Secular Science's Meat Market: Abortion and Embryos
When it comes to killing the unborn, science journals and secular reporters are all for it.
It would seem odd for an evolutionist to inhibit reproduction, the raw material for natural selection. But that’s because Big Science and Big Media lean to the left, where there is no need to be consistent. Whenever abortion or its products come up in the media—baby body parts and embryos—reporters only think it is odd if you oppose free access to killing the unborn.
Justice Antonin Scalia had not even been buried before reporters wondered if abortion rights will be expanded with his passing. (To see the leftist slant, notice also that Live Science immediately wondered what a Scalia-free court would mean for climate change: “Scalia’s passing means the pact [Obama’s climate program] seems safer now than was the case just several days ago,” stated as a positive outcome.) In the following news items on abortion from science media sites, notice the slant in favor of abortion:
“Women considering abortions in many U.S. states get medically inaccurate information” (Medical Xpress). Everyone is for accurate information, but the bias in the article is to make informed consent laws look bad. The article also opposes the Texas law requiring higher standards for abortionists, worrying that it will reduce “abortion services.”
“Study measures impact of removing Planned Parenthood from Texas women’s health program” (Science Daily). This article is highly biased in favor of Planned Parenthood, completely ignoring the scandals of its sale of baby body parts. “The public defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas may have led to a decrease in highly effective forms of contraceptive services and an increase in Medicaid-paid childbirths,” the article gasps. How can the US be so different from other enlightened nations?
“The U.S. continues to have higher rates of unintended pregnancies than most rich nations, and we know that U.S. and Texas women face barriers as they try to access preventative services,” Stevenson said. “It’s a public health issue that Texas women struggle to achieve their reproductive goals.“
Nowhere are the rights of the unborn child considered. Does the baby have a goal of being given a chance at life?
“Brazil’s Zika-related abortion debate sparks backlash” (Medical Xpress). This article has a subtext of questioning whether Brazilian mothers are doing the right thing by opposing abortion when the Zika virus might give their children microcephaly or other diseases. The mothers who believe in the right to life look foolish, while the lawyer has sense: “If tests confirm the virus (in a pregnant woman), she should then be given the right to choose between going through a high-risk prenatal period and pregnancy and give birth to her child or abort without fear of breaking the law.”
Embryos as Playthings
Another area where science leans left is in embryonic tinkering. Some worry that experimentation with human embryos could lean to “designer babies” and a new round of eugenics.
UK scientists gain licence to edit genes in human embryos (Nature). No worries here; just celebration of scientific progress. “It’s an important first. The HFEA has been a very thoughtful, deliberative body that has provided rational oversight of sensitive research areas, and this establishes a strong precedent for allowing this type of research to go forward,” one spokesperson says. How does this reflect on those who disagree? Backward, irrational, insensitive, thoughtless.
“Will gene editing create designer babies?” (Medical Xpress). Canadian Tim Caulfield gets the only microphone in this article. He downplays the slippery slope argument, and opposes legal restrictions on gene editing. “I don’t think everybody is going to agree that this technology is appropriate or should go forward,” he says, positioning himself as the adult in the room. “But at least it seems like the temperature is a little lower and we are having a quite sophisticated discussion, at various levels, about the benefits and risks of this technology.”
US panel greenlights creation of male ‘three-person’ embryos (Nature). Isn’t it wonderful that scientists can now play God? All for good purposes only, of course. The article grants a slight deference to the concerns of “faith-based” groups, not that they would have any power to do anything to stop scientific progress. Strangely, the article ends with someone worried about “more concerning forms of germline editing.”
Breakthrough in generating embryonic cells that are critical for human health (Medical Xpress). Experiments are on rabbit embryos so far at USC. The article states that “access to these embryonic cells in humans is very difficult” without explaining why there are ethical concerns. The difficulty “is because these protocols commonly use ingredients or components not well defined” or are hard to use, not because it requires destroying a human life. The lab can use induced pluripotent stem cells instead; why not?
Selective Outrage
Other moral concerns expressed in science media usually take the leftist position.
Why people oppose same-sex marriage: Psychology study points to self-interest as a leading cause (Science Daily). UCLA profs psychoanalyze conservatives. “Many people who oppose same-sex marriage are uncomfortable with casual sex and feel threatened by sexual promiscuity,” one says. Well, what do you know! Note to evo-psychs: same-sex couples lose out in the Darwinian fitness race, because they cannot reproduce.
How to stop the sexual harassment of women in science (PhysOrg). There’s been a lot of concern about sexual harassment of women researchers by powerful male scientists, showing that academics are fully capable of moral outrage when they want to be. Marcia McNutt wrote a lengthy article about this for Science Magazine.
Mammal matters & morals: Jon Beckmann asks whether it is right to hunt grizzly bears in Yellowstone now that their numbers have rebounded, since they have become an increasing hazard to humans (Live Science). And Matthew Brown wrestles with the complex issues involved in letting hunters shoot Yellowstone bison, since they have outgrown their habitat, and some carry disease (PhysOrg).
Would it be wrong to eradicate mosquitoes? (BBC News). Some worry that it would be “morally wrong to eradicate an entire species,” even when it is responsible for millions of human deaths. How about eradicating tens of millions of unborn human babies? Not asked. Meanwhile, an 81-year-old rancher was arrested and sent to jail for spraying mosquitoes after his wife nearly died from mosquito-borne West Nile virus (see WND).
It’s All Evolution Anyway
Evolution of moral outrage: I’ll punish your bad behavior to make me look good (PhysOrg). In this reprint from The Conversation, Jillian Jordan evolutionizes human morality again, making us just another animal subject to the forces of evolution. He ends with cognitive dissonance: “This conclusion doesn’t undermine the moral good that often results from our drive to punish, but rather sheds light on its origins and its nature.” But if it originated by evolution, on what grounds can Jordan say it’s good?
Do we have free will? (Medical Xpress). The answer is, no, according to two psychologists from UC Santa Barbara. So did they choose to run their experiments on fellow human subjects, or is this all part of an evolutionary game to make academics engage in self-refuting vocalizations?
Everyone has a bias. We have one. The difference is that we give the other side a clear voice and we evaluate their claims clearly and in context. Leftists rarely do. They present their views as “science,” pretending to be honest, moral researchers and reporters just describing phenomena from a neutral platform. Conservatives are portrayed as those weirdos over there who are “faith-based” and motivated by religion.
Academics really need to get out more and escape their stuffy leftist make-believe worlds. Ever since Darwin, Huxley and Tyndall invaded the universities and took over, academia became a self-perpetuating society of leftists who misuse the good name of science to support abortion, eugenics, embryonic destruction and other leftist ideals. Oh, but never think they are immoral. They really care about those mosquitoes!