Nelson Mandela and the Frozen Embryo

In Slate magazine, commentator Michael Kinsley ridicules pro-life opposition to research on embryonic stem cells. Kinsley notes that he had respect for the arguments of pro-life persons on abortion (although he disagrees with them), but that respect comes to an end with the stem-cell debate since it so obviously, to Mr. Kinsley, defies logic and common sense.

As Kinsley puts it:

Against this, you have the fact that embryonic stem cells are extracted from human embryos, killing them in the process. If you believe that embryos a few days after conception have the same human rights as you or me, killing innocent embryos is obviously intolerable. But do opponents of stem-cell research really believe that? Stem cells test that belief, and sharpen the basic right-to-life question, in a way abortion never has.

Here's why: Stem cells used in medical research generally come from fertility clinics, which produce more embryos than they can use. This isn't an accident—it is essential to their mission of helping people to have babies. Often these are "test tube babies": the product of an egg fertilized in the lab and then implanted in a womb to develop until birth. Controversy about test-tube babies has all but disappeared. Vague science-fiction alarms have been crushed by the practical evidence, and potential political backlash, of grateful, happy parents.

In any particular case, fertility clinics try to produce more embryos than they intend to implant. Then—like the Yale admissions office (only more accurately)—they pick and choose among the candidates, looking for qualities that make for a better human being. If you don't get into Yale, you have to attend a different college. If the fertility clinic rejects you, you get flushed away—or maybe frozen until the day you can be discarded without controversy.

And fate isn't much kinder to the embryos that make this first cut. Usually several of them are implanted in the hope that one will survive. Or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will not survive. And fertility doctors do their ruthless best to make these hopes come true.

In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps—with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics. No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise.

And, by the way, when it comes to respecting the human dignity of microscopic embryos, nature—or God—is as cavalier as the most godless fertility clinic. The casual creation and destruction of embryos in normal human reproduction is one reason some people, like me, find it hard to make the necessary leap of faith to believe that an embryo and, say, Nelson Mandela, are equal in the eyes of God.

Michael Kinsley obviously has an emotional stake in this debate. He suffers from Parkinson's disease. We should also recognize that he has some points to make that we need to hear. There are far too many pro-lifers who oppose abortion but who think nothing of the assaults on unborn life in the "disposal" of "embryonic material" in fertility clinics. That's why a pro-life ethic must be theological and holistic, not just issue-driven.

Kinsley says the brutality of nature makes it a "leap of faith" for him to believe that an embryo and Nelson Mandela are equal in the eyes of God. I can only remind him that, not too long ago, it was indeed a seemingly impossible "leap of faith" for some to believe that Nelson Mandela deserved equality and human dignity before the eyes of God and the eyes of man. And, like Mr. Kinsley, some pointed to the "cruelties of nature" to prove their point, and ridiculed the lack of common sense in those who disagreed. Blacks and whites deserving of equal protection under the law?

Some might even have called it "science fiction."

Comments

[Marc]

Is it not a "leap of faith" to believe that disabled people, like Kinsley and C. Reeves, have less human dignity since they do less than other humans, like Mandela, do? If a fully human being can walk and talk without slurred speach, then Kinsley is less human than I am. In fact, they are less human than most human embryos since most human embryos will develop into human adults who can walk, talk, etc without the disabilities that Kinsley has.
It is simply amazing that disabled people think they will benefit by promoting a utilitarian ethic of human life. After the embryos are seen as disposable, disabled people like Kinsley will be next.

[holmegm]

>It is simply amazing that disabled people
>think they will benefit by promoting a
>utilitarian ethic of human life. After
>the embryos are seen as disposable,
>disabled people like Kinsley will be
>next.

A good point, but let's not tar all disabled folk with that brush:

When it comes to the alleged benefits of embryonic stem cell research for the disabled, adherents have really ratcheted up the rhetoric. But those wringing their hands over the deprivations of the disabled conveniently ignore the voices of opposition from among their ranks. Although disabled people could at least in theory benefit from embryonic stem cell research, plenty of them still oppose the process. They have come out as a strong force both against euthanasia (seeing as they would likely be on the receiving end of such "merciful" deaths) and against embryonic stem cell research.

