Is Al Gore converting back to pro-life?
by Andy M. (our newest intern, from New Zealand!)
This is the question many pro-choicers are asking, as revelations surface of Al Gore – former US VP and Nobel Peace Prize recipient – aligning himself with an adult stem cell research company.
Andy Coghlan at New Scientist writes:
Gore’s venture capital company, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers is putting $20 million into a joint venture between iZumi Bio, a company in San Francisco, and the University of Kyoto where researcher Shinya Yamanaka discovered how to make [adult] iPS [induced pluripotent stem] cells in 2006.
The aim is to produce treatments for degenerative conditions including Parkinson’s Disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [Lou Gehrig’s disease, which Stephen Hawking has].
By the same token, many pro-lifers are rethinking their relationship with Gore, viewing him as a potential new ally for the pro-life cause. However this is an unfounded conclusion. [JLS note: At the beginning of his political career, Gore was considered pro-life.]…
It is clear Gore has taken stock of his investment options in this area and chosen the one that is likely to be the most profitable.
At the same time, while it is unlikely Gore’s company has opted to invest in adult stem cell research on moral grounds, we cannot absolutely rule this out. In 2004, Gore was reported to have promised to invest in stem cell research, but he did not make it clear whether it would be embryonic or adult and attempted to steer clear of the moral questions.
Contrary to the commonly touted fact that escr has more potential than iPSC research, investments and developments in this field would indicate otherwise. According to the Daily Beast:
…[S]o stunning was the discovery that Time magazine named iPS innovation one of the “10 Best Scientific Discoveries of 2007” and the journal Science rated it the No. 1 breakthrough of 2008.
But not only is iPSC a huge breakthrough, its entrance into the stem cell research arena heralds the demise of the over-hyped escr, as US News reports:
Even as the future of embryonic stem cells has dimmed, adult stem cell research has scored major wins evident just in the past few months. These advances involve human stem cells that are not derived from human embryos.
Gore’s latest move is not evidence that he is pro-life, rather that he is following the trend of other smart investors by having his company injecting funding into iPSC research.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Well I am from Nashville and Gore is all about Gore. He was pro life in his early career but went to the dark side when he went national. He will change not on conviction so don’t hold your breath.
As for the global warming comment, wish you could see his mansion and the footprints he is leaving.
His carbon footprint will trouble our planet for a long time.
If Algore went anti abortion, his religion would crumble.
I think he just knows a losing bet when he sees it (ESCR) and a winner (ASCR.) He’s just in it for the money.
Speaking of carbon footprints, cap and trade and carbon credits, how many ‘offsets’ will be required if Ted Kennedy chooses cremation over interment?
Teddy’s body is a biomass storage bunker for ethanol. The cremation might result in an exothermic reaction that would generate enough btu’s of thermal energy to heat algores modest Tennessee mansion for the entire winter.
Now that is what I call going out in a blaze of glory.
What an Earth Day Celebration that would be.
Maybe we can get Bobbie Gentry to sing ‘Ode to Mary Jo’;
‘The day that Senator Ted Kennedy drove off the Chappaquiddick Bridge’.
The Lyin of the Senate.
If it is true the ‘good die young’, it might explain why Teddy, the oldest juvenile delinquent in America, out lived his brothers.
yor bro ken
I wouldn’t want Gore on our side, frankly. His fanaticism over global warming has all but kicked him to the curb.
Let me clarify that:
For the sake of his soul, I hope that Gore comes to his senses and drops prochoice. Come to the right side, Gore old buddy old pal.
For the sake of the movement, he needs to stay in Tennessee. Maybe volunteer at a pregnancy Outreach center or something.
“Teddy’s body is a biomass storage bunker for ethanol. The cremation might result in an exothermic reaction that would generate enough btu’s of thermal energy to heat algores modest Tennessee mansion for the entire winter.”
Ken,
Senator Kennedy is dying. Could you please refrain from the victory dance you want to do on his grave.
The man is human, he has suffered greatly in his life, he has made mistakes (like all of us) and he has been a strong and effective leader in his party.
How about you make so effort on this “pro life” site to show some respect (or at least refrain from showing disrespect) during his last few months on earth.
Hal,
Yeah those fellows flying the two jets that crashed into the Twin Towers just made a mistake in navigation.
Sandy Berger made a mistake put classified documents in his socks. I guess he really meant to put them in his underwear.
John Hinkley made a mistake. He really meant to kill President Reagan but his aim was off.
