Bush Veto

[Drusilla1S]

President Bush has used the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency. He has vetoed stem cell medical research on moral grounds. Do you think he would have been concerned with moral issues if this involved weapons research?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5197 372.stm

[AB Editor]

Of course not! We cannot underestimate the power of simplistic "Christian" ideology on Mr Bush. And he has recently annoyed his conservative supporters with his views on illegal immigration so considering both arguments, it is not surprising he vetoed the bill.

[Whickerman]

Seemshe's really pro-life (so long as the life is unborn, after that he's all for death and murder)

[kipchik]

how can you put BUSH and MORAL in the same paragraph??????????????????

[noxlumos]

Interesting how he bangs on about "bringing democracy to the middle east" but uses his powers of veto to completely ignore it's principles in his own country.This had been passed by both the Senate and the House of Representaives and is overwhelmingly supported by the US people... so where is his democracy now? It's probably just down to the fact that he's too thick to realise he lives in a Republic not a Democracy anyway.

[annavc]

Doesn't suprise me in the slightest. To Bush "God good, science bad". Simple as that. He dare not upset all his born again christian brethren. oooh it makes me so mad. My grandfather suffered with MS for 30 years before dying at the age of 65, this research could do so much to combat this awful disease as well as so many other equally terrible things like Parkinsons and Alzeimers to name just a couple.

[jake-the-peg]

Without wanting to support Bush too much you have to accept that if ( and it's a big if ) you think that human life begins at conception then you cannot possibly support abortion or stem cell research.

King Baudouin of Belgium (a very religous man) faced this problem when a law liberalising abortion was approved. Rather than give it Royal ascent he abdicated and the law was passed. He was then re-instated 2 days later.

However Baudouin and Bush are diametrically opposed in pretty much every other respect. If life is so sacred to Bush it's hard to see why he approved so many executions as Governor of Texas

[Drusilla1S]

The trouble is jake, the Christian church has long argued about when a foetus is considered life. In the 4th Century, St Augustine stated that abortion should only be deemed wrong if the foetus is fully formed. He considered this 40 days for a male and 80 days after conception for a female.

Thomas Aquinas in the 13th Century stated abortion was acceptible if it occured before the infusion of the human soul took place. He calculated this was between 40 and 80 days after conception. In 1588 Pope Sixtus V stated the human soul began at the moment of conception, but this was overturned by Pope Gregory XIV three years later, who returned the church to the Thomas Aquinas model.

It was only in 1869 that Pope Pius IX took the church once more towards the moment of conception model of a human life/soul infusion and deemed any abortion an excommunicable act.

[jake-the-peg]

Well I did say it was a big if.

I don't think President Bush is very likely to look to the Catholic church for religous insight though.

[milkybarkid]

i thought in the US church and state were meant to be seperate. how wrong i was!