by Johann Sattler

The debate that had been boiling under the surface came to a head in summer this year. Ron Reagan, the son of the late President Ronald Reagan, who died of Alzheimer’s disease in May, spoke at the Democratic(!) Convention in Boston and declared that the American people had a choice to make “between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology.” Mr. Reagan insinuated, as had been done numerous times by his mother Nancy Reagan, that allowing embryonic stem cell research could have extended President Reagan’s life. Democratic presidential contender John Kerry espoused this issue and assailed President Bush for having effectively put a ban on research in this area. And with that, the debate about embryonic stem cell research was suddenly in the spotlight of the election campaign. Even First Lady Laura Bush entered the debate and, unusually combative, called John Kerry’s criticism of President’s Bush policy on stem cell research “ridiculous.” What had happened was that the Kerry campaign had found that stem cell research was an excellent issue to portray President Bush, who has been running as a “compassionate conservative,” as exactly the opposite, namely uncompassionate

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