What difference?

Dear Editor,

I am watching a third relative die slowly of cancer. It's no easier now than it was the first time. I see young men and women in harms way on the news every night, and that can't be easy for their families either.

My problem is this: We all cheer the bush baby for sending troops to fight the cancer called terrorism but some have a fit when researchers want to use stem cells and human embryos to wage war on cancer and the other terminal illnesses that confront society. What's the difference? Life is life, so to speak.

If it would make a difference, I'm sure that some enterprising soul in Hollywood could come up with a surreal landscape of devastation complete with exploding bombs and artillery shells to make the war on cancer a televised event. They could probably have the night sky criss-crossed with tracers and come up with dead bodies littering the landscape, if that's what it takes.

I have a granddaughter who I would like to see grow up in a world where all of the cancers and other terminal illnesses were no longer a threat, and if that means the sacrifice of millions of embryo and stem cells, then praise the Lord and pass the petri dishes.

Signed

Robert A Yost,

McCook