A CAUSE HE"D BE APPALLED BY:

For Reagan, All Life Was Sacred (WILLIAM P. CLARK, 6/11/04, NY Times)

Ronald Reagan had not passed from this life for 48 hours before proponents of human embryonic stem-cell research began to suggest that such ethically questionable scientific work should be promoted under his name. But this cannot honestly be done without ignoring President Reagan's own words and actions.

Ronald Reagan's record reveals that no issue was of greater importance to him than the dignity and sanctity of all human life. "My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land," he said in 1983. "And there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning." One of the things he regretted most at the completion of his presidency in 1989, he told me, was that politics and circumstances had prevented him from making more progress in restoring protection for unborn human life. [...]

Mr. Reagan's suffering under Alzheimer's disease was tragic, and we should do everything we can that is ethically proper to help others afflicted with it. But I have no doubt that he would have urged our nation to look to adult stem cell research — which has yielded many clinical successes — and away from the destruction of developing human lives, which has yielded none. Those who would trade on Ronald Reagan's legacy should first consider his own words.

This would seem dispositive:

Emancipation Proclamation of Preborn Children

NOW THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare the unalienable personhood of every American, from the moment of conception until natural death, and I do proclaim, ordain, and declare that I will take care that the Constitution and laws of the United States are faithfully executed for the protection of America's unborn children. Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgement of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. I also proclaim Sunday, January 17, 1988, as a national Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon the citizens of this blessed land to gather on that day in their homes and places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life they enjoy and to reaffirm their commitment to the dignity of every human being and sanctity of every human life.

Ronald Reagan

Presidential Proclamation

January 14, 1988

MORE: (via Mike Daley):
Ending Alzheimer's (Michael Fumento, June 10, 2004, Scripps Howard News Service)

Currently there are five FDA-approved drugs for Alzheimer's, although
unfortunately they only provide a brief restoration of some capabilities.
But as of late last year there were 18 drugs in human trials to combat
various aspects of Alzheimer's, according to the Pharmaceutical Researchers
and Manufacturers Association. Half were in the final stage of testing or
awaiting FDA approval.

Over the horizon are so-called "adult stem cells" (ASCs), extracted from
people of any age and from umbilical cords and placentas. Not only don't
they carry the moral baggage of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), but research
with them is much further along.

Indeed, several studies have converted stem cells from both marrow and the
central nervous system into brain cells. Stem Cells, Inc. of Palo Alto,
Calif., for example, has purified stem cells from human brain tissue,
multiplied them, then transplanted these into mouse brains. There they grew
into human neurons and surrounding brain tissue called glia. Thus it appears
we have the building blocks of brain repair for Alzheimer's and other
neurological diseases; we just need to figure out how to use them.

Unfortunately, embryonic stem cell researchers have so powerful a PR machine
that many influential people don't even know there's an alternative. Thus
Nancy Reagan is a staunch ESC research supporter, while a CNN anchor
declared incredulously: "Ronald Reagan's death from Alzheimer's has not
changed the president's stance on (ESC) research."

(via Kevin Whited)
Liberalizing His Legacy (George Neumayr, 6/10/04, American Spectator)

Phase one of the campaign to liberalize Reagan is their attempt to turn him into a posthumous supporter of embryonic stem-cell research. "Reagan's Next Victory," says the New York Times. Ellen Goodman, who never had any use for Reagan before, says, "This is the final one to win for the Gipper."

A campaign that treats human embryos as spare parts for research is the antithesis of Reagan's legacy. He did not defeat godless humanism in the Soviet Union so that it could spread in the United States. Reagan reviled the Communists for denying the dignity and value of human life in the pursuit of utilitarian dreams, and he deplored the same crass utilitarianism when it appeared in America.

"We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life -- the unborn -- without diminishing the value of all human life," Reagan wrote as president (which the media ignore when making their case that he was an indifferent pro-lifer).

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 11, 2004 2:01 PM