The political battle over embryonic stem cells
Re: “Bush is defied on stem cells,” May 25 news story.
On my driver’s license I have checked the organ donor option, so that someone can use what I won’t need anymore. If my organs can help save a life or make someone’s life more comfortable, then why not donate them?
My wife and I endured eight years of fertility treatments to have our child, a son who has brought us joy for eight years now. We still have 16 frozen embryos in storage. We won’t use them to have another child. Although we would like to donate them to an infertile couple, for legal reasons we cannot. They must remain frozen or be destroyed.
Why not donate them for stem-cell research so that they might be used to find cures and treatments to save people’s lives or to relieve their pain? Theoretically, they could become fetuses if implanted, but is that reason enough to prevent using them for research? Should all frozen embryos be stored indefinitely for the same reason? The suffering of people who could be helped by stem-cell research is not “theoretical.” President Bush has vowed to block any law allowing such research. Please call him and ask him to change his mind.
Ed Cable, Denver
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Stem-cell research could be the next scientific boom for our country. If President Bush signs this bill allowing discarded embryos to be used for research, the possibilities of DNA and therapeutic cloning are infinite. Passing this bill could lead to medical advances in transplants and restructure the medical world for good. However, human rights activists oppose the bill because they feel it is inhumane.
If these embryos are going to be discarded in the first place, why not use them for scientific advancement? If an unused embryo can lead to the survival of another human via therapeutic cloning, then why are these activists so opposed to this bill?
Daniel Holzer, Lakewood
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Re: “Common sense on stem cells,” May 24 editorial.
In its editorial about Congresswoman Diana DeGette’s legislation to lift the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, The Denver Post pulls a clever rhetorical trick in its argument in favor of DeGette’s bill.
The editorial argues that the embryos would be destroyed anyway at fertility clinics, and points out correctly that pro-lifers aren’t protesting at fertility clinics.
However, this is not a fair comparison, as these fertility clinics are not federally funded. President Bush and others who oppose federal funding for this are being true to their moral beliefs.
If your definition is that life begins at conception, this bill means that the federal government will fund ending lives for research.
Steve Hill, Denver
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Re: “From where they sit, cells are about life,” May 25 Jim Spencer column.
Jim Spencer’s column on stem-cell research pits the rights of embryos against the needs of adults confined to wheelchairs because of debilitating diseases. This is a false argument. The politics of stem-cell research would have you believe we have to decide between embryos or fully formed adults. But that’s simply not true. There are many ways to develop stem cells: using adult stem cells; stem cells from umbilical cord blood or placentas; stem cells from fetal tissue derived from miscarried babies; and stem cells harvested from living embryos.
It is only this last method of research that the Catholic Church and other opponents take issue with. We have no intention of depriving people with debilitating diseases of research that holds promise of healing. Nevertheless, we believe it is wrong to destroy others’ lives to do so. We fully support research using any of the first three methods described above.
We, as a nation, also have to look at stem-cell research within the larger context of health care in America. The tendency in our country is to use vast resources on medically advanced treatments that affect only a few people. At the same time, millions of Americans are uninsured, and cannot afford even basic preventive care. Focusing more energy and resources on resolving the health care crisis and providing basic preventive health care for all would go farther, faster, to prevent many debilitating health problems.
Johanna Smith Bakken, Golden
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Jim Spencer uses the plight of several patients at Craig Rehabilitation Hospital in an attempt to convince us that murdering one human being to save another is OK.
I have had Crohn’s Disease for 34 years. I would love for researchers to find a cure for this debilitating and painful disease, but I would never want that cure to come from the murder of another human being at any stage of life.
The Post’s May 25 news story quoted Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif., who supported the federal bill for embryonic stem-cell research after meeting a 6-year-old with diabetes: “If you have a child with diabetes, then you would support this.”
My only two children have predeceased me. My first son died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 1969. My second son died of leukemia in 2000. Would I love them to be with me still? Of course I would. Would I want the cures for their diseases to come from killing other people? I can assure you that I would not, any more than I would have wanted them killed to save another person.
Donna Jorgenson Farrell, Broomfield
Catholicism and politics
Re: “Catholics flexing muscles in D.C.,” May 22 John Aloysius Farrell column.
So Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput says Catholics are morally bound to turn their beliefs into laws for the rest of us in the United States to follow. He says that “all law is the imposition of somebody’s beliefs on somebody else.” Sounds a lot like what is going on in Iraq and Iran, doesn’t it?
