Under pressure Randy "Duke" Cunningham betrays his "100% Pro-Life" stance...

"Run and cover" Cunningham seems to be a bit frightened. He has abandoned his staunch "pro-life" stance for middle ground. Here is a guy that has been in office for 14 years and has scored a A+ from the "pro-life" platform - Now, with Francine Busby threatening his comfortable position, he has run for cover.

Now part of his move contextual. The argument for this "stem cell research" is that there are a number of frozen embryos stored from 2001. The House just recently passed a bill that would allow the unused embryos to be used for genetic stem-cell research.

Social conservatives and Christian fundies believe that the embryos are life and should not be used for research at all. Instead, they want families to adopt embryos. They call the Snowflakes, named after the Nightlife Christian Adoption Agency. Now, here are some facts.

According to Slate:

Actually Snowflakes’ estimate of 100,000 embryos is probably very low. Most
experts think there are as many as 400,000 embryos frozen in storage in the
United States. As of just over a year ago, the Snowflakes program had received
about 750 of them and had matched 70 donor couples with 48 other couples seeking
to have children. Sixteen babies had been born.

...And...

Despite Snowflakes’ rhetoric, most frozen embryos are not healthy enough to ever
become babies. The chance they will grow to full term is about one in 10 for
those frozen less than five years, and even less for those that have been frozen
longer. This is why so few couples have taken Snowflakes up on its idea of
“adopting” frozen embryos.

The article goes ondescriberibe that the Snowflake rhetoric attempts to equate adopting a child is equal to adopting and embryo. The odds of survival are veveryvery, very slim. But, they won't talk about that. After all this is a matter of life and death.

To properly frame this argument in terms of political capital, this would cost Cunningham. Plus, a large number of Republicans voted for this bill, even thought President Bush threatened a Veto. This shows that Republican support is wavering, and the she's been on this side of the argument all along.