Pro-Life?

The President's veto of the Congress's bill forcing taxpayers to fund research on unborn babies is in the news right now, with the left and the right seeking to find the political and cultural significance of it all. The arguments of the "pro-choice" legislators of either party are not all that surprising, and just as sad as they always are.

But what is especially infuriating are the votes of supposedly "pro-life" Members of Congress, including Senators Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Trent Lott (R-Miss.). These senators, and the "pro-life" House members who joined them, have argued that life begins at conception, murder is wrong, and that, since frozen unborn babies will die anyway, we should kill them and profit off their corpses. That's incoherent, and these men are not that dumb.

I am thankful for the veto. Let's thank God for this obstacle to "science." But let's also be sure to check out the roll call votes in the Senate and in the House on this one. Maybe pro-life voters need to start asking what the definition of "pro-life" is.

Comments

[Jennifer K]

What evidence do we have that life doesn't begin before conception?

[Nick]

Troll? Oh I'll feed it anyway...

There is life before conception. The egg and the sperm are both alive. However, they are not human. Without the benifit of the other half then they can never develop into anything and will simply die. A fertilized egg is human since that is all it will ever be.

[J.D.]

The whole pseudo-pro-life thing is runs parallel to the spirit of "Big Tent" Republicanism.

For example, the recent firing, about a month ago, of Robert Smith from the board of directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (MTA).

Smith was fired by Gov. Robert Erlich (R-Maryland) for having referred to gays and lesbians as “persons of sexual deviancy,” during a round-table discussion on the question of gay marriage.

Smith added that his belief that homosexuality is a devianct behavior is based on the teachings of his Catholic faith.

Erlich quickly damned Smith’s comments as “highly inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.”

A fellow board member also added, “To defend this point of view is beyond the pale."

Of course, if Ehrlich were a man of integrity, he would have declined to accept the votes of all those inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable people who had voted him into office.

But like all Republicans he knows that the orthodox Christian vote is automatic-- so he concentrates on wooing the other side.

One wonders how big the tent can get before it starts ripping.

[J.D.]

That was a bit tangential.

Anyhow-- pro-life is just a convenient word. I knew a girl in grad school who adamantly declared herself to be pro-life, but who also insisted that outlawing abortion would be a bad idea-- since then women would go back to using back-alley doctors and clothes-hangers.

The discussion obviously is not helped when nobody knows what one is talking about. Both sides try to define themselves in an "affirmative" way: Who wouldn't want to be "pro-life"? What, you don't like Life? Who wouldn't want to be "pro-choice"? What, you don't like Choice?

So we have people who fall on the pro-abort side calling themselves "pro-life", while we have those opposed to abortion declaring, "Choose life"-- which is a good message in and of itself, but comes a little too close to an effort to orient ourselves toward the secular humanist's principles, rather than stand for our own.

[David Gray]

>But like all Republicans he knows that the orthodox Christian vote is automatic-- so he concentrates on wooing the other side.

I think that is gradually becoming less true.

[Beth]

Yes, I fear Senator Frist has been a huge disappointment to this Tennesseean. (I probably voted for him at some point; we've been here long enough.)

You keep writing articles and posts that I admire, Dr. Moore. It makes it so hard to hold a grudge for "stealing" my colleague, whose science courses I had hoped my son would be able to take! :)

[Russell D. Moore]

Beth,
Don't hold a grudge! Just let your children come take a science and theology course at Southern Seminary!

Seriously, we are thrilled with Kurt Wise coming to be with us. And I am so thankful for Bryan College and its continuing commitment to orthodoxy.

[Jonathan]

But, but, if we don't vote Republican it's tantamount to voting for the leftists/Islamic terrorists/gun-grabbers, etc. If we ever stop voting for the GOP this country will go to pot for sure.

[Kevin Jones]

Has anybody done a breakdown on the 14 house Democrats who voted against funding, and their reasons for doing so?

