The Great Debate

(album: Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence - 2002)

[also known as "Conflict At Ground Zero"]
[music by Myung, Petrucci, Portnoy, Rudess]
[lyrics by John Petrucci]

"A gallop snapshot poll taken immediately after President Bush's speach on
funding embryonic stem cell research last night shows that half of Americans
approve of his decision, 25% do not, and still another 25% are not sure what
to think."

"Most people don't even know what stem cells are."

"Who is going to scream the loudest? Will it be the right-to-lifers or will
it be the scientists? And now what is going to happen is there will be a
tremendous amount of lobbying in Washington, D.C.: scientists,
entertainers, people who want to see this research will be coming forth."

"I am concerned about it. Christopher Reeves is concerned about it.
Everyone is concerned about it. The big question is do the ends justify
the means? When we talk about research, yes, we can cure a lot of things...
speculatively. But, where is the proof?"

"These developing human beings that you are talking about, these embryos,
were produced in an artificial, scientific environment. In vitro
fertilization is not God's will."

"That doesn't make them any less human, though, after that happens."

"We are on a road where we really don't know where we are going as far as
what's next. We are talking about harvesting embryos. We are talking about
this, we are talking about that, but what is the cost?"

"How could we possibly abandon the research?"

"That is right. That is the old question? If you think the research is good
then you may not have a problem with it. It is only if you think the
research is questionable that you get defensive about it. (You do have time
to research these embryos later if we choose to do so. While people are
suffering, we are not truly certain that this will provide a cure.)"

"And there was a great outrage in the conservative churches... You cannot
use developing humans... At that point in time they turn into humans."

"I feel that abandoning this research could be a mistake. Researching this
may allow us to save other lives or at least to improve the quality of
lives."

"We do not have the answers, yet. We need to put the money where we will get
those answers in the future. Listen, we are out of time."

What if someone said
Promise lies ahead
Hopes are high in certain scientific circles
Life won't have to end
You could walk again

What if someone said
Problems lie ahead
They've uncovered something highly controversial
The right to life is strong
Can't you see it's wrong

Humankind has reached a turning point
Poised for conflict at ground zero
Ready for a war
Do we look to our unearthly guide
Or to white coat heroes
Searching for a cure

Turn to the light
Don't be frightened of the shadows it creates
Turn to the light
Turning away would be a terrible mistake

Anarchistic moral vision
Industries of death
Facing violent opposition
Unmolested breathe

Ethic inquisitions breed
Antagonistic views
Right wing sound bite premonitions
In a labyrinth of rules

Are you justified
Are you justified
Are you justified
Justified in taking
Life to save life
Life to save life
Taking life to save life

This embryonic clay
Wrapped in fierce debate
Would be thrown away
Or otherwise discarded

Some of us believe
It may hold the key
To treatment of disease
And secrets highly guarded

Are you justified
Are you justified
Are you justified
Justified in taking
Life to save life
Life to save life
Life to save life

Human kind has reached a turning point
Poised for conflict at ground zero
Ready for a war
Do we look to our unearthly guide
Or to white coat heroes
Searching for a cure

Turn to the light
Don't be frightened of the shadows it creates
Turn to the light
Turning away would be a terrible mistake

We're reaching
But have we gone too far

Harvesting existence
Only to destroy
Carelessly together
We are sliding

Someone else's future
Four days frozen still
Someone else's fate
We are deciding

Miracle potential
Sanctity of life
Faced against each other
We're divided

Should we push the boundaries
Or should we condemn
Moral guilt and science
Have collided

Turn to the light
We defy our own mortality these days
Turn to the light
Pay attention to the questions we have raised

"One of the big questions that still remains for me, though, is that all of
these embryos that are sent or will be discarded is this worse than just
throwing those away?"

"You do not know that all of these will be discarded. All of a sudden you
say which ones will be discarded. And all of sudden you have people being
solicited for parts of their anatomy. Then they harvest parts of people's
bodies. That is how it starts."

"People are not soliciting; there are fertility clinics that have extra
embryos."

"The research is a scientific advancement. I know we are going down a road
that we may not know where we end, but that is exactly what science is all
about. I am very sorry, but I do feel sympathy for those whose spines have
been severed... There is a possibility that we might cure them. I am
concerned about a cure for juvenile diabetes and if these types of
scientific advancement can cure these diseases, then quite candidly I think
there ought to be at least what President Bush has proposed: some limited
research."

"Stem cells come from developing human beings and they should not be
experimented on that doesn't make sense or that is unethical, but at the
same time there is great promise."

"I have a 28-year old son who is paraplegic. And if there is a small
chance that my son can be able to have feeling and be able to walk then I am
all for it."

"Human beings have been evolving for 10's of thousands of years and we are
just injecting cells from embryos into people's brains. How do we come to
do something like that?"