{"id":468,"date":"2009-03-14T22:38:13","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T22:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/a-cancer-survivors-argument-fo.html"},"modified":"2009-03-14T22:38:13","modified_gmt":"2009-03-14T22:38:13","slug":"a-cancer-survivors-argument-fo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/a-cancer-survivors-argument-fo.html","title":{"rendered":"A Cancer Survivor’s Argument for Embryonic Stem Cell Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rabbi David Wolpe writes in Washington Post’s On Faith <\/a>from the point of view of a cancer survivor and as a religious leader. From both vantage points he supports the president’s lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research.  His concise description of Judaism’s understanding of life is one of the most persuasive arguments I have read in support of pro-choice and end of life issues:<\/p>\n

\n

Judaism does not equate conception with life and indeed understands that there are ‘degrees’ of life. To take two clear examples: according to Jewish law, until a child is born, the life of the mother takes precedence over the unborn child. Judaism does not view the fetus as nothing, or negligible, but sees the mother’s as a full life, and the unborn child as something less than that before it emerges from the womb. A second example is the permissibility of administering pain medication to relieve excruciating pain even if an unintended byproduct might be to shorten life. That suggests that what we call “quality of life” has a deep resonance in my tradition.<\/p>\n

So to use embryonic stem cells is not to facilitate murder. Rather it is to hold the promise of remedies that will enable those whose lives are diminished, ravaged, abbreviated, to hope for something better. To quote my brother, Dr. Paul Root-Wolpe, Director of the Ethics Center at Emory University, Judaism has a sense of the sacredness of place, and the idea that an embryo has a different moral status if it is an dish versus a womb seems to mirror most people’s commonsense notion of why they support stem cell research.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Rabbi Wolpe’s whole piece can be read here.<\/a>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbi David Wolpe writes in Washington Post’s On Faith from the point of view of a cancer survivor and as a religious leader. From both vantage points he supports the president’s lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research.  His concise description of Judaism’s understanding of life is one of the most persuasive arguments I have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-jews","category-religion-in-the-public-square"],"yoast_head":"\nA Cancer Survivor's Argument for Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/a-cancer-survivors-argument-fo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Cancer Survivor's Argument for Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rabbi David Wolpe writes in Washington Post’s On Faith from the point of view of a cancer survivor and as a religious leader. From both vantage points he supports the president’s lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research.  His concise description of Judaism’s understanding of life is one of the most persuasive arguments I have…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/a-cancer-survivors-argument-fo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-14T22:38:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Cancer Survivor's Argument for Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/03\/a-cancer-survivors-argument-fo.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Cancer Survivor's Argument for Embryonic Stem Cell Research - 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}