[Kip Watson]

I think Prez Bush has once again got it exactly right on this issue.

I have some sympathy for your position, but an embryo is no more a very very small baby than a baby is a very very small adult. Things are what they are, fudging the meaning of words is a game the other side play at, not us.

Embryos are certainly human, they are human embryos, not human babies. Discussions of the appropriate treatment for all human life needs to begin from this fact.

I think a great many questions are raised by these medical advances, but to equate the destruction of embryos frozen after IVF with the monstrosity that is abortion is inaccurate and mistaken verging on untruthful.

By the way on my Blog I mention that this issue is *Gallipoli* for the pro-life movement, because:

1) it's a doversion of effort from the main front (abortion)
2) it's a battle that can't be won
3) even if it could be won, it would not win the war.

[Jon]

Kip, is it less bad for a scientist to destroy a frozen embryo than it is for an abortionist to destroy a non-frozen embryo? I'm not sure what you're saying.

[GL]

1) it's a doversion [sic] of effort from the main front (abortion)
2) it's a battle that can't be won
3) even if it could be won, it would not win the war.

Kip,

I think you are correct that this battle will be lost in the next few years, but you are wrong about it being a diversion from the main front and it is an integral part of winning the war.  Abortion is also just a battle in the war.  The war is over whether we will be a Culture of Life or a Culture of Death; it is over whether we worship the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or whether we worship Mammon and Moloch.

"There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways."  The Didache (trans. and ed., J. B. Lightfoot).  It is compromising of life issues where "we could not win the battle" that we now find ourselves in the position we are in.  The Church of God must hold to the truth and preach it even if the whole world rejects it or we have abandoned our post.

[James A. Altena]

Kip,

You're wrong. This is not a fudging of words. The flaw in your reasoning is that, whether embryo, infant, adolescent, or adult, all human beings are human beings. Their right to life is grounded in their essential human nature, not their stage of development, degree of consciousness, or other functional features. As I have argued elsewhere, essentialism vs. functionalism is the great dividing line between the Christian moral outlook vs. the outlook of the secular world that inevitably spirals down to totalitarian regimes that regard particular persons as of value only insofar as they serve a particular utilitarian purpose and are otherwise expendable.

[Kip Watson]

It's a mistake to caricature others' arguments, particularly if their point of view is very close to your own. It's a such a slippery slope when you start wielding words and arguments like the opposition do.

I am emphatically _not_ arguing for a utilitarian approach to the treatment of embryos, and neither is Prez. Bush. In fact, his decision is a very good moral and political decision.

The cloning or creation of embryos purely for research purposes will not be funded. This is an important statement about the sanctity human life, and will effectively arrest this obnoxious branch of research.

However as I have argued before, condemning women to barrenness when medical science can give them children (or help God to give them children if you prefer) is not pro-life. No life is not pro-life. Creating embryos *that they might live* and grow to be children and then adults is not anti-life, I believe it's a good and righteous thing to do. Those ex-embryos who have the opportunity to express their opinion overwhelmingly agree. Please note, they would not have such an option if IVF were banned.

Yes, most embryos will fail to implant and will die, as do many or most naturally conceived embryos, some others will be frozen, and if not used will eventually cease to be viable, at which point they are thawed, and die.

Is this murder, or is it like switching off a life support system, or neither, or both? People of Faith and good faith can ponder this question.

But not every couple will even have left over embryos, even for those who eventually do, usually most viable embryos are implanted. Again, Prez Bush has made an effort to champion the adoption of unused embryos, which is a good response to this valid question, as well as an act of great kindness for infertile men and women who cannot produce embryos at all.

Note, too that there are also similarities between condemning women to sterility who could readily be treated by modern medicine -- for philosophical reasons -- and the sterilisation of 'undesirable' women by the 20th Century eugenicists -- also for philosophical reasons. In fact, I find opposition to IVF to be a very strange sort of way to sanctify life -- since it denies it.

