[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 41 (Monday, March 9, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3090]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 UTILITARIANISM BEAT DOWN HUMAN DIGNITY

  (Mr. INGLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. INGLIS. Madam Speaker, I rise to lament the fact that, today, in 
a stroke of a pen, utilitarianism beat down human dignity.
  When President Obama lifted the ban on stem cell research additional 
lines, what he is saying really is that it's okay to kill some humans 
in order to improve the conditions of other humans. The problem with 
that is it devalues all humans when we say that you can kill some to 
benefit others.
  We can do this research. We can do the more promising research on 
adult stem cells, and we can get to the place where we don't produce 
excess embryos. Other countries, Germany, for example, limits the 
number of fertilized eggs, but we produce excess embryos. We can stop 
that practice. We can also have adoptions of the existing excess 
embryos.
  So Madam Speaker, it is a sad day when utilitarianism beats down 
human dignity. It's a sad day for America. This is a time when we 
should be, in a technological age, establishing bright-line tests so 
that we understand and preserve the dignity of human life. It's also 
not the interference of politics into science, but the bounding of 
science by ethics and morality.

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