Last week, former President Ronald Reagan's youngest son, Ron Reagan, appeared on Larry King Live and in his father's name promoted the use of embryonic persons in stem cell research. Since the elder Reagan's death after years of suffering from Alzheimer's, some members of his family have used his name to promote the killing of embryonic humans to harvest stem cell lines.
Pressure is mounting on George Bush to relax funding restrictions on research using human embryonic stem cells. Confusion and misinformation on the efficacy of embryonic stem cells is common.
Ron Reagan praised the use of adult stem cells in research for diseases such as Alzheimer's. However, in the course of the interview, he showed that, despite his and his mother's promotion of embryonic stem cells, he had no idea what they were and had a very confused and mistaken understanding of stem-cell science. Reagan distinguished between embryos and “fetuses” saying that one was human, but not the other.
“We're not talking about fetuses, human beings being killed; we're talking about collections of cells in a Petri dish that are never, ever going to be a human being.”
When replying to a caller's question, Reagan incorrectly said that embryonic stem cells can be made from adult stem cells.
“You can extract cells from your own body, create embryonic stem cells with those cells, and then re-inject those stem cells that are now genetic match to you… You know, stem cells generated from your own body”
Interestingly, Reagan also pointed out the moral inconsistency of opposing embryo research while supporting IVF. “You cannot be against embryonic stem cell research and be intellectually and therefore morally consistent, if you're not also against in vitro fertilization. Because the same thing results in in vitro fertilization. Thousands of blastocysts collections are discarded. Now you'll notice that most of the politicians who are against embryonic stem cell research don't say anything about in vitro fertilization.”
Reagan told Larry King that he never thought of running for office. “I'm an atheist,” he said, “So there you go right there. I can't be elected to anything because polls all say that people won't elect an atheist.” The former president often wrote and spoke of the sanctity of human life from conception. He authored a seminal essay denouncing abortion that appeared in Human Life Review in 1983, the first — and last — sitting president to do so.
See also:
Full Transcript of the Interview
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
