Medical Right Watch

Attacks on Disabled and Ill Show "Pro-Life" Hypocrisy

A patients’ advocacy organization, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, has become a target of the Medical Right, not because the society supports reproductive rights but because it signed a letter supporting public funding for embryonic stem cell research that might lead to cures for diseases such as those suffered by its constituents. The attacks show the Medical Right’s hypocrisy about “life.” Fetal life—and in this case, embryonic life—must be protected even though it will never develop and even at the expense of existing life, be it a pregnant woman’s or a suffering cancer patient.

In this instance, Life Decisions International (LDI), a small, unknown Northern Virginia organization dedicated to ending private funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, deployed disgusting Nazi imagery to attack the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society. Life Decisions International claimed the patients’ organization condoned murder by supporting research using embryo stem cells. Thirty-one organizations are listed on the LDI website as “endorsers” of this position, including the large and politically influential Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America.

The attack on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society—and the ill, suffering and disabled people it represents—reveals an underbelly of the stem-cell debate. Underneath the Medical Right’s absolutism is a fear that any slight acceptance of the use of embryonic stem cells for advancing research will completely unravel the “right-to-life” position and open doors to pro-choice views. The Medical Right’s opposition holds even if the embryos are left over from in vitro fertilization and will languish and ultimately be destroyed.

Although those eager for cures have difficulty seeing the relation of abortion to stem-cell research using leftover embryos slated for desctruction, the two issues have the same underpinnings in philosophy and strategy, as the LDI attack on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society shows.

Life Dynamic’s primary activity is to publish boycott lists. LDI identifies companies that it believes donate to Planned Parenthood or pro-choice organizations. The group says that it designated the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for a “Dishonorable Mention” because it signed a letter that was also signed by more than 500 other groups, including Planned Parenthood. LDI declared that the society is “linked” to the Planned Parenthood agenda since Planned Parenthood also supports stem cell research.

The lymphoma and leukemia group, headquartered in White Plains, New York, is the primary advocacy group for a growing number of people with cancers of the blood. The diseases pose serious threats to life and wellbeing. According to the group its mission is: “Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.” Dozens of articles on the society’s website point to hopeful treatment and research in stem-cell transplantation.

The letter that the society signed expressed “strong and unified support” for federal funding of expanded stem cell research. “The bill holds promise for expanding medical breakthroughs, and hope for millions of patients,” the January 2007 letter stated. The expanded research legislation passed both houses of Congress and was vetoed by President Bush on June 20, 2007, an act which LDI calls “simply providence.”

Despite the veto, Douglas R. Scott Jr., president of LDI, launched an attack against the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society in late August. LDI claims it was responding to a letter from the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society that said: “the Society does not 'support the destruction of innocent life’….The Society opposes the fertilization of human eggs for the purpose of research."

In LDI's newsletter, The Caleb Report, and a press release, Scott wrote: "All this proves is that L&LS opposes the fertilization of human eggs for the express purpose of conducting experiments on them." "But if the embryos were created without that specific purpose in mind, it is okay to do whatever you want to them. We trust [the leukemia society representative] would be outraged if he were to hear someone say, 'Sure, but the Jews are already dead. It's okay to make lampshades out of their skin so long as we didn't kill the Jews for the express purpose of making the lampshades.'"

This type of hyper-invective also was aimed at actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, when he appeared in advertisements supporting stem cell research. Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh said the actor exaggerated the effects of the disease and called him “shameless” and a shill.

The Religious Right fears that the enormous public support for this research will translate into greater acceptance of abortion rights, at least in the earliest stages of pregnancy.

Steve Urquhart, an anti-abortion member of the Utah House of Representatives, wrote bluntly in 2005: “Conservatives must guard the moral underpinnings of the pro-life stand ….What if abortion advocates could get the federal government to officially recognize (the) position that pre-birth creation is not sacred? That would undercut the pro-life stand. Currently, the greatest threat to the pro-life stand is the effort to use taxpayer money to conduct scientific experiments on human embryos.”

The Religious Right also fears how embryo stem-cell research will impact support for its measures to prolong life and its advocacy for people with disabilities. One of the early spin-offs of the National Right to Life Committee was the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, Inc. James Bopp, general counsel to NRLC, is president of this group, and on the small board are Wanda Franz, NRLC president, and Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Yet, even by LDI’s account, a large number of groups with disabled constituents support expanded stem cell research, including The March of Dimes, American Alzheimer’s Association, American Parkinson’s Disease Association, Christopher Reeves Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association and Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer. All are in the same position as the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society.

The response to embryonic stem-cell research is a forewarning that, unless pushed back, Religious Right groups are willing to attack even the disabled and ill, if they stand in the way of their absolutist agenda.

Cynthia L. Cooper
Nov. 16, 2007

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