Except for that one thing ...

I admit it. It doesn't look like much. In fact, without a microscope, it doesn't look like anything. But, look closely, and there, right before your eyes, is life.

Blue eyes and blond hair or green eyes and red hair, all there. There is nothing to add to this recipe except time and a safe place to while away the approximately 6,720 hours of gestation. It's how we all began. Each hour, each moment, each second, we grew and our range of experience broadened. Unless. Unless something tragic happens to interrupt the process or someone purposely interrupts the process.

And especially now, unless this life happens to have been created in vitro, the uniting of egg and sperm in a laboratory, and there isn't a safe place for gestation immediately available.

Life, always vulnerable, has become especially vulnerable in this case, largely due to President Barack Obama's signature Monday of the "Stem Cell Executive Order and Scientific Integrity Presidential Memorandum," which opened the pathway for federal funding on embryonic stem cell research. That gateway was closed eight years ago by a similar signature event by then-president George W. Bush.

We all knew this day was coming.

I have written before of my instantaneous reaction to the television coverage of the civil rights movement and how that movement has helped to shape my character throughout my life. Though I couldn't have been much more than 8 or 9 years old at the time, I remember asking my mom why what was happening was happening. And I clearly remember her explanation of the Jim Crow laws, how they specifically segregated people of color, forcing them to use separate drinking fountains, restrooms and restaurants, simply because of the color of their skin. Even at age 9, I knew that was wrong, by every definition of the word.

Given that, it doesn't surprise me that many voters were more than pleased to take the first opportunity afforded them to cast their ballot for the first black presidential candidate ever to receive his party's nomination. (Frederick Douglass was actually nation's first black presidential candidate, receiving one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago in 1888.)

One thing stood in the way, or one thing should have, for people who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ, children of God.

Barack Obama is unapologetically pro-choice. He made no effort to hide that fact, though on at least one occasion he utilized a rather disingenuous ploy to skirt the issue, claiming during an interview with Pastor Rick Warren that a specific answer about when a baby is entitled to human rights "is above my pay grade."

Apparently, that didn't matter. Post-election polls show that 54 percent of voting Catholics, voted for Mr. Obama. As did 52 percent of Protestant/Other Christian (including Evangelical) voters and 78 percent of Jewish voters. (Pew Forum, Nov. 5, 2008)

In any case, his signature Monday should have been a moot point in terms of embryonic stem cell research. Many studies have concluded during the years that embryonic stem cell research was somewhat stymied by the lack of federal funds, that stem cells from non-embryonic sources are viable in and of themselves. In fact, they have produced therapies for more than 70 human ailments. Also, just in the last 16 months, scientists have found a way to convert adult stem cells into cells nearly identical in properties to embryonic stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells. Therefore, there was no scientific or medical reason to release federal funds to further the study of embryonic stem cells.

Obama, a gifted orator, said, immediately prior to signing the order, which was met with great enthusiasm, "As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering." Agreed.

He added later, "There's no finish line in the work of science. The race is always with us -- the urgent work of giving substance to hope and answering those many bedside prayers, of seeking a day when words like 'terminal' and 'incurable' are potentially retired from our vocabulary."

I propose to Mr. Obama and remind my brothers and sisters in the Lord, that those words were, in fact, retired from our vocabulary some 2,000 years ago on the morning of the third day, when Christ arose.

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" Matthew 16:25, 26 (NIV)