One of the reasons some Christians warn about the "culture of death" is that when you put together the pieces of today's biggest issues—like abortion, abortion-causing "contraceptives" such as the morning-after-pill, and embryo-killing infertility treatments, plus embryonic stem-cell research—they form an overarching picture of a society that is indifferent to human life.

Take in vitro fertilization, the last hope of many couples determined to have a baby who carries on their own genes. It's sold as a means of creating life—yet, by its very nature, it destroys more lives than it creates. A typical IVF treatment involves fertilizing up to 12 eggs and implanting them two or three at a time, in the hope that at least one will "take." As a result, according to a 2003 count, over 400,000 "surplus" embryos languish in fertility-clinic freezers because the couples for whom they were created do not want them. I say "languish" because the longer the embryos are frozen, the smaller the chance that they will survive if implanted. And that doesn't even count the untold number that are simply destroyed because their parents are certain that they do not want any more children.

Most people who seek out in vitro fertilization are not aware that they are almost certain to cause the creation of lives that will be destroyed. Chalk their ignorance up to the mainstream media, which hides this fact both passively and actively—passively, by reporters' and editors' not bothering to learn the facts, and actively, by punishing those who do attempt to get those facts out to the public. I can personally attest to the immense lengths to which a major newspaper will go to silence and ridicule a staff member who informs readers that IVF "miracle babies" are acquired at the expense of destroyed embryos.

Which brings us to Reagan daughter Patti Davis's latest column for (that bastion of responsible journalism) Newsweek online "Humanity Before Politics," in which she repeats the call that she and her mother have made for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.

The image at the top of the article says it all: a collection of test tubes at an embryonic stem-cell bank. Each one of those tubes contains a human life—or what would have been a human life, were it not torn apart after growing for several days.

What's truly chilling about the photo is its bloodlessness. The tubes look antiseptic, clean. One of them is raised with gleaming metal pincers by an unseen laboratory worker. Talk about your Brave New World.

It's images like that which make me believe, as much as I hate gore and hate the idea of children's being exposed to gore, that Priests for Life are right when they say on their Web site, "America Will Not Reject Abortion Until America Sees Abortion." Here's a page, courtesy of that organization, which—while it does not itself contain photos—will take you to what's really in that test-tube pic. It's disgusting, it's horrible, it's repulsive. It is the face of death—which the embryonic stem-cell researchers and their supporters such as Patti Davis are trying their hardest to hide.

Just as sick is the way Davis phrases her pitch for nipping lives in the bud. While she mentions "embryonic stem-cell research," she never once refers to the research subjects as embryos. So, what does she call them? It's a phrase that's sadly familiar if you've followed Planned Parenthood's claim that the thing which so-called "emergency contraception" kills is not an embryo: "clusters of cells."

"People who have been struck by Parkinson’s, ALS or Alzheimer’s possibly could look forward to a life free of disease," Davis writes. "But not if this president has his way. He puts more importance on those clusters of cells, leaning on the word 'human' as if they will actually grow into little boys and s. Which they never will."

The most amazing thing about Davis's claim is its brazenness. Talk about a tautology. Of course the "surplus" IVF embryos (never mind how offensive the word "surplus" is when it refers to humanity) that are used for embryonic stem-cell research will never grow into human beings. They won't because they've been created by a process which is inherently immoral, and they're being destroyed in a process which is not only immoral, but outright murderous.

As for the claim that Parkinson's, ALS, or Alzheimer's sufferers could "possibly" be cured by embryonic stem-cell research, well, Ms. Davis, az der bubbe vot gehat baytzim vot zie geven mein zayde. (Translation from the Yiddish: "If my grandmother had balls, she would be my grandfather.") Moreover, the "possibility" of such cures from embryonic stem-cell research is far outweighed by its risks—tumors, for instance—as well as the simple fact that it is wrong to destroy life in order to save it. stem-cell research, which does not involve the destruction of embryos, has shown as much or greater promise.

Davis twists herself into an ever-more bizarre ethical pretzel—perhaps the most convoluted position she's taken since she contorted herself for 's video cameras—as she belittles President Bush's 2001 decision to allow federally funded research of about 60 embryonic stem-cell lines: "Meanwhile, couples have continued to go into doctor’s offices and clinics for in vitro fertilization, and cells have been created in excess of their needs. Those cells, with the promise of new life in them, have later been destroyed."

Amazing. Read that again.

"Those cells, with the promise of new life in them, have later been destroyed."

"The promise of new life in them"? What new life? I thought those "clusters of cells" couldn't "grow into little boys and s."

Oh. She means "new life" for patients with Alzheimers/ALS/etc.—destroying human life at one end to extend it at the other.

Somehow, I don't think the Gipper would have approved.