The Race Card in Michigan

From Willie Horton to Jeremiah Wright, the race card in political campaigns is as American as apple pie.  But some folks over in Michigan are taking this to new and indeed remarkable heights. As previously discussed on Biopolitical Times, Michigan’s Proposal 2 attempts to change the state constitution to permit the donation of leftover embryos from fertility treatments to scientific research.

Opponents of Proposal 2 tend to view embryos as an early form of human life and therefore see embryonic stem cell research as unethical human experimentation. To bolster their moral claim regarding the use of vulnerable subjects in scientific research, they are now comparing embryonic stem cell research to the Tuskegee experiment:

Update (Nov. 21): The video has been removed.

As my good friend Phil Leotardo would say, “apples and bowling balls, my friend.” There are certainly legitimate ethical concerns about the destruction of human embryos for research purposes. Even James Thomson, one of the leading pioneers in human embryonic stem cell research, told the New York Times “if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” But, at the same time, there are also legitimate ethical reasons to allow this research to go forward.

It is difficult to see how the ethical tensions around human embryonic stem cell research are comparable to the universal consensus that it is morally abhorrent to exploit poor Southern Blacks by leaving them untreated with syphilis to simply observe how they die. Opponents of Proposal 2 certainly have a right to follow their own moral and ethical compasses. What’s less clear, however, is the ethics of using another group’s brutal oppression to promote their own political cause.