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Kerry and Bush Debate Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Abortion

ST. LOUIS, October 12, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Friday's U.S. presidential election debate between Democratic nominee John Kerry and President George W. Bush highlighted the deep divide between the two camps on two major life issues -- abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

The debate, held at Washington University in St. Louis, was a town-hall style forum, with both candidates taking questions from the audience.

An audience member asked Kerry: "Thousands of people have already been cured or treated by the use of adult stem cells or umbilical-cord stem cells. However, no one has been cured by using embryonic stem cells. Wouldn't it be wise to use stem cells obtained without the destruction of an embryo?"

Initially sidestepping the question, Kerry condescendingly responded, "I really respect your -- the feeling that's in your question," Kerry replied. "I understand it. I know the morality that's prompting that question, and I respect it enormously."

"Now, I think we can do ethically guided embryonic stem cell research," Kerry maintained. He said frozen embryos from fertility clinics would be an ethical way to derive embryonic stem cells for research. ". . . I believe if we have the option, which scientists tell us we do, of curing Parkinson's, curing diabetes, curing some kind of a paraplegic or quadriplegic or a spinal cord injury, anything -- that's the nature of the human spirit. I think it is respecting life to reach for that cure. I think it is respecting life to do it in an ethical way."

President Bush's response was to acknowledge that embryonic stem cell research involves the killing of embryonic children: "To destroy life to save life is one of the real ethical dilemmas that we face."

A woman in the audience asked for reassurance from Kerry that tax dollars would not be spent on funding abortion, which she considered murder.

"First of all, I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins," Kerry replied. Then, using a common Catholic pro-abortion politician dodge, he stated, "I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic, I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today. But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that."

"But I can counsel people," Kerry said. "I can talk reasonably about life and about responsibility. I can talk to people, as my wife Teresa does, about making other choices, and about abstinence, and about all these other things that we ought to do as a responsible society. But as a president, I have to represent all the people in the nation. And I have to make that judgment."

President Bush responded to the same question by stating, "My answer is we're not going to spend federal taxpayers' money on abortion." He highlighted that he'd signed two measures into law to help protect the unborn: the partial-birth abortion ban and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Kerry voted against both of them.

"I think it is a worthy goal in America to have every child protected by law and welcomed in life," Bush stated. "I also think we ought to continue to have good adoption law as an alternative to abortion. And we need to promote maternity group homes, which my administration has done. [A] culture of life is really important for a country to have if it's going to be a hospitable society."

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