The headline is misleading.

As I said, the Dickey-Wicker Amendment has been in effect since the Clinton administration. It was in effect when Obama signed his executive order. Obama had no power to okay “federal embryo research,” and his executive order did not okay “federal embryo research.” So when he signed legislation containing the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, he wasn’t undoing something he had done two days before.

Blurring meanings is not a way to make a good argument.

I just thought I would post how the media is portraying what happened last week. Though, of course, the stem cells come from embryos, so it is research on embryos.

Of course, Obama’s executive order did not okay federal embryo research. It rescinded the ban on embryonic stem-cell research. Federally funded research on embryos had been banned since early in the Clinton administration, and Obama’s executive order did not and could not change that.

Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

nathan,

I would say that the moral thing for abortion opponents while they are in the minority is (1) to keep attempting to criminalize abortion, and (2) find some common ground (like the 95/10 Initiative) with those who would like to see abortions reduced but not criminalized.

I was not intending to imply that if the majority democratically chooses abortion, the minority is obligated to drop their opposition. I was saying that I did not find it credible that the difference in the politics of abortion between Italy and the United States was that Italy had had a referendum and the United States had Roe v Wade. I think those who are fighting abortion in the United States are fighting it because they are opposed to it, not because it came to most of the United States through a Supreme Court decision.

Now, if you hold an opinion like this (from a post on Vox Nova from six months or so ago) . . .

American mothers have murdered 40+ million of their own children in their wombs. This evil costs each year twice as many American lives as heart disease. This evil in total doubles the death toll of Stalin’s purges (20 million). The evil of abortion is the worst single crime against humanity in all of human history.

Obama is an agent of this murder industry. His soul is utterly covered in the blood of the innocent. And the hand that votes for Obama is complicit in the greatest holocaust of history.

. . . I don’t understand how you can remain in this country, pay taxes, and go about your everyday life. If you think you are living in a country that is worse than Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany and is perpetrating the worst crime against humanity in the history of the world, you have an obligation to remove yourself from it to the greatest extent you can. Voting Republican does not absolve you of cooperation in evil on that scale.

I am curious. Is it immoral for those, who believe abortion is immoral, to live in a country where the majority thinks abortion is okay and where we pay taxes which fund, at minumum indirectly, abortions, IVF and birth control?? Why or Why not?

What is the moral thing for those, who believe abortion is immoral and should illegal, to do? Just ignore our fellow citizens who disagree with us? Move to another country?

So long as the larger populace thinks something is okay, even murder such as this can be considered right.

ari,

I was not addressing the morality of abortion. Obviously the majority can be wrong. My remarks were addressed to the argument that the reason there is so much turmoil in the United States over abortion, and so little in Italy, is that in the United States the democratic process was short-circuited by the Supreme Court, and the debate over abortion was not completed, whereas in Italy they have had two national referendums, the democratic process has played itself out. That argument seems to be less plausible if Americans in effect just chose legal abortion by giving a big victory to Obama.

I find the argument weak, and I would imagine you do as well, since if the United States had a national referendum on abortion and the pro-choice side won, even by a large margin, I don’t think the pro-life movement would say, “Okay, the people have spoken. We won’t make abortion an issue any more.”

And of course democratically choosing to make abortion legal is not the same thing is declaring it moral. I am sure a great many people are opposed to abortion (and even more are ambivalent) but think it should remain legal. I would never conclude that because the majority of people voted to keep abortion legal, they were expressing the view that it is also moral.

Again with the hideous argumentum ad populum.

So long as the larger populace thinks something is okay, even murder such as this can be considered right.

I think a referendum in all the US (I know it is impossible) to outlaw abortion would be easily defeated as well.

I agree with David, American have chosen abortion democratically.