Celebrities such as Michael J. Fox and Cheryl Crow gave impassioned pleas for voters to support such research. Their ads deceptively implied that there was no alternative to embryonic stem cell research as a source of hope for curing various devastating human diseases. Such advocates railed against President Bush's executive order in 2001 to restrict funding for this type of research claiming it would deny a cure for thousands of victims of diseases from diabetes to spinal cord injury. These proponents were quick to repeat John Edward's outrageous claim in 2004 that if John Kerry were elected president "people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

Once a person waded beyond this rhetoric and initiated even just a cursory investigation into this issue, a number of striking revelations were to be found. First of all, there have been astounding successes in adult stem cell research, which encounters none of the ethical problems as embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cells can be taken from living humans, such as from the umbilical cord, without harming them. Tremendous advances in adult stem cell research have been made towards the treatment of Alzheimers disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, heart disease and cancer. Better yet, amniotic fluid appears to contain stem cells that are superior to both embryonic and adult stem cells. As a result they are less likely to morph into tumors as embryonic stems cells tend to do, yet they are not as developed as adult stem cells and therefore can be directed to be grown into a greater variety of human tissues compared to adult stem cells. Furthermore, in contrast to the on-going successes in non-embryonic stem cell research, not one patient has yet been helped by embryonic stem cell research.

Hallelujia! Is this not a rare moment when the Left and the Right can find common ground and finally join hands in joyful praise of the genuine promise of non-embryonic stem cell research? Surely someone has emailed Michael J. Fox by now to inform him about this new avenue of hope and that he no longer needs to rely on aborted fetuses as a means to triumph over Parkinson's disease.

But alas the silence of the Left in regard to the promises of non-embryonic stem cell research is deafening. More recently, news of the well-documented medical successes with this more humane method of research is met by liberals with distrust, if not outright distain. Early on these advocates of embryonic stem cell research had been more open-minded claiming they agree with the National Institutes of Health's recommendation to support "funding every avenue" of stem-cell research. But now, curiously, they are actively attacking methods of stem cell research that do not destroy embryos.

For example, last July Delaware congressman Mike Castle launched a desperate last-minute email campaign to stop a bill that would fund alternative, non-embryo destroying methods of stem cell research, claiming that the bill was unethical(?!) and would take money away from embryonic stem cell research. This effort was successful in stopping the passage of the bill in the House. Whereas in the past the Left was content to say that stem cell research that requires the destruction of embryos is morally permissible, now they are contending that this the only acceptable of method of research.

This left me scratching my head. One favorite hobby of mine is trying to understand why liberals think the way they do, much in the same way one might try to understand why obsessive-compulsives check the lock fifty times before going to bed. To state the question more specifically: Why is it that liberals believe that a method of research requiring the destruction of human embryos is not only acceptable, but absolutely mandatory?

Suddenly an epiphany came to me. I thought of Mel Gibson's movie Apacalypto. As the Mayan kingdom faced its decline, the rulers insisted the key to prosperity is to build more temples and offer more human sacrifices. Might not this dark, barbarous form of paganism be the same unconscious dynamic motivating the Left to so tenaciously embrace embryonic stem cell research? Could it be that deep within the liberal mind there is an unquestioned assumption that the only venue of real human progress must mandate real human destruction? Do those who adamantly endorse embryonic stem cell research harbor a primordial conviction that somewhere deep within the fabric of reality lies some diety that demands such sacrifice?

Ironically, in the early days of the embryonic stem cell debate George Bush and like-minded conservatives were castigated by the Left as "anti-science" and "anti-progress". But who is "anti-science" now?