Romney has been endorsed by many pro-life activists and activist organizations.

Right off the bat, let it be known that Mitt Romney was my fourth choice among the GOP primary candidates.

Check my writing in this space from that time and you’ll see me talking up Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, with barely a word in support of Romney. Since he won the nomination I’ve written a whole lot about how awful Barack Obama is but still barely anything in favor of Romney.

I think that establishes that this is far from blind loyalty speaking.

I am supporting Mitt Romney wholeheartedly in this election and I would like to share with you why I think you really ought to as well.

It comes down to this: we have a responsibility, as citizens, to be engaged in the public policy process to move public policy in the direction of the true and good. Our most direct and important means of doing this is voting. We are about to vote for President of the United States, the single most powerful secular political office in the world. There are two, and only two, candidates with any chance of winning the presidency next Tuesday. A vote for anyone apart from those two candidates will not affect public policy at. all. If one of the two candidates with a chance to win is morally acceptable then that candidate is eligible for your vote. But further, if one of the two candidates is morally reprehensible, then the other has a lower threshold to overcome to be deserving of your vote.

That applies to voting in general. We as Catholics have special considerations, teachings from our church on what is more or less important when casting a vote. There are five “non-negotiables:” abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, gay “marriage,” and human cloning. We cannot ever support policies that go against the Truth on these matters. Other areas that are negotiable—taxation, capital punishment, social welfare, waging war, etc.—allow for legitimate disagreement within a spectrum guided by Church teaching but ultimately up to the individual’s conscience. In this post I’m not talking about the negotiables.

On those non-negotiables, some seem to think we cannot vote for a candidate who is not darn-near pure as the driven snow. In his recent rather flippant post on such a consequential matter Mark Shea seems to be in this category.

After some undeserved and flimsy shots at Romney and Paul Ryan he concludes:

My point is this: If the five non-negotiables are this negotiable, something is wrong. My idea is that the five non-negotiables really are non-negotiable and that our selective negotiability has, over the past 30 years, cost the prolife movement a whole lot more than it has gained it anything. I think we should return to refusal to negotiate on non-negotiables–and re-evaluate our voting based, not on the negligible impact our vote has on election outcomes, but on the massive impact compromising on non-negotiables has had on the prolife movement.

First, his arguments against Romney in his preceding paragraph read more like sour grapes than anything else. Romney is endorsed by plenty of legitimate, respected pro-life groups and provides ample assurance that he will protect life, religious liberty, and marriage. I did not support Romney in the primary because I believed the other three would be better champions of these causes, but I am not afraid of a Romney presidency, and certainly not as afraid as of four more years of Barack Obama.

But second, based on that paragraph I quoted, which is more important to Shea, the “prolife movement,” or actually affecting public policy for the good over the next four years? He talks up the “prolife movement” at the expense of Romney and Ryan. He disparages the “negligible impact” of our individual sovereign vote. You could almost get the impression that Shea would be okay with four more years of Obama so long as the “prolife movement” gets stronger at some indeterminate point in the future. Ridiculous, and counterproductive for actually moving public policy in the direction of the good and true.

Shea may consider his version of the “prolife movement” more legit than others, but then what kind of movement is it if so many within the main bulk of the movement have already gone another direction?

Regardless of the present power or leadership of the “prolife movement,” public policy will be formed  both over the next four years, as well as in that as-yet unattainable epoch when the “prolife movement” is strong enough to satisfy Shea. It is imperative that we do what we can to affect public policy now, and in the future. Voting is our most immediate and important means of affecting public policy. We live in the now, and the next four years of public policy will likely roll by before that coalescing of the “prolife movement” Shea so desires, so we need to act to affect the now. Romney *is* the only candidate for president who both has a chance to win and is acceptable on the non-negotiables. Romney is not perfect—no one is, not even the three I preferred over him—but the alternative is Barack Obama. And this much is true: If you sit out today and withhold your vote “to teach a lesson,” or in pursuit of ideological purity you will achieve neither in this fallen world of constantly shifting political factions and fads. It just doesn’t happen.

Politics, the rough-and-tumble, back-and-forth competition of coalitions and compromise by which we get public policy, is about doing what you can, when you can, with the team you can put together at the moment, to advance the ball as far as you can, every opportunity you can. Politics is not about taking your ball and going home when you don’t hit the 90-yard touchdown strike on the first play from scrimmage. If you pursue that strategy you will lose, badly, and not be taken seriously by those who are actually trying to, and are content to, advance the ball by increments toward the goal. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl, Jeff George did not. Don’t be Jeff George.

George Weigel, writing in National Review Online, essentially agrees:

Catholics who are still pondering their presidential vote will have heard, endlessly, that no political party fully embodies the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. That is certainly true. And it is also largely irrelevant. For the choice in 2012 is not between two parties that, in relative degrees, inadequately embody the Catholic vision of the free and virtuous society. The choice is between a party that inadequately embodies that vision and a party that holds that vision in contempt, as it has made clear in everything from the “HHS mandate” through the Charlotte convention votes against God to the [Lena Dunham] ad. Catholics who do not like their Church, or their vote, or themselves to be held in contempt could make the decisive difference in 2012 — not so much as a “Catholic vote” bloc, but as a community of American citizens determined to restore the decencies to public life and American culture.

