Moral sincerity is not impressive if it depends on willful ignorance and indifference to logic.
Nothing in that article shows that in general people who say "human life begins at conception", or more specifically that the federal government should not fund fetal stem cell research, are necessarily either willfully ignorant or indifferent to logic.
True Kinsley does go on to say "There are a few, no doubt, who are as horrified by fertility clinics as they are by stem cell research", which implies that those who are also against the way the fertility clinics operate don't have to rely on "willful ignorance and indifference to logic", but that isn't enough IMO.
As Kinsley points out the opponents are not a strong political force. You have to pick your battles. Also its not necessarily unreasonable to object in stronger terms to government funded activity that you find to be immoral, than the same activity done by the private sector.
Kinsley is saying that his opponents are unreasonable if they don't have an absolutist viewpoint that they rigidly apply to all situations, and attack hard with that viewpoint in all situations whether or not there is any reasonable hope for success. That isn't the type of argument that you would normally support. Your usually a champion ideas like nuance, concern for multiple issues, and picking a choosing your battles so that you can hope to do good for your cause, rather than having it undergo serious reverses do to badly timed attacks.
Edit - And as CB pointed out, many of those who oppose stem cell research also oppose the way in-vitro fertilization if practiced. For example the Catholic church opposes it (and probably would even if it didn't involve the creation of multiple embryos, although then the argument would be more that its is unnatural and immoral rather than that it involves the destruction of human life), and others are against it because of the slippery slope idea, and may reasonably think that fertility clinics don't involve the same sort of slippery slope. |
