Snake Oil: Ron Reagan’s dishonest presentation.

Robert P. George on Ron Reagan & Democratic Convention on NRO

" Ron Reagan virtually promised Parkinson's sufferers that embryonic stem cells will provide a cure for them in ten years or so. 'Sound like magic?,' he said.'Welcome to the future of medicine.' But Ron Reagan has no idea — no one does — whether this is the future of medicine. He is engaged in a campaign of outrageous hype to persuade suffering people that a mere change of administrations in Washington will lead to cures for 'a wide range of debilitating illnesses: Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, lymphoma, spinal cord injuries, and much more.' Sound like snake oil? Welcome to the present of politics."

"Ordinary listeners who are unfamiliar with cloning technology — and, by the way, Ron Reagan was careful not to use the word 'cloning,' though that is exactly what he was describing — would be left with the impression that the process generated embryonic stem cells without generating an embryo! Indeed, by ambiguously referring to 'these cells,' in order to avoid revealing the fact that the cloning process generates a living human embryo which is then deliberately killed, Ron Reagan no doubt left some people with the impression that opponents of embryonic-stem-cell research consider embryonic stem cells, rather than the human embryos from which they are harvested, to be human beings. But this is the very reverse of the truth."