This is the best analogy I have found thus far to explain why I am in favor of stem cell research.
And just in case the link didn't work, the text, found at Mighty Middle, can also be found in m extended entry.
Immoral Moralists
Take a look at this: . Did you see it? The period back there. Or this one. Choose any one of the periods on this page and imagine yourself picking it up. Hold it in your hand. Don't exhale! You might blow it away.
Now, with that period in one hand, look across the room at your son or daughter, or wife or husband. Use your imagination now, and see that person you love, that person you would give your own life to save, and imagine them very sick.
Imagine the trip to the doctor. The blandly reassuring way the doctor says "we'll just have to run some tests."
Imagine now the trip to the hospital. The smell of the place. Imagine the needles going into your loved one's arm, or neck, or spine. Imagine their fear. Imagine for a moment what they are imagining.
Now, let two weeks pass while you wait for the tests. You research the disease on-line. You skim the newsgroups, the support networks. All the brave talk just scares you more. You don't sleep much.
The doctor calls. You can tell the answer from her tone of voice. The tests are positive. That person you love with all your heart is going to die a slow, degrading, painful death. They are going to die little by little, for months. At the end they won't look like the person you love. They won't sound like the person you love. Each time you visit them they will be weaker, sadder, more obviously diseased.
Still have that period in your hand? Don't lose that period.
That period is an embryo. Yes, an all-but-invisible collection of cells which would, if implanted into a womb, and fed by the placenta, become a human being.
Except that this embryo will never be grown into a human being. It was one of tens of thousands of embryos created as a byproduct of in vitro fertilization. It is scheduled to be thrown away.
See the period in your hand? It's going to be thrown away. But. If it were not thrown away, it could be made to grow a line of stem cells. Those stem cells are magic. We believe, we hope, we expect, they can be manipulated and used to grow the tissues or organs that would save the life of the person you love. That dot on the palm of your hand might stop the horrifying pain, the utter loss of dignity, the slow-motion nightmare.
We can throw the embryo away. Or we may be able to use it to save your child's life.
Throw away . . . save a life.
And the president's answer is? Throw it away. And this he calls morality. This, he claims to believe, is the answer preferred by the same Jesus who said "Blessed are the merciful."
Turn your hand over. Let the dot, the period, the embryo, fall to the floor. That, we are to believe, is the Christian thing to do.
You'll hear a lot of high-flown rhetoric on this topic. There will be a lot of evasive blather, a lot of weasel words, a lot of "slippery slope" talk. Whenever a decision is morally unjustifiable out comes the "slippery slope."
What you need to do right now is look across the room at that person you love, and tell that person you care more about the period, than you do about their life. And if you cannot say that to your son or daughter, husband or wife, then do not presume to say it to the light of anyone else's life.