Once religious leaders who have “the one truth” begin to push their beliefs into laws for others to follow, we have the material for civil unrest and, yes, terrorism. Look again to the Middle East if you need examples.
Evangelical Catholicism should not be allowed to outlaw the diversity of belief systems in this country by putting one set of beliefs into the law of the land.
Dave Leonard, Boulder
The power and influence of legislative lobbyists
Re: “Clout and cash belong to lobbyists,” May 22 news story.
I couldn’t agree more with state Rep. Morgan Carroll that “lobbying was a cancer” that helped defeat House Bill 1018, her health care bill. When lobbying goes so far as to make prescription drugs more expensive for the elderly, the sick and the poor, it is out of control. Lobbyists are often paid extraordinarily high salaries to advocate for laws that are not in the public interest but in the interest of a small group that profits immensely.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a team of lobbyists that advocated on behalf of the public on issues that benefited everyone and not just huge corporations? Most Coloradans don’t know this, but there is: the Colorado Public Interest Research Group. COPIRG works on consumer, democracy and public health issues, while its partner group, Environment Colorado, works on statewide environmental issues.
People like Rex Wilmouth, Stephanie Bonin and Matt Baker are paid modest salaries to advocate for issues that benefit the public such as consumer privacy, protecting our national forests, and affordable health care. Who are they funded by? Not Exxon or Pfizer. They are non-profit groups funded almost entirely by citizen contributions. They raise money and educate the public on the street or door-to-door.
As a member of both of these groups, I know that these lobbyists are always open to sitting down and discussing what issues I feel are important for Colorado’s future.
Josh Mischke, Denver
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Having lived from 1971 to 1991 in the oldest parliamentary democracy in the hemisphere, Barbados, I read your article in slack-jawed disbelief and outrage.
My disbelief is that we Americans can claim to be a representative democracy when paid shills turn our legislators into little more than political prostitutes. My outrage is fueled by the realization that ennobling, life-affirming and compassionate initiatives can be rendered callously expendable by money from the agents of corporate interests.
In Barbados, by contrast, all efforts to use money for political influence (“bribery,” according to its law) are punishable as a criminal offense. The end result is the people’s representatives work specifically on behalf of the people – whose votes are not thereby trumped by money from corporate parasites.
Phil Stahl, Colorado Springs
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The Post’s article on lobbyists reveals a backroom system of deal-making, but left out the critical disclosure, which is the most telling: Lobbyists don’t vote; they buy votes. It’s our elected representatives in the House and Senate, both state and federal, who accept lobbyists’ dollars and influence. Yes, I know they all insist that no money changes hands, but how else can they explain how our elected officials vote the special interests instead of their constituents’ interests?
The shameful part is that in every successful financial transaction, you have to have a willing buyer and a willing seller. I can’t fault the lobbyists who seek to buy votes; that is their job. It’s the sellers of votes who I fault – those who have been elected to support their constituents, not sell them out.
Philipp C. Theune, Denver
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Thank you for publishing this revealing article about the power and influence wielded by lobbyists. As a legislative aide, I am deeply troubled by what I witnessed during this session.
Additional observations:
1. When corporate interests oppose a bill, it has little chance of passage with even a shred of its original purpose. Unfortunately, the working people of Colorado don’t have lobbyists.
2. I’m sure the workers’ compensation bill was the most lobbied of the session. I am Rep. Morgan Carroll’s legislative aide, and a witness to the all-out assault. In distress, she asked me, “Where are the lobbyists for the people?” Pinnacol Assurance has demonstrated unconscionable greed and callous disregard for injured workers. Ask the victims of Pinnacol who received substandard medical care, and are now needlessly and permanently disabled, if they believe ‘there was no problem to be solved.”‘
3. Imagine being a legislator and doing the research necessary to be an expert on the key issues reflected in each of the hundreds of bills you’re voting on. Lobbyists are happy to “help.” Some have been haunting the halls of the Capitol for decades. Their loyalty is not to the people of Colorado. It’s to the multimillion-dollar corporations – whose only loyalty is to themselves. They know how to handle the legislators and get the results for which they were hired.
4. The lobby corps holds such power and influence that legislators are afraid to antagonize them. Rep. Carroll has been told that lobbyists can see to it that none of her bills ever get passed.
Coloradans need to get involved and take back their government. It’s not meant to be a government by the lobbyists for Big Business.
Novella Maia, Aurora
Our representatives in D.C.
Re: “Colorado votes in Congress,” May 22.