I know I've seen outspoken disabled opponents of stem cell research, but I'll just link to one comment found in a quick search:

Disabled people do not need a cure. We are valuable human beings as we are. This debate, alongside much of medical thinking and practice, highlights what people believe is wrong with the disabled and relegates them to being in need of a cure. Whether you can walk or not doesn't make you any less of a person. We want and can have a perfectly good life without taking life away from someone else.

Gill Gerhardi, Aylesbury, UK

[Todd]

There are far too many pro-lifers who oppose abortion but who think nothing of the assaults on unborn life in the "disposal" of "embryonic material" in fertility clinics. That's why a pro-life ethic must be theological and holistic, not just issue-driven.

Hear, hear. I do wish that pro-life Christians were more intellectually consistent on this issue.

[Jack]

Todd: I think that many of them would be if they were aware of the facts that Mr. Kinsley presents. Most people think of fertility clinics (and the related research into human cloning) as essentially pro-life in the sense that they are aimed at producing new people. Ignorance may not be an excuse, but it isn't as if the fertility clinics make much of an effort to advertise the true nature of the process. In that light, Mr. Kinsley may have inadvertently aided the pro-life cause by his graphic description.

[Wolf N. Paul]

Jack:
Mr Kinsley may have aided the pro-life cause IFF many pro-lifers actually read his article. Unfortunately I do not think that too many conservative Christians (and there is the bulk of the pro-life movement) actually read SLATE.

[phil]

Nelson Mandela was an embryo: how could he not be equal to himself?

Why can't the liberals learn to think? He has no actual argument against the pro-life position, so he tries to poke holes in it by pointing to an apparent inconsistency that he gives no evidence for, and then goes on to conclude that the pro-life movement is essentially lying, that they do not believe what they say. As always, conservatives condemn actions, but liberals judge the heart.

People who advocate mass murder deserve to be executed, but since there are so many, they should at least lose the right to vote, as felons generally do.

[Kip Watson]

For Christians, some of you who contribute to this Blog can be pitilessly cold-hearted. ('but if I have not love...' indeed)

Some ethical questions are raised in certain instances by medically assisted fertility (easily solved questions I would suggest), but that doesn't alter the fact that these clinics are giving _life_ to children who would not otherwise exist and they are helping to make happy loving families where before there was just barrenness and heartbreak.

I think many IVF clinics should give deeper some thought to how they treat human embryos, as should the parents of those embryos, but if you seriously see no difference between the miracle of IVF and the horror of the abortion industry, then you know nothing about humanity, life or why life is indeed sacred.

Disgraceful. I just hope one day by some miracle (medical or otherwise) you can grow a heart.

[Bobby Winters]

Kip,

You are viewing this the same way I used to. Maybe I am wrong now, but I've come to the opinion we are human beings from conception until death.

The IVF clinics are not giving life to the children. Only God can do that. What they are doing is killing children every time an IVF is performed.

There is a difference in motivation, granted. I've seen women who would never dream of having an abortion glory in IVF. The tiny humans produced as a byproduct of the process are just as dead--by human choice at human hands.

IVF is unnatural.

[Kip Watson]

Well, obviously all life comes from God. But the IVF doctors are *bringing* life to children, to humans, who would not otherwise exist.

I too believe embryos are human, and agree with your concerns about their destruction. Raising these moral questions is necessary and I hope will lead to a moral outcome, but there's something cruelly legalistic (in the worst possible sense of that word) about managing to manipulate the teachings of Jesus to reach an outcome that would deny life.

There is no life in a barren womb. No life is not pro-life.

Bringing life to children, and children to families, is the Lord's work (*He commanded it*), even if it does take place on the Sabbath...

[Bobby Winters]

Kip,

I am going to say that I disagree. God commanded it, but as with Sarah and Rachael and Hannah, etc he brought it about. There are those who've been mother to hundreds and have never given birth to a child. There is a lot of soft bait on the IVF hook, but the barb is in there.

