ascendant, and so Pain's views deserve the same scrutiny as McCain's.

Why would McCain break with the demands of anti-choice activists on this issue? It's possible that he doesn't see this line of attack bearing any fruit in his eventual goal of restricting women's reproductive rights, movement leader tactics be damned.  But McCain might also have a personal relationship to the issue.  Researchers speculate that stem cell research might not only lead to breakthroughs in treating diabetes and degenerative nerve disease, but also to treat disabilities much like the ones that have plagued McCain since his stint as a POW.  It's close to impossible that the research will have produced results in time to help McCain, of course, but there's nothing like having gone through an experience like becoming disabled to make you more sympathetic to people in similar situations.

Unsurprisingly, Barack Obama strongly supports expanded stem cell research.  His position draws less attention than McCain's, because it doesn't conflict with his base supporters' views in any way.  If you don't need opposition to stem cell research as a tool to chip away at abortion rights, then there's no reason to touch it.  Obama hasn't gone to the pains to educate the public about his opinions on this issue that McCain has, no doubt because most people can deduce from his consistently pro-choice and pro-science views that he would support stem cell research. 

The low profile of stem cell research this election means that supporters will probably miss the opportunity to educate the public further on this issue, unfortunately.  Anti-choicers consistently link stem cell research to abortion - so huge percentages of the public couldn't be blamed for thinking embryonic stem cells are cultivated from the products of abortion.  But that's not true at all.  It's a practical impossibility to get stem cells that way, for gross biological reasons that might be hard to digest before you've had your coffee.  No, stem cells are gathered from leftover embryos created during the in-vitro fertilization process that helps infertile couples conceive. 

The real linkage to abortion is tenuous at best.  Anti-choicers hope that opposition to stem cell research will establish their bona fides as true protectors of all unborn life (born life can, as usual, fend for itself), which is hard for them to do when their behavior is usually more consistent with what you'd expect from people who are hostile to sexual freedom and women's rights.  As a political ploy, opposition to stem cell research is shockingly cynical.  It's not like any embryos that die in the process of this research had a chance to become babies--the options for these cells are the research lab or the trash can.

With that in mind, it's unsurprising that even anti-choice politicians draw the line at opposing stem cell research.  Sacrificing the possibility of dramatic breakthroughs in medical treatment for the sake of creating an insincere political cover to attack women's rights crosses the lines of all but the most hardened opponents of reproductive rights.

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