The big risk is that an expanded Republican Congress will feel emboldened to pass a comprehensive cloning ban as Canada did. Bush would almost certainly sign it, and that would mean the end of meaningful embryonic stem cell research in a country than represents 50% of the world economy, and an even greater percentage of world science infrastructure.
As the rest of the world, don't forget that both the EU and UN have been discussing comprehensive cloning bans.
Yes, I agree. The U.N. has been delaying a vote on a total cloning ban because countries opposed to such a ban have rightfully pointed out that, ignoring the numerical superiority of countries in favor of the ban, the real weight of the ban was the U.S. support for the ban.
With Kerry in the White House, the U.S. position would shift most likely, and thus, even with numerical superiority, the countries supporting the ban would be in direct opposition with the majority shareholder of world scientific infrastructure. The ban would have at best stagnated, and at worst failed outright. The pressure to ban reproductive cloning would hang over the delegation, and a partial ban would likely have resulted.
With Bush holding the White House, however, the ban will most likely pass.
However, there is a silver lining: Prop 71. Reason (the person) has voiced concerns about it, and said that he opposed it on idealogical reasons (state funding of what should be the domain of private venture, etc.), but I see strong pragmatic reasons which overwhelmingly outweigh the ideological reasons.
First of all, there's the 300 million a year for stem cell research. It's about 12 times what Bush is spending a year, and almost twice what Bush will spend during his entire eight years in office. Per year. Let that sink in.
Kerry has promised $100 million a year, or four times what Bush has been allowing and will continue to allow. Prop 71 matches what Kerry would have spent in his entire four year term, in just over a year. Let that sink in.
Finally, remember this. The funding is already set aside. It's not private venture capital, which means it can't be scared away by a ban on therapeutic cloning. The money's already earmarked, so there's no capitalistic instinct to avoid potential legal problems. Sure, it means we can't use therapeutic cloning for treating specific patients, but the research can continue, somewhat hindered but not exorbitantly so.
What this means is, we've got ten years of unhindered, well-funded research to prove the worth of stem cells. All the advocates of adult stem cells will finally have to sit and see the results when real money is applied.
If embryonic stem cells fail to prove their worth, as the adult stem cell proponents are hoping, then we'll know, and we can all move on. But if, as is far more likely, ESC prove their worth, then we will most likely have many cures in stage I and II clinical trials, and with cures no longer promised, but IMMINENT, the ban on therapeutic cloning, if it is shown to still be a roadblock, will crumble. Especially if, as I suspect will happen, in the next ten years we find a way to clone somatic cells into stem cells without producing an entire embryo, thus circumventing the moral dilemma.
Now, on the other hand, if Prop 71 had failed, we'd be in trouble. First, it would send a message that Bush's position has legitimacy. Second, it would mean that, in addition to a total cloning ban, there would still be limited ESC research, allowing ESC research to continue to slowly chug along with few results and unfulfilled followup studies. ESC research would continue to lack any clear superiority over adult stem cells in the court of public opinion, and the total ban would remain in effect so long as to be almost irreversible. All the while, millions of people would be dying due to an ideological, fanatic, fundamentalist Lunatic! (No, I'm not talking about bin Laden or any other Muslim.)
So, ideological reasons aside, passing Prop 71 really is the most important thing that happened this election cycle. The second most important was the Bush/Kerry race. That's my opinion, anyway. It ignores the millions of deaths that Bush will cause or make likely because of his foreign policy, outside of those millions of deaths attributable to his medical policies. In that respect, I shouldn't understate how big a defeat this is for the mission of this website: "conquering"--or at least helping to prevent--"the blight of involuntary death..."