If you forget your anniverary, that is a mistake.
Leaving your passenger to drown, while you are sobering up and constructing your alibi is not a ‘mistake’.
Who or what informs you of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’?
Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler probably all had family and chidren. They were leaders in their parties. They all died. But they deserve no respect, because of what they did with their leadership.
I pray that Ted Kennedy lives a long time. I pray that God heals him completely of all his diseases. I pray that Ted Kennedy finds perfect peace and joy in the land of the living and in the age to come.
But it would be an insult to Ted Kennedy’s victims to give him respect he does has not earned and he does not deserve.
Ted Kennedy should man up and ask forgiveness from all those he has injured.
That would earn him some respect from me.
yor bro ken
Exactly, ken.
Ted Kennedy should man up and ask forgiveness from all those he has injured.
That would earn him some respect from me.
yor bro ken
Posted by: kbhvac at April 24, 2009 7:39 PM
You have no idea if he HAS asked for forgiveness or not, from “those he has injured” or from his God.
And, you don’t have to respect him, just show some human decency for an old man who has done the best he could.
ken,
Hey, he’s not perfect (who is?) but I wouldn’t put Ted Kennedy in the same category as Pol Pot or Adolph Hitler.
That’s good advice, Hal. :)
Posted by: Hal at April 24, 2009 9:55 PM
And, you don’t have to respect him, just show some human decency for an old man who has done the best he could.
——————————————————
Ted Kennedy has not done the best he could do.
It is an insult to him to suggest that is the case.
I will not excuse his willful knowing bad behavior.
If he has harmed me, then I can and do forgive him. But I cannot forgive on behalf of all the others he has injured.
The decency I have shown him is to continue to pray for his healing, for his restoration and for his salvation.
A private demonstration of remorse, regret, contrition for the injury he has done to himself and to others accompanied by a public admission of what he has done to this country would do more for him than any act of decency by me or any one else save the ONE who gives him breath.
I have witnessed him attempting to acknowledge some culpability, but he was in the midst of one of the few challenged elections he has faced and his motives were suspect. His behavior after the election was unchanged.
As Frederick Douglas once said after witnessing what he had hoped was his masters salvation: I was hoping to see some visible sign that he had really been changed. All I saw was a solitary tear trace across his cheek and though I hoped for the best, I expected no change and my expectations were realized.
I will not retract a single thing I have written concerning Ted Kennedy. His legacy speaks for itself.
Telling the truth is not indecent.
yor bro ken
Ken, you’re better than your 3:34 post. Read it again. He’s a real person, going through trying times, who has lost so many close to him. You don’t know what happened that night so many years ago, nor do I. Other than that, you have only policy differences with the man. Like I said, you don’t have to love him, like him, respect him, or honor him in any way. But it’s in bad taste to mock him in this way in his last days.
From your point of view, I am a worse offender than Senator Kennedy. I would hope that if I were dying, kinder words might be written about me here.
We sometimes ask here for people to think how their words might harm the family of those who have died if they read them. Terri Schiavo’s family, for example. And there have been others. Although I doubt any Kennedy’s will read your words, and I sure hope I’m right, others who knew him will.
I am not free from fault in this regard,(or other regards either) but I would urge us to try to find a way to speak from love more than hate, respect more than contempt, and understanding more than ridicule. We’re a polarized country, and the internet pushes us at times further apart, with the protection of anonymity and the boldness it allows.
Hal,
Thank you for showing concern for me.
I believe your expression of compassion to be genuine.
There are parts of my wounded soul that have not yet been healed.
Many of my injuries are/were self inflicted.
I have more in common with Ted Kennedy than you could know.
What I do not have in common with him is that I was seldom, if ever, in position of superior power and authority. I was usually the in the inferior position. I was the one sitting across the table from the arrogant ass who was holding all the cards and from whom I was seeking justice.
But with that dung eating grin on his face, the one who could and should have granted me the justice to which I was due, rejected my claim.
And he did it for the same reason an old hound dog licks his genitalia. Because he could and because it satisfied his bigoted sadistic urges.
Ted Kennedy embodies the notion that all men are created equal, some are just created more equal than others.
If social conventions forbid us from speaking ill of the dead, even when the ill is established fact, then when, pray tell, are we to speak the truth.
“The sins of some men are conspicuous (openly evident to all eyes), going before them to the judgment [seat] and proclaiming their sentence in advance; but the sins of others appear later [following the offender to the bar of judgment and coming into view there].”