The voting records of our elected officials tell “us folks” a lot about who is looking out for us. I am ashamed to say that most of the folks I supported in the last election are looking out for themselves, lobbyists and big business.
In the House recently, all Colorado Republicans voted against tightening security at chemical plants, against helping states fund the “Real ID” act, against funding for air cargo security, backed gas exploration on both coasts, supported a bill to allow sale for slaughter of wild horses/burros (joined by Democratic Rep. John Salazar), and refused to add funding for clean water/sewage treatment for larger municipalities. Rep. Tom Tancredo was absent for several of the bills.
The public supplies the votes for these turncoats, who then become deaf to our desires and their promises, instead catering to wherever the big money is in an effort to get re-elected. What about energy conservation and alternate source development, secure borders, jobs, real drug and crime control, tougher sentencing guidelines for sexual predators and drunk drivers, Medicare funding, fiscal responsibility, and real tax reform?
It seems our elected become the elite, while we remain aloof, in debt, addicted to television and sports, counting on others to look out for our future. We need a grassroots movement to form a solid independent party willing to look out for “us.”
Frank Krosnicki, Loveland
Patrolling the U.S. border
Re: “Tancredo assails Border Patrol agent,” May 22 news story.
I wonder if the Border Patrol officials have ever considered utilizing the citizens who make up the Minuteman Patrol as a helpful resource in the same way the Denver Police work with the Guardian Angels. It is clear that the Border Patrol has not been able to effectively control the borders, especially “due to efforts by the Mexican government to move border crossers to other areas in order to avoid a confrontation,” as described in The Post’s article. The Mexican government is actively working against the United States, and it’s time we recognize it and do something concrete about stopping these illegal crossings. If millions of Mexicans can make it across the border, so can someone carrying a nuclear device.
Joanie Jones, Denver
Fired beer worker a slave?
Re: “Didn’t the U.S. ban slavery?” May 22 Ed Quillen column.
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did not entirely ban slavery. A careful reading reveals an exemption for “punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted … .” I understand that in the 1870s, at least one former state of the Confederacy declared all of its prisoners to be slaves.
Despite the asinine treatment towards Russ Hopkins (who was fired by a Budweiser distributor for drinking a Coors in public), to compare his situation to that of slavery as practiced in the U.S. trivializes that history. Slavery not only deprived people of any choices regarding their labor, it was also a history of rape, torture and murder. In many states, including in the North, enslaved African-Americans were denied access to the court system, something not denied Hopkins. To link slavery with Hopkins and his having to “heed Massa” seems excessive.
Lastly, de facto slavery (slavery by practice) continues in the U.S. A myriad of publications have documented sexual slaves, mostly women and children from Eastern Europe and other areas of the world, caught up in that particular traffic here.
George H. Junne Jr., Greeley
The writer is professor and chair of Africana Studies at the University of Northern Colorado.
TO THE POINT: Short takes from readers
For his part in the recent Senate compromise, Ken Salazar has been attacked by two groups: the extreme right and the extreme left. That’s a good indication his position is probably in accord with the thinking of most of the American people, and most of the people of Colorado.
Richard P. DeTar, Denver
If illegal aliens are “needed” because of a maid-gardener-nanny crisis, then the elites should eat lobster out of cans or learn to cook; mow their own lawns or pave over; and raise their own children or stop irresponsibly having them.
Paul Karmi, Carbondale
You can keep making fun of Tom Tancredo all you want, but if he ran for president right now, he’d be elected – because we the people are tired of foreigners invading, occupying and destroying America.
Mary Jane Eaklor, Penrose
I know that there is some reason for displaying photos in public of Saddam Hussein in his underwear, but, at the risk of sounding stupid, what is that reason?
Mark Kness, Boulder
With all of the publicity and Muslim outrage of the picture of Saddam Hussein in his skivvies, I would ask the Muslim community and the rest of the world: Is this any more embarrassing than pictures of Muslim terrorists beheading innocent citizens who are trying to help their community?
Keith Wanklyn, Highlands Ranch
The only way I am going to believe a politician has a fix for Social Security is when the president, senators and congressmen give up their sweetheart retirement deals and live by the same laws they pass. Until then, it’s all special interest talking. Tax and spend or give to the rich.
Don Marshall, Aurora
It is laughable and at the same time tragic that while first lady Laura Bush is pushing for “women’s rights” in the Middle East, her husband is systematically destroying the rights of the women in this country.
Natalie Schlabaugh, Colorado Springs
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