Letter to the Editor – Grace Hickey

My answer to that statement is: if they aren’t human, what are they? Are they carrots? Are they turtles? Remember, we were all embryos at one time.
Another comment was: “It’s OK to destroy embryos because there is no consciousness there and no feelings.” Following that line of thinking, it should be OK to destroy a comatose person since they also have no consciousness and no feelings. Besides, a person in a coma already has the fully functioning organs which could be used for transplant without waiting around for some to develop from an embryo.
The supporters of embryonic stem cell research paint a glowing picture of how many diseases will be cured and how many suffering people will be helped in the future. That would be great if it didn’t involve the killing of other human beings.
Let’s go back to the person in a coma. No feelings and no consciousness to worry about there and think of all the people who could be cured with just that one person’s organs — a heart for this patient, two kidneys for two more, retinas, bone marrow, etc, etc. Think of how many lives could be saved by just one death! Isn’t it worth it?
Of course, our own relatives and friends wouldn’t be the donors. We can choose from among particularly disliked groups such as minorities, mentally ill, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, Democrats, Republicans, prisoners, welfare recipients or whoever we don’t like at the present time. The only problem is, who will do the choosing?
For many years the federal government had placed the bald eagle on the endangered species list and attached severe penalties to the killing of the eagle or the eagle’s eggs (embryos). The federal government obviously concluded that the eagle’s eggs were, in fact, other eagles (not “potential” eagles).
Why can’t we see that the human embryo is a human being even though it is a very tiny, undeveloped one?
Stand up for life and vote NO to Amendment 2 on election day.
Grace Hickey, Gallatin