“So also, good deeds are evident and conspicuous, and even when they are not, they cannot remain hidden [indefinitely].”
Hal,
I will leave it to you to identify Ted Kennedy’s good deeds which are ‘evident and conspicuous’, particularly those deeds done as a son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, friend and fellow man.
In the final anlysis, while Ted Kennedy’s good deeds can never save him, his bad deeds may condemn him.
We are all guilty and under a sentence of death.
The only hope that Ted Kennedy has, that any of us have, is what we have done with Jesus.
We are all only one heart beat away from having that question answered.
As for the ‘biomass of ethanol’ comment. It was a ‘recycled’ lampoon. I wrote it and broadcast before Ted Kennedy’s illness was known. It was and is nothing that has not been pointed out in jest whenever Ted Kennedy was being ‘roasted’. It is political satire.
Ted Kennedy would have laughed. He might even laugh now.
I suspect the ‘Ode to Mary Jo’ would not elicit a humorous response.
That self inflicted injury is a wound that time cannot heal. Only the loving hand of a healing Savior can work that miracle.
yor bro ken
Ken, I’m sorry you ran against an arrogant ass who treated you unjustly. Unfortunately, that happens too much.
“I will leave it to you to identify Ted Kennedy’s good deeds which are ‘evident and conspicuous’, particularly those deeds done as a son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, friend and fellow man.”
He was kind to me once….
Posted by: Hal at April 25, 2009 1:38 AM
“From your point of view, I am a worse offender than Senator Kennedy. I would hope that if I were dying, kinder words might be written about me here.”
—————————————————
Hal,
I do not view you as a ‘worse offender’.
The comparison game is a self serving exercise in self deception. One can always find someone ‘worse’ than them, though some especially egocentric folk might find it difficult to identify some one better than them.
This may come as a surprize to you, but I really do like you.
I disagree with you on significant issues, but I do not find you disagreeable.
To whom much is given, much is required.
All of us, every human has been given much.
The Giver of life determines the value of what we have done with what we have been given.
yor bro ken
I might be quite a minority in saying so, but I actually adore Al Gore. He is doing wondeful work on behalf of human rights. I saw him talk in Albuquerque, and he’s a truly passionate man.
Vannah,
You’re courageous to say so. Which “human rights” would those be?
The rights of those individuals who might be harmed or killed by the onslaught of global warming. Though global warming would not flood the entire world, it would flood enough of it that it would devastate the Netherlands or India for example. He’s not pro-life on abortion, which I disagree with, but he is pro-life on the environment and its relationship to humankind.
:).
Vannah, it’s refreshing to see a pro life commentator who doesn’t make everything in the world black or white. All of us are more complex than that.
Vannah,
I have to disagree with the value of Gore’s efforts. For one, we do not have a “right” to live on an unchanging planet. That’s not in the Constitution.
Our environment is ever-changing and would be whether we’re living here or not. Do you seriously think that man alone can change the climate patterns of this monstrous planet? Even scientists have major problems with Gore’s theories. ( Who appointed him King of the World anyways? – Mother Nature?)
Perhaps those living in low-lying areas would be best to move while they have time. Why is no one demanding that we do that?
* * * *
“Vannah, it’s refreshing to see a pro life commentator who doesn’t make everything in the world black or white. All of us are more complex than that.”
Oh Hal, Are you talking about me?:) No, I quess you are talking about Vannah.
What you forget is that most of life is not grey either. Much of our law is based on black and white. (You know, Good, Bad, that sort of thing.) If people paid more attention, the world might be a much better place.
A very interesting argument, Janet. I’ve never heard it put that way before. :). I think that you are right that God did not give us a right to abide on this planet, and its changes shall at times knock us down. I think that the best that humanity can summon is to try and cushion the fall for generations to come so that we might live to praise God, prosper, and learn from our mistakes. Global warming is just another one of those falls that, in my opinion, we must prepare ourselves for. No one man can do that, you’re right, but together I think all of us can reverse a lot of damage- like abortion.
Thanks, Hal, too. :).
Here’s an exercise:
Put an ice cube in a cup. Fill it almost to the brim with water.
Then watch the ice cube melt until it overflows the cup.
What? It melted and the cup’s volume is lower now?
Hmmm….. someone forgot their high school chemistry.
Water is denser than ice. Perhaps the netherlands stand to benefit from global warming.