Even the politicians who favor stem cell research tend to give undue deference to the ridiculous argument that use of embryonic stem cells should be avoided if possible, with this sort of language:

"The involved scientists should be allowed to continue using embryos left over from in vitro fertilization, which would otherwise be destroyed, until such time as they are clearly able to produce stem cells from other sources that achieve the objectives."

At the stage at which they are useful for stem cell production, embryos consist of less than 150 identical cells.   There is not even the beginning of specialization into nerve cells that would give rise to the possibility of personhood.

It would be wrong to *damage* a 150-cell embryo in such a way that it continues to develop into a person but the future person will suffer as a result of the damage.

But there is nothing wrong at all with simply destroying a 150-cell embryo with the consent of the parents (it is no worse than if the embryo had never been made in the first place)

Morality and Politics are not purely aesthetic.

Some fundamental aspirations are aesthetic, but means of going about achieving those ends are amenable to scientific comparison and some means can be objectively more or less effective than others.

Most moral and political convictions people express are not such fundamental aspirations, but derivative in nature,  expressing implicitly some notion of the best means of achieving some other end.  This translation of desires to actionable imperatives is very amenable to logic, reason, and the scientific method.

Moreover, since political and moral principles produce actions, it is possible to inquire as to the effects of such principles upon human communities and to justify that certain sets of principles are, objectively, self-contradictory, or objectively harmful within a given notion of utility.

Media are fucking plural and diverse.  Quit using "the" as if it were a monolith.

Talking trash about "the media" just because fox/abc/nbc/cbs suck is like talking trash about "the blacks" just because two gangstas mugged you.