Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

One of the things I have stressed in my series on the Catholic Right is that we have got to understand natural law in order to understand the Catholic Right and increasingly allied conservative Evangelicals.  That being the case, I think any reasonable understanding of the wider Religious Right is incomplete without it.

The Summer 2008 issue of The Public Eye magazine has just published what I hope provides a useful primer: "How Roman Catholic Neocons Peddle Natural Law into Debates about Life and Death".

Here is an excerpt:

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty

On June 13, 2008 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a declaration condemning embryonic stem cell research. Bill Donohue's Catholic League issued an immediate statement of support, proclaiming, "The life issues, then, are of preeminent importance to Catholics. To discuss social justice, for example, while being dismissive of the life issues is profoundly un-Catholic."

But as a Catholic who both actively supports and would benefit from this research, I began to wonder, what does it take for something to truly constitute a life issue for the princes of the Church?

This was originally posted at Talk to Action.

An Unholy Alliance: How Neoconservatives and the Religious Right Have Joined Forces to Fight Stem Cell Research.