Charles Krauthammer is a hypocrite. Fairly blatantly so. At the top of "Thou Shalt Not Create," after quoting President Bush's commitment to end research on human embryos, he says
That declaration drew more than applause. It received a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle -- demonstrating that even amid the confusion and dishonesty in this country's bioethics debates, some truths remain self-evident. And one of those truths is that human embryos are to be created for the purpose of producing human babies, not for commerce and not to be dismembered for study or spare parts.but further down in his article, he's not opposed to, is in fact in favor of using the discarded embryos from IVF for research. Apparently, in his eyes, it is okay to destroy a human embryo if you create it for some other purpose, but not if you create it to destroy it. The hypocrisy here is nearly self evident, but I suppose I must acknowledge that there is one loophole. I would argue that IVF is equally immoral, and equally deserves to be banned. It is, just as cloning would, creating human life with the intent to end it: to discard most of the created embryos. It is possible that this logic, self-evident to me, has not occurred to him. If so, he is not a hypocrite, but an fool. Were he ever to read these words, he might not like that appellation any better. ;-)