Is Stem Cell Research Democratic?

 

To the sanctity of life an slippery slope arguments against stem cell research, please add the following:  Why are we spending billions on big science medicine to help a relatively small number of affluent people live longer in a country which already has a mushrooming population of lonely, marginalized old people?  Wouldn’t it be better and fairer to spend wealth on things like providing food, water and shelter for all and preserving the human habitat upon which all people in future generations will depend? 

 

And can we please set aside the hype of universally long, healthy lives before sudden, painless deaths on golf courses as hucksters like Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, posit as a medical goal? Can we really eliminate suffering and death?  Or, if “successful,” will stem cell therapies merely delay and prolong the long periods of physical suffering and loneliness that currently accompany old age?  Maybe there’s a wisdom to the natural order that exceeds the wisdom of the editorial boards, politicians, medical researchers and movie stars who advocate stem cell research.