Ethical Debate Quotes

I think that we're foolhardy to not be engaging in federal funding of stem-cell research in the most aggressive way we possibly can.

We were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life.

The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.

There is a strong religious commitment to the sanctity of human life, but, paradoxically, some of the most fervent protectors of microscopic stem cells are the most ardent proponents of the death penalty.

It’s almost impossible to imagine a society saying, “It’s all right use embryonic stem cells to save your dying dog, but it’s not okay to use them to save your dying child.”… America’s love affair with animals will slowly but inevitably undermine the religious, moral, and ethical arguments against genome-based therapies for people. Healthier cats and dogs will generate an irresistible demand for healthier children and adults.

The European Parliament must send a clear sign that it recognises the importance of embryonic stem cell research.

I don't agree with capital punishment as it is now, because too often mistakes are made. But I think that if you eliminate the mistakes, then there are times when it is justified.

The argument has been made in Congress that it is slippery slope if you allow therapeutic, what people people are calling therapeutic cloning, then you will get reproductive cloning.

The truth is that you - people are doing scientific research with fetal tissue and it's not as if - no, this is brand-new news. This is something funded by.

The death penalty is barbaric. And I think we as a society need to come face-to-face with that. If we're not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it.

No one has a right to happiness.

Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps affirm this fact.

There's a very heavy burden of proof to be borne by anyone who calls for violence. Maybe it can be sometimes justified. Personally, I'm not a committed pacifist, so I think that, yes, it can sometimes be justified.

Trafficking Negroes is right, just and lawful. In my opinion there is no more crime in bringing off a cargo of slaves than in bringing off a cargo of jackasses.

Thus, the controversy about the Moral Majority arises not only from its views, but from its name - which, in the minds of many, seems to imply that only one set of public policies is moral and only one majority can possibly be right.

To me, drone use is a moral issue.

Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right.

The ends do not always justify the means

Perfect goodness can never debate about the end to be attained, and perfect wisdom cannot debate about the means most suited to achieve it.

The attempt to turn a complex problem of the head into a simple moral question for the heart to answer, is of course a necessary part of all political discussion.

The atomic bomb ended the war. Therefore, it's use was justified.

Typically, defenders of experiments on animals do not deny that animals suffer. They cannot deny the animals' suffering, because they need to stress the similarities between humans and other animals in order to claim that their experiments may have some relevance for human purposes. The experimenter who forces rats to choose between starvation and electric shock to see if they develop ulcers (which they do) does so because the rat has a nervous system very similar to a human being's, and presumably feels an electric shock in a similar way.

If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 …. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have either condemned or at least not approved.

In this generation, the issue pressing that question on our consciences is the issue of abortion.

The thing about rights is that in the end you can't prove what should be considered a right.