Other Christians, people of Faith and good faith -- are considering these issues and looking for moral solutions.

...not that you would admit it.

(BTW ...that little 'sic' there, I could almost see the single arched eyebrow and slight roll of the eyes. Thanks for that. It adds so much to the discussion, don't you think?)

[Beth]

"condemning women to barrenness when medical science can give them children": I can't help wondering how good an argument this is, as it presupposes the *right* of a woman to have a child. The desire for a child is natural, yes, but I am not at all sure that the fact of desiring something that is a good in itself is the same as having the *right* to obtain that good thing in any possible manner. Just because a thing *can* be done doesn't necessarily mean it *should* be done. The sexual act is a good in itself, but is not to be pursued outside of God's boundary of marriage. Could there not be boundaries on how we obtain other good things, too, such as children? I think there is an argument that Christians can make against certain forms of fertility treatments, though I haven't thought it all through enough to make it yet.

Dr. Moore -- I promise I don't *really* begrudge you Dr. Wise; our loss is most certainly your gain. I'll just miss some quite lively conversations Kurt and I have had. Perhaps I'll take you up on sending our son to Southern one day!

[Joe Long]

Jonathan - you're being sarcastic but you're stating a plain reality. I eagerly await the political suggestion that is not:

-disengage and let everything go to hell.

-flirt with the Democrats and actually accelerate travel in the direction of hell.

-associate with the tinfoil-hat third-party crowd, and join the battle against the Bavarian Illuminati and their extraterrestrial allies.

In the meantime, I have to consider myself duty-bound to vote Republican in national elections. Then at worst, as you note, I'll still have my gun.

[J.D.]

"If we ever stop voting for the GOP this country will go to pot for sure."

I would have to strongly disagree with that statement. Rather, so long as the GOP knows that it holds Christian votes in the bag, it can continue to prostitute its integrity so as to expand the "big tent" and promote consumer capitalism.

Anybody know how to boil a frog? Don't turn the heat up quickly, but rather gradually... over decades. For all our protestations, we (and I include myself) have grown numbly indifferent and accepting to things that would have made old Lewis gasp in horror and spend a whole day or so in desperate prayer.

I mean, consider the Ehrlich scenario I mentioned. How could a Democrat have responded any *worse*?

This country *is* going to pot. What we have is a steady drift to the Left; as time goes on Republicans themselves become more socially liberal. The latest craze is "Big Government Conservativism." So now we have these guys touting themselves as spokesmen for Christians and conservatives, while brandishing a philosophy that is largely lifted from Thomas Hobbes. I.e., the federal government is a beneficient, man-made deity. Aside from being idolatory, I could not imagine anything more far removed from the conservativism of Richard Weaver, Edmund Burke, Lord Acton and Russell Kirk.

I'd also note that consumer capitalism -- which I'd suggest is more intertwined with the Republican Party -- is as responsible for the spiritual rot as the P.C. agenda of the Democrats.

The country has already gone to pot. And it will continue to go to pot unless one or both of two things happen:

A) Americans simply stop giving unwarranted reverence to the federal government, and re-assume power and responsibility for their own communities and locales.

B) The Two-Party System is broken.

I will concede the possibility of a 3rd possibility as well-- should the GOP ever stop taking Christian votes for granted, perhaps they might make a serious re-affirmation of principles.
Or parallel to that, I know some who have spoken of "re-taking" the Republican Party.

But to "re-take" the party requires a radical reorientation of mindset-- we would need to recognize that the party is not ours, at the moment. Obviously virtually all orthodox Christians vote Republican, and there are a few solid Republicans in the party infrastructure as well.

But to treat the party itself as sacrosanct is to assume that our current situation is somehow stable and eternal. Do anything, just don't rock the boat. Then there could be.... change.

That is, we would stop assuming, as we currently do, that Republican Party = Party of Christ.

We can believe in a man rising from the dead, but for some reason we can't believe in a world where politics isn't binary, where there's more than two ways of looking at an election.

