Dear Richard,

Thanks for your response.

You say that "those who deny human dignity are evil."

Let's put aside--at least for now--the question of who in this election are the deniers of human dignity.  (The deniers of *whose* human dignity?  Do you really want to say that, e.g., those who deny that human life at its earliest stage of development has the same moral status as human life at later stages of development are not only mistaken but evil?)

Let me offer two statements and ask whether you agree with either or both:

1.  Some who affirm the dignity of all human life but do not live their lives in accord with this affirmation are weak; some are perhaps even evil.

2.  Some who deny the dignity of some, or even all, human life--because for one or another reason they do not find dignity-talk plausible--are not evil but good, and perhaps even saintly:  for example, those who, for reasons of their own, devote their lives to protecting human life.

I suspect you agree that what one affirms or denies is not the true measure of their good-ness or evil-ness.

But then, perhaps you meant this: "those who deny human dignity--that is, who deny it not intellectually but existentially--are evil."  If that is what you meant, I wonder whether you really want to say that those who support embryonic stem cell research are not merely misguided but evil.

Be well.

Michael P.