BW

[Gene Godbold]

Hey Kip,
I'm with Bobby. I'm a biochemist, trained as a cell biologist, and until they can make an IVF that does not wantonly destroy tiny humans (who are as chemically complex as you or I and only differ according to their stage of life), they ought not to do it. With IVF, I see a bunch of scientists who treat the sacredness of human beings as just so much raw material to manipulate, no differently than they'd treat an amoeba or the liver of a mouse.

[Kip Watson]

You are a scientist, and you see only scientists.

That says it all.

Those who have eyes; let *them* see.

[Marc]

Kip,
Do you think that IVF, by its very nature, reduces a person (the embryo) into a product which is produced to satisfy a customer? Marital intercourse also results in a new human being, but this new life is not directly manipulated and "produced" in the way that IVF does. For one thing, IVF requires the denigrating masturbatory act of the husband. Then, the wife, lies on a clinic table while a physician inserts a sterile intrument inside of her to inject sperm. Before this, the wife undergoes ultrasound exams to ensure that she has some ripe eggs ready to be inseminated. After she has been injected with sperm, more ultrasounds follow to see if they took. Pretty dignified, right?

Contrast that with marital intercourse which takes place between a couple in their marital bed. In Christian homes, this often takes place beneath a Crucifix which reminds the couple who is ultimately Lord over their life and the life they hope to allow Him to create with them.

Of course, you are absolutely correct that the couple may have good intentions, but the very nature of the IVF process denigrates the marriage, the spouses, and the child. I have seen this first hand in my medical training and in life. The resulting child is stamped with the image and likeness of God, but that does not change the fact that he was manipulated as if he was a commodity. In doing this, the nature and purpose of marital intercourse was also manipulated into a baby-making exercise (as opposed to a baby-making and love-making exercise).

Moral actions needs to be evaluated more robustly than a mere appeal to "good intentions".

[Gene Godbold]

Kip,
I'm not just a scientist. I'm a husband, a father of seven children, and an ordained deacon in the Church of Jesus, the Messiah of God. I was trying to show how many scientists--who have no special religious or philosophical training--see the world so that you might understand their thinking. To many scientists, this wonderful created order--including human life--is just so much raw material to be used for whatever ends they can imagine. My point was that this isn't an adequate understanding of the reality. Just because one can do something, doesn't mean that one ought to do it. This is particularly true where human life is involved.

[Gene Godbold]

Kip,
Sometimes barrenness can be the way that God uses to show us a better way. Abraham and Sarah were barren. They, too, figured out a way to relieve this condition that wasn't in the plan of God (namely, Hagar). Isn't it possible that IVF, for all the seeming hope it offers, is equivalent to Abraham going in to Hagar? God had promised him a child, right? What could be wrong with that?

I've known several couples who were medically evaluated and found to be barren. Some of them now have biological children (Scientists and physicians don't know everything.) Others have adopted children. Others devoted themselves to promoting the Kingdom of God through other means.

[Leah]

Marc,
What you described wasn't in-vitro fertilization, it was artifical insemination. IVF involves the woman taking rounds of hormones to stimulate the overproduction of ova, surgery to remove them, and their fertilization in an artificial environment by the man's sperm (obtained as you described). Some of the resulting zygotes are then inserted in the womb with the intent that hopefully one (and only one) will "stick".

When multiple pregnancies result, the couples are usually pressured into "selective reduction" - aborting one or more of the children they so desparately want.

[Marc]

Leah,
Oops, I knew that, but posted without proof-reading. Sorry, and thank you.

[phil]

Kip, you wrote:

"managing to manipulate the teachings of Jesus to reach an outcome that would deny life.

There is no life in a barren womb. No life is not pro-life.

Bringing life to children, and children to families, is the Lord's work (*He commanded it*), even if it does take place on the Sabbath..."

Now watch me manipulate:

Isaiah 54:1 -- "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD."

Luke 23:29 -- "For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck."

Matthew 19:12 -- "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."

Unlike me, I don't think the Scripture is being sarcastic.