[Gene Godbold]

Gentlepeople,
I'm very grateful that the President chose this moment to use his veto.

Since I may be the only one paying attention to this on the science side, I'd like to offer the opinion that before my infant daughter is in college, we're going to know how to turn an ordinary cell into an stem cell. The entire argument will then evaporate and all the effort and cash spent ghoulishly pulling apart very tiny humans will be wasted. (In the last few months significant steps towards this achievement have been reported in the journals Science and Nature.)

By 2050 I think people will wonder why we ever wanted to use human embryos for experimentation. I'm also optimistic in that I think the anti-human procedure of abortion will be a thing of the past.

There is a very aggressive and quite secular minority within science who seem to want to break every possible taboo. They practice utilitarianism in a way, but only when being "practical" also leads to something that Christians oppose. If there is a scientific advance that promises to avoid offending godly sensibilities, they get awfully shy and don't want to talk about it that much. I might be perceived as melodramatic, but I detect a whiff of brimstone as the horned head of Molech peeks out from behind their white lab coats.

BTW, I spent 13 years in academic science (and the vast majority of the folks I dealt with were very decent people.)

[Luthien]

Joe,if the GOP gets any worse, I may have to join the crazy third-party crowd; of *course* the Bavarian Illuminati are dangerous, whoever they are:) it seems like a lot of "pro-life" GOP senators are only pro-life when it's convenient and will keep us poor dopes voting Republican so that they can pursue their other agendas. The GOP is a sinking ship...that said, I'm still planning to cut class too register Republican on my 18th birthday.

[J.D.]

Luthien,

Who do *you* think should hold the Ring of Power? Sauron or Saruman?

Just kidding.

[Gene Godbold]

I think in a way it is our vocation as Christians to see the world as "going to pot", that is, deviating from the plan of our loving Father. This is the proper prelude to fixing things. I'm sure it won't surprise most of you to realize that since Pentecost, Christians in their respective times have, almost uniformly, seen the world as seriously deficient and, indeed, on the brink of collapse.

At the same time, it is our privilege as Christians to be cheerful in the face of all the powers and principalities. Yeah, it looks like they're winning sometimes. But they got their legs knocked out from under them by Jesus 2000 years ago and they've been stumbling around ever since. They're desperate and enraged because they know that they only have a short time left and the ending is predetermined--and not in their favor. So we can take time to sing alleluias between kvetching about the meanness or cowardice of this or that politician. We're called to fix the ills of the world and to be where folks are hurting, but...the victory is ours in Jesus the King.

[Don Bosch (evaneco.com)]

Folks, the point is that the President veto'd federal funding for additional stem cell research. He didn't (nor could he) outlaw SCR altogether. There is plenty of privately funded SCR going on all over the country and throughout the world.

This is a reasonable thing to do in light of the fact that so many in our country believe it is morally wrong, and to ask them to participate in it by spending their federal tax dollars on it is also wrong.

As MKH in Townhall put it today: "[I]f the private sector hasn't deemed ESC research valuable enough to support without government funding, isn't that a sign that maybe it's not worth funding?"

Indeed.

[Don Bosch (evaneco.com)]

More clarification on the whole issue via OpinionJournal:

Further, Bush's foes and the press frequently misstate his position, referring to a "ban on stem-cell research." In fact, the Bush policy places no restrictions on any kind of stem-cell research that does not receive federal money, or on federal funding of adult stem-cell research. It does limit federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research to those cell lines that were in existence at the time the policy was initiated, in August 2001, but prior to then there was no federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, so that the policy actually liberalized the conditions for federal research grants. Supporters of research subsidies are asking for a further liberalization, not a reversal of a "ban."

[Kip Watson]

Beth,

So women *don't* have a right to reproduce if they can? That sounds pretty extreme and not especially Christian to me I'm afraid.