(emphases mine)

On religious liberty, abortion, defense of marriage, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, defense of marriage, and human cloning, the question is not, “Is Mitt Romney perfectly, solidly Catholic on these positions?” but “Will Mitt Romney or Barack Obama present the better opportunity to advance public policy toward the true and good, and will either of them be truly deleterious to these causes?”

I make no categorical claim that a President Mitt Romney will have a perfect record on all of these areas—only fools make categorical claims about the future actions of politicians. But the nearest to a categorical claim any of us can make is that Barack Obama, if given the chance, would continue to be the most anti-life, anti-religious liberty president we have ever endured.

So in my view the choice is clear: If you value life and liberty in the way the Church admonishes us to you must vote for Mitt Romney.

Apparently some scientists published their research showing that they finally were able to get cloned human embryos to develop to the point where ESCs could actually be harvested. This is the sort of thing that conventional wisdom would have assumed was already happening. Not so. And while it is finally happening, it is not the answer they want it to be.

Kuebler says:

It turns out that in order to get the cloned embryos to develop long enough to actually harvest stem cells from them, the researchers had to leave the genetic material of the egg in the clone. As a result, the cloned cells had three copies of genetic material, one from the egg and two from the donor nucleus, as opposed to the two copies that are normally present in our cells.

There is no possible therapeutic use for cells that have three copies of genetic material. Such triploid cells would be even more unstable, harder to control and even more likely to develop tumors than normal diploid ESCs. All that the researchers demonstrated was that they could produce genetically aberrant ESCs via this process, hardly a scientific breakthrough.

The hard truth is that not a single treatment or therapy has come from research on ESCs to date, while many have come from perfectly ethical research using adult stem cell lines.

And the Catholic Church has not only advocated for the use of adult stem cells in research for many years, but has, in the past couple of years, put a significant amount of money toward the research as well. Kuebler notes:

The most ironic aspect of this whole situation is that — for years — ESC supporters have criticized the Church’s stance on ESC research as anti-science or just one more example of the Church being out of touch with reality. Yet it has been the Catholic Church that, from the start, has promoted adult stem-cell therapies, the only stem-cell therapies that have displayed any type of therapeutic benefit. In fact, these scientifically tested therapies have already reached the clinic and have benefitted a multitude of patients.

The Church has been so supportive of this ethical research and its scientific promise that it has even begun to support it financially, as the Register has reported in these pages. In 2010, the Vatican donated roughly $3 million to support researchers who were looking at the therapeutic benefits of adult intestinal stem cells. In 2011, the Vatican donated $1 million to develop a partnership with an adult stem-cell company called NeoStem. Just this past November, it organized a conference on adult stem cells that brought together leading scientists and ethicists to promote and facilitate research in this area.

Adult stem cells produce results. ESCs do not. Why continue doing something that shows no promise and has shown no promise for years when a perfectly viable alternative, that lacks the ethical baggage, is available and already happening?

Private investors are taking note. One reason ESC research requires federal funding is private money is drying up. People don’t want to give money to something that shows no promise of success or of netting a profit, especially when an alternate investment is viable. Adult stem cell research is viable and successful. ESC research is neither. Yet Barack Obama ended the Bush-era restrictions on ESC research within two months of his inauguration; and just this past December 23, as we were preparing to welcome the Christ child, the Obama administration approved funding for more stem cell lines to be subjected to research.  Only government officials with an agenda, disregard for human life, and the power to tax and spend with impunity would throw so much good money after bad.

And thus another difference between the Church and our present administration. Kuebler ends:

The Church, from the start, has thrown its complete support behind the ethically sound, scientifically viable and therapeutically successful adult stem-cell field. Its critics continue to bull-headedly throw their support behind ESC research that is so ethically problematic and scientifically suspect that it is being abandoned in droves by biotech companies and investors alike. Who is it, then, exactly, that is out of touch with reality?

It ain’t the Church.

Sci-fi is now. Spraying on skin.

Stem cells are amazing things.

A little living component of the human body that is basically a cellula rasa: It can become almost any type of cell it needs to become with the proper programming and encouragement.

I don’t understand the biology of how stem cells work, but I don’t need to. What I do know is that when stem cells are taken from adults, amazing things happen. Like a “skin gun”. Seriously: it basically airbrushes on new skin, but without the “I’ve just been to an amusement park” feel to it.

Here’s a video about it:

Thus far we’ve had many, many stories of people treated with “adult” stem cells. Spinal cord injuries, Cerebral Palsy, leukemia, severe burns, Multiple Sclerosis, strokes, Parkinson’s, cancers, and other diseases. The good folks over at StemCellResearchFacts.com have stories and facts.

Importantly, the successful treatments have come from “adult” stem cells. “Adult” stem cells are those stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, the placenta, bone marrow, or most any other organ system of the human body. Adult stem cells are not those taken from embryos.

