Evil president bans progress

I got in an argument with an acquaintance the other night about the moral pros and cons of cloning humans and embryonic stem cell research.
Admittedly this was a stupid thing to do on my part, since my opponent was both drunk and an idiot. In the future I will learn to choose my battles. But since the argument did in fact take place, despite all the rational reasons why it should not, I will share it with you, so you can also feel just slightly dumber.
My argument: 1. Scientists have achieved much more with adult stem cell research than embryonic stem cell research (I don’t actually have any facts to back this up, but it sounded like it might be true, which is more than I can say for most of his retorts). 2. Human babies should be neither harvested nor cloned for stem cell research – obviously my faith-based morals influenced this argument, but to me that does not make it less valid. 3. You’re an idiot. 4. God did not intend us to create people. 5. Please stop hitting me.
His argument: 1. Stem cell research could save the world. 2. If you would give your own life to save millions of people, why shouldn’t you give the lives of babies? They can’t even think yet (it used to be liberals argued that life does not begin at conception. Now, apparently, the argument is that life does not begin until the child can form complete sentences and name all the animals. By this logic, a mother who drowns her newborn should not be charged with murder, since the baby “couldn’t even think yet,” and therefore probably didn’t mind.) 3. Now, thanks to President Bush, stem cell research is illegal in this country. 4. Yes it is illegal! Look it up. It is.
So I did look it up, and was interested to find out that less than two weeks ago, California voted to allocate $3 billion to support stem cell research. I thought it was interesting that the president would let them vote for something illegal.
In an Aug. 3 column for the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum, an advocate of liberalizing the national policy on stem cell research, nevertheless thought the waters murky enough to clear up in her column. “Stem cell research is not, in fact, either illegal or unfunded,” she said. “The federal budget in 2003 included $24.8 million for human embryonic stem cell research – up from zero in 2000.”
The idea that the research is illegal stems from the ban on federal funding for research involving fetal tissue or the harm of human embryos.
The fact is, the concept that the evil president is trying to prevent America from finding cures that will save the world, is mostly perpetuated by the rhetoric used in the democratic campaign, as Ms. Applebaum pointed out.
“Listening to all these speeches, you might come away with the impression that stem cell research is illegal in this country, and that if our recalcitrant, medieval, anti-science fundamentalist president would only “lift the ban” or lose the election, there would be ‘magic’ cures for old people with Alzheimers and children with diabetes,” she said.
Even scientists have not gone so far as my inebriated friend did, in saying that stem cell research will save the world. In all fairness, he later conceded that it might not save the whole world.