Tommy James and the Shondell's in their anti-war classic, Sweet Cherry Wine said it best: Only god has the right to decide whose going to live and whose going to die.

I oppose many types of stem cell research on moral grounds, though not because of the destruction of life in the catholic sense. I oppose it because it would mean that we would be enabling technologies to further create synthetic life. We have already advanced medical technology to the point where we can people alive who should be allowed to die, often against their own will, as was witnessed in the Terri Shiavo case. At the same time, we have created a variety of nasty solid wastes from plastics to nuclear waste that will far out live our lives. Why should we be extending human life any farther?

Traditional medical technology has done much to extend human life to its reasonable limits. Yet, traditional medical technology is largely centered on fixing symptoms. It's the muffler tape for the old pickup truck. It is good when develop technology to combat pain and suffering, and on those grounds I support limited stem cell research. Stem-cell research might some day allow a blind man to see, or give the ability for a paralyzed man to walk. My fear is that people will abuse the same technology to keep a fatally ill person alive for decades, only to show that all life is valuable.

I have long argued that life is about the freedom of the individual. You are a live when you are free to be an individual and make your own responsible choices without being constrained. Life is about advocating for political change and developing yourself into a person. Death is the opposite of that: it is about devolving from a person to a mere machine, then to be allowed to return to the earth in a natural fashion.

Maybe we should allow medical technology like stem cell to flow freely into the future without restraint from government except when it creates a substantial impact on our environment or civil liberties. This would allow for all liberating possibilities of the technology to be explored. At the same time, we should be incredibly critical of any technology that prolongs human suffering and death only for a false notion of life as cells burning energy.

At the end of the day my beliefs on stem cell technology are mixed. I want the technology for its possibility to liberate the sick individual, but I am incredibly wary of this technology to prolong life for the sake of life. We need to have free scientific experimentation with stem cells, but limits on their final use. Stem cells must free us and not enslave us.