President Bush hiding behind hypocrisy

Is it ever justifiable to end one human life to save another? What if killing one person saved many more? These questions — besides producing volumes of hot air in 200-level Philosophy precepts — underlie many current policy debates facing the nation. President Bush, ostensibly a defender of the "culture of life," holds contradictory positions on a number of important issues.

Consider Bush's opposition to stem cell research. He has vowed to veto any Congressional bill that would provide federal funding for new stem cell lines. Defending his position, he told reporters, "The use of federal money, taxpayers' money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life ... I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it."

Yet, Bush supports the frequent application of the death penalty. While he was Governor of Texas, his state executed 152 prisoners, including one inmate who had an IQ of 63 and eight who were juveniles when they committed their crimes. Asked to explain the discrepancy between his support for the death penalty and his endorsement of a "culture of life," President Bush remarked, "I happen to believe that the death penalty, when properly applied, saves lives of others. And so I'm comfortable with my beliefs that there's no contradiction between the two."

Here's the contradiction: while denouncing stem cell research, Bush dons the sanctity-of-life halo and rails against those who would "destroy life in order to save life." But he justifies capital punishment for exactly that reason. Killing convicts "saves lives of others," presumably because it deters citizens from committing murder. So, which is it? Is our president really as "pro-life" as he claims to be? Or does he harbor a secret fetish for utilitarianism, and surreptitiously read "The Collected Works of Peter Singer" in the Oval Office late at night?

"After all," he may think to himself after a heavy dose of Singer, "what's killing one baby if its organs save the lives of two?"

Perhaps the contradiction in Bush's rhetoric can be resolved by looking at the "guilt" or "innocence" of the people involved. Assuming that a six day-old blastocyst is a human being, then certainly he or she is innocent. Conversely, assuming that our judicial system works, every inmate on death row is guilty of a heinous crime. Then the standard that Bush is defending is that it's OK to kill a "guilty" individual to save the lives of others, but it's not OK to sacrifice one who is "innocent" for the same moral purpose.

Unsurprisingly, he acts contrary to that principle as well. To give one example, Bush proudly signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. While it criminalized some abortions, it allowed physicians to perform extremely late term abortions when the mother's life was at risk — in effect, sanctioning the killing of one innocent life (a sixor seven-month-old fetus) to save another. If Bush believed that it was never acceptable to kill one innocent life in order to save another, then he should have vetoed the bill and asked for one without exemptions.

Why do we allow Bush's hypocrisy? We may be happy that he's not actually an infanticidal disciple of Peter Singer, but because of Bush's dogmatic yet unreliable adherence to the sanctity of life ethic, the United States is falling behind in biomedical research. While American scientists could be using federal grants to harness the potential of stem cells, our President is stuck vociferously defending a principle that he can't even consistently apply.

He owes America an explanation for his incoherent decisions. Jason Sheltzer is a sophomore from St. Davids, Pa. He can be reached at sheltzer@Princeton.edu.