One point several angry or objecting pro-choice or pro-stem cell readers keep making is that I admit my argument wasn’t “logical.” Actually, the point of that line was to say that the motivation on the part of the pro-stem cell folks wasn’t entirely logical. I wasn’t clear.

Let me try again. When I was talking about motivation, I was talking about a general psychological approach to the issue which infects the politics of the issue. I wasn’t talking about the scientific facts. There are, in my mind at least, very real differences between abortion and embryonic stem cell research. But I think people — on both sides — have a more global approach to the issue which contains some irrationalism. The irrational connection of stem cells, abortion and progress is what I intended to call illogical. I think my argument is fairly logical and accurately describes some of what is going on. I don’t think one could fairly accuse me of saying it describes everything that’s going on on the pro-stem cell side. But just in case that’s not clear: I think it’s obvious there are other motivations at work as well.