WMDs Found In Press Room

I took a few minutes this morning to re-read portions of an addendum to President Bush's policy statement on human cloning written by Dr. Robert P. George of Princeton. Sounds dry, I know, but not at all. Although it was written over five years ago, it is of as much extreme relevance for us today as it was then.

By contrast, the inconsequential details of the inner life of Anna Nicole Smith have absolutely no bearing on the moral direction or consciousness of our nation. Yet, which topic, would you say, has more dominated news coverage over these years in the mainstream media?

The rationale behind the Presidential Council’s recommendations of a four-year ban on human cloning – as opposed to proposing an immediate permanent ban – was intended, as George pointed out, to “provide time for a careful and thorough public debate about the moral status of the human embryo.” Well, thanks to our national media, that careful and thorough debate never really happened. In its place was incessant borage of headlines about everything from Anna Nicole Smith to the vilified, but now vindicated, Duke men's lacrosse team.

Despite having no significance to society writ large, the Smith story, for example, became a major topic of discussion around the water cooler at work. The mainstream press pushed it down our throats convincing us that she was worth more of our time and attention than discussions on the details of proposed legislation on human cloning.

To illustrate the incessant nature of the media’s coverage of her at the expense of more worthy topics of discussion, let me bet you that I can tell you more about her than the average person can tell you about human cloning. This is true despite the fact that I NEVER tried to learn ANYTHING about Anna Nicole Smith. In fact, I RAN whenever I heard anything about her story. I could smell that story a mile away! Her story was simply another WMD (“weapons of mass distraction”) that the MSM frequently lobs at the American people at the expense of really important matters that should be covered in the news.

As a self-professing moralistic society, how we handle the issue of human cloning has significantly greater implications on the moral fabric of our society, than what we voyeuristically think about concerning the private and troubled life of an individual woman. In fact, this is an understatement of monumental proportions.

In closing, might I encourage you to turn off Jerry Springer (just kidding) and take a few minutes to read the piece on human cloning by Professor George. Greg Koukl calls this “the most sublime piece of reasoning about the morality of cloning and embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) (and abortion, by logical extension) that [he has] seen in print.” Read it here.