As for the embryonic stem cell research, this is an exceptionally complicated issue, and I’ll definitely need to do more research into it. There is certainly a host of issues that will be exceedingly difficult to navigate as the science of genetic therapy progresses into the future…

Looks like I’ve got some homework!

The initial blog post I saw was on the National Review site: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2UwMWUyZjk2ZGU5N2ZkNDRmZDU0NzljYjQ3MTA3OTA=
Needless to say, they’ve got their slant on everything . . .

Here’s a Christian-run site I’m not previously familiar with but has section that may be of interest: http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/11605811/

A bit: “Though Collins, a self-described evangelical, will head the nation’s primary scientific research agency, the avid supporter of stem cell research seems unlikely to allay the fears fellow evangelicals have over embryonic stem cell research.

“‘Francis is a great person, a good scientist, but we disagree with his positions on human embryonic stem cell research and on cloning human embryos for experimentation,’ said David Prentice, senior fellow at the conservative Family Research Council.

“Prentice’s office, along with the National Association of Evangelicals, Concerned Women for America and other Christian advocacy groups, favor adult stem cell research, but oppose embryonic research because they believe the process destroys nascent forms of human life.

“Collins reconciles the research through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, which creates an embryo artificially, but is also the first step in cloning.

“‘Now that is very different in my mind, morally, than the union of sperm and egg,’ he explained in an interview with Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly. ‘We do not, in nature, see somatic cell nuclear transfer occurring. This is a purely man-made event.’”

Just shooting from the hip, it seems to me that an embryo’s moral status would have little to do with whether it has come into being as a result of natural conjugal relations or through somatic cell nuclear transfer. On the face of it, it would appear that Collins’s position would lead to one holding that adult human clones–let’s hope that never happens–wouldn’t have the same moral status as “naturally procreated” human beings. To me that position seems unwarranted.

http://theologica.blogspot.com/2009/07/francis-collins-on-abortion.html

Can you link some of the articles you have been reading? I’m generally interested in following up with this…

Great to hear from you bro! How’s school treating you?

I don’t know a ton about Francis Collins, but some of the stuff that I’m reading about this claims that he’s in favor of legalized abortion and supports federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research. If this is indeed the case, it seems like the Obama administration may have scored big in terms of its attempts to silence opposition to what I take to be its anti-life policy positions: “Why do all of you evangelicals oppose this stuff when the proudly evangelical head of the NIH says it’s fine?” Granted, she hasn’t written books on the complementarity of faith and reason or anything like that, but let’s just say that, as a Catholic, I was hardly thrilled when Kathleen Sebelius was named Secretary of HHS . . .

BTW, the pope’s gift to Obama today was a copy of Dignitas Personae: http://www.usccb.org/comm/Dignitaspersonae/Dignitas_Personae.pdf