Likewise, the argument that because things are a particular way, therefore it is God's will they should remain thus, is more fitting to a fatalistic Eastern religion. As Christians, don't we accept that Satan has marred the world, and we are under instruction to 'subdue' it? Where would we be otherwise?

Which is not to suggest that IVF is not morally wrong, but simply that a suggestion to overturn something that brings so much blessing to so many ought to be based on more solid arguments than that.

As it happens, here in Victoria, Australia, artificial fertility is restricted to married couples (actual, not de facto) -- something approved of by most.

And for the record, while embryos die in assisted reproduction (as they do in natural reproduction), the idea that vast numbers of unused embryos need to be destroyed is not true. In our own case, four ova were harvested, two of these developed into embryos, both were implanted, and we were blessed with non-identical twins. What could be more life-affirming?

I accept that there are ethical questions raised by fertility treatment -- as indeed they are by very many areas of medicine (accident triage for example) -- but like most of the ills of modern life they are not central to the process. They can be ameliorated without robbing good women of the opportunity to be good mothers.

[J.D.]

"At the same time, it is our privilege as Christians to be cheerful in the face of all the powers and principalities."

Mr. Godbold,

On the one hand I agree-- the bigger the powers and principalities, the more glorious the story.

On the other, I'm reminded of a quote by Richard Weaver (from memory, but I think I know it) in which he comments on men like T.S. Eliot and the Vanderbilt Agrarians, who were deeply critical of the wasteland of post-modernity. Weaver argued that only "nay-sayers" cut of the mold of Eliot & Co. could properly guard culture-- that is, those who could perceive ugliness. Weaver added:

"It is my opinion that these men suffer a great deal. Their suffering is often used to condemn them, as if failure to achieve complacency were an indictable offense."

When facing some of the things going on, I don't think we are called to be cheerful *all* the time, any more than we are called to be vindictively pessimistic.

Rather, suffering -- when approached rightly -- is one way of participating in Christ.

As Christians of course we should keep in mind that are hopes are not pinned on this world-- but then sometimes that is hard for us, and for that matter even Christ Himself has never struck me as cheerfully "detached." At the tomb of Lazarus, or at his moment of death.

But frankly I'm more optimistic vis-a-vis the now than you might guess. I suspect that the whole homeschooling thing, along with some other cultural forces, are liable to break the whole centralized Leviathan spirit here in the next generation or two, and turn society upside down and transform it.

All I was getting at earlier is that the Republican Party is-- as part of the whole binary political consciousness-- part of the problem vice part of the solution.

To my understanding Touchstone itself is rooted heavily in C.S. Lewis, and I think that's a picture of Chesterton up at the top of the screen, no?

Can anybody tell me what flaky, Bavarian-illumnati paranoiac 3rd party Lewis and Chesterton extolled?

[Tony Esolen]

Kip,

We need to draw a distinction between healing a diseased organ, certainly a worthy thing to do, and engaging in an activity that separates reproduction from the act of sexual intercourse. It is illogical to say that we condemn women to barrenness if we forbid what we consider an immoral and, for the long-term sanity of a civilization, a highly destructive manufacture of human life -- and I do not mean that it's destructive merely because it involves the complacent willing of the manufacture of many embryos that must necessarily die. Even if it could be done perfectly, without any loss of embryos, it would be destructive, because it would place in us the illusion that we should or may or can create human life at will. You may scoff and say that that is what the man and wife are doing in bed in any case. It is not so ... the man and woman making love will to have a child, God willing; but the man and woman uniting sperm and egg in a dish will to have a child by any means -- would themselves manufacture a child if they could do it. That is a different sort of activity, and if you think for a moment that a fallen world will not find plenty of justifications for manufacturing human beings for purposes other than the emotional needs of married men and women, well, just consider the US Supreme Court's justification of legalizing the Pill in Griswold vs. Connecticut. We have to protect the privacy of MARRIAGE, said the wise men! That sure didn't last long ....

