Opinion: In today’s pages: Life and FISA
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The editorial board continutes its series on American values and the next president with an installment on ‘Life’:
For all of the habitual attention to abortion and the death penalty, it’s the weird cousin of the life issue that is the most intriguing from a societal standpoint. Last month’s news that scientists in Japan and Wisconsin had modified adult skin cells to behave as embryonic stem cells seemed at first to have resolved this issue, but that’s only true if you believe that the debate over stem cells, cloning and genetic modification is a subset of the debate over abortion. It is not. It is, or could become, the central life debate of our time, and depending on your perspective, the questions it raises are either exhilarating or horrifying.
The board also asks California’s stem cell institute to clean house.
U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey explains his proposed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act fix. Jamie Court and Judy Dugan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights say Proposition 93 isn’t the way to reform term limits. Director Carl Byker describes the two Andrew Jacksons. And Lawrence Krauss and Chris Mooney ask which presidential candidate has the best grasp on the science of global warming and stem cells.
Readers react to The Times’ Balkans coverage. See why San Diego’s Branko Piliser says, ‘Your editorial shows a lack of knowledge.’