You have to kill an embryo in order to harvest its stem cells. No little human embryos are killed or even molested in the harvesting of adult stem cells.

On top of that, while many successful treatments have come from the use of adult stem cells, not a single successful treatment has come from embryo-derived stem cell therapies. (Or at least, if one has happened, the silence is deafening.)

The potential promise of embryonic stem cells is closely connected to their problem. Embryonic stem cells are “pluripotent,” meaning they theoretically can become any type of body cell, which is why they are so alluring. The problem is that they have proven quite difficult to control, e.g., turning into hair and bone tissue when they were supposed to become brain matter. (See #4 at this little list.)

Adult stem cells are, in their original state, multi-potent, but not pluripotent–they can become many things, but are limited based on what part of the body they are taken from.

But that is fast becoming a problem no more. A number of problems with re-programming adult stem cells to be pluripotent have been overcome, without sacrificing the greater ability to control them. The promise of adult stem cells increases by the day, without having to kill little human embryos.

And yet, in spite of the lack of any real solutions coming of all the “promise” of embryonic stem cell research, in spite of the real ethical problems with using stem cells that were harvested from embryos that died in the process, in spite of the new-found pluripotent promise of adult stem cell, and in spite of real solutions already coming from adult stem cell treatments, our government still uses your and my tax dollars to subsidize research using embryonic stem cells, but not on therapies using adult stem cells.

That may change soon, however. A court case called Sherley v. Sebelius which is before the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is challenging the government’s funding of research on embryonic stem cell therapies. When I went to the page for the case was the first time I discovered that our own Matt Bowman is one of the attorneys for the ADF on the case.

Bowman, arguing for the little embryonic people, says:

Americans should not be forced to pay for experiments that destroy human life, have produced no real-world treatments, and violate federal law. … The district court’s injunction simply enforced that law, which makes sure Americans don’t pay any more precious taxpayer dollars for needless research made irrelevant by adult stem cell and other research. In these economic times, it makes no sense for the federal government to use taxpayer money for this illegal and unethical purpose.

Visit ADF for more on the case.

I hope the case is successful, of course, but I lament that a court case is necessary to force the government to stop doing something that is unnecessary and unethical.

Always remember: no skin guns ever came from dead embryos.

Kinsley’s beef with the news that Pope John Paul II is to be beatified is that a) only one person has been certified to have been miraculously cured through his intercession and b) that the Catholic Church is “one of the main impediments” to finding cures through embryo-destructive stem-cell research (ESCR).

Where to begin? How about with the fact that ESCR has, to date, not a single cure to its credit? And that adult stem-cell research and therapies have dozens, and that list of cures is growing steadily.

Next, who seriously thinks that the Catholic Church is “stopping” ESCR?! Embryo-destructive research is happening everywhere in the developed world, and thanks to our current administration, our tax dollars are now paying for it. Blaming the Church for a lack of ESCR cures is like blaming your football team’s 0-16 record on the maintenance guy. The Church isn’t even on the field.

Why does the Church not condone embryonic stem-cell research? Obviously, because it always results in the death of a tiny, unique human being, and also because it instrumentalizes human beings, turning them into “raw materials” for scientific consumption. A horrible practice which is beneath the dignity of a civilized society.

I doubt Kinsley could express any of the above reasons, because I’d bet he’s never really troubled himself to understand the Church’s teaching. Instead, Michael chooses to welcome the news that a religious sister has been cured of her disease, and that a holy man revered by well-nigh a billion people… by complaining! By blaming the suffering and deaths of millions of people on the very institution that Pope John Paul II spent his life defending, even while the pope was afflicted by the same disease Kinsley blames the Church for not helping to cure!

The mind boggles unless we remember this truth: those who shut themselves off to the truth proclaimed by the Church impoverish themselves. Kinsley is obviously blinded to the irony of his chosen method of attack. And where so many people see good, he can only see the evil of his own warped perspective.

Here’s the really depressing part. This is how Kinsley’s biography reads:

Michael Kinsley is a columnist for POLITICO. The founder of Slate, Kinsley also has served as editor of The New Republic, editor-in-chief of Harper’s, editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times and as a columnist for The Atlantic. He has written regular columns for Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and the Times of London. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Readers Digest, the Daily Beast, Conde Nast Traveler, and other publications. For six years he was co-host of the CNN program “Crossfire,” appearing five nights a week opposite Pat Buchanan, John Sununu and Robert Novak. He also was William F. Buckley’s regular interlocutor on Firing Line and moderator of the Firing Line debates on PBS.

That’s quite a resume. And yet, in all his years, and with all his experiences, he’s never managed to acquire even a basic understanding of the Catholic Church or what it teaches. And when presented with scientific facts and ethical arguments which are at the very least worthy of reflection and consideration, Kinsley takes the easy way out and blames these problems and disagreements on a holy man, an institution and a faith he does not comprehend.

Talk about a wasted career. Talk about someone who needs a miracle.

UPDATE: As a refresher, read Nine Reasons Pope John Paul II mattered.