[Joe Long]

J.D. - Lewis and Chesterton were Brits. I shall merrily throw in my lot with the Distributist Labourite Tories of America, should the DLTA spring into existence by the autumn, but in the meantime I can no more vote for the party of Lewis or Chesterton than I could for Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans.

I hope that you're right about an eventual shattering of Leviathan, or even a renewal of our traditional two-party system - I suspect the latter a bit more likely. US political history has had parties that flamed and renewed themselves Phoenix-like, in more relevant forms, but true political multilateralism would be unprecedented. (Which, looking at Italy and other multi-party systems, might be okay).

In any case I'm doing my bit against Leviathan - three homeschooled kids (so far) hear my gripes, watch me vote Republican and hopefully will learn the right lesson from watching - whatever that lesson may be. Perhaps one of them will be a Distributist candidate someday!

[GL]

So women *don't* have a right to reproduce if they can? . . . Which is not to suggest that IVF is not morally wrong, but simply that a suggestion to overturn something that brings so much blessing to so many ought to be based on more solid arguments than that.

Kip,

I you want solid arguments in answer to your question, I suggest that you read Charles Rice, 50 Questions on the Natural Law, What It Is & Why We Need It, Ignatius (revised ed. 1999), p. 372-82, which addresses the question:

Why is the Church opposed to science and technology?  I we are "pro-life" and want children, why can't we use in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and other techniques, if necessary, to enable us to have them?  And what's wrong with experimenting on aborted babies or using their tissues for transplants to save lives?

After that, you may want to read the source documents which he cites.

[GL]

Kip,

By the way, I do sympathize with the situation you had.  After years of using contraception, my wife and I found that we could not conceive.  We sought and received fertility treatment which was in line with the Catholic Church's teaching on the subject.  It worked.  Had it not, I don't know what we would have done; we were staunchly anti-abortion at the time, but we had not studied other pro-life issues.  Had we gone that route through ignorance of the natural law implications and had it resulted in children, it still would have been wrong.  It would not be the first time in my life that God used my sin to achieve His purpose; that does not justify my sin.

Praise God for the lives that he gave to you and your wife.  Whether the methods used are licit under the natural law or not, their human dignity is no less than my children's, they are still made in the image of God, and He is still the one that permitted the method chosen to produce new human life.

[J.D.]

"three homeschooled kids..."

God bless you.

Now that is just about the most important contribution anybody can make to the future, the *real* vote, not the sham played out on TV screens-- have lots of kids, and don't let the educrats get their claws in them.

The reason I think Distributists are important, even though they are not a viable political party, is that they can teach us something about how we think, and how we see society. They illuminate something about our political consciousness-- that is we see the choice as between corporate capitalism on one hand or communism on the other. But these are both two sides of the same coin, a coin which defines man in economic terms, as a consuming animal rather than a person.

The modern capitalism vs. communism dichotomy certainly bears no resemblance to the Aristotlean organic vision of society.

I guess one thing that sometimes frustrates me, for example, is how people sometimes equate corporations with conservativism-- when it is very often the opposite, corporations generally attempt to erode traditions and sap away any cultural or religious integrity that might interfere with profits. Christmas being the most obvious example.

Chesterton and Lewis both detested corporations. Chesterton once said, "Every great capitalist has the same sort of face. The sort of face that any decent man would like to re-arrange with a fist."

The point of Distributism is that defense of corporate capitalism does not = defense of private property. Instead of worrying about ensuring plenty of liebenstraum for Wal-Mart or Lockheed-Martin, we should be worrying about supporting small businesses and small farmers, the people who actually keep communities vibrant, alive, and independent.

And most of the corporate marketing which targets children is absolutely appalling. The very mindset that uses "child" and "target" in the same sentence is appalling.

Someone who physically targets a child would be lucky not to get his throat cut by his fellow-prisoners once he were caught and incarcerated; yet at the moment in America those who psychically target children-- via the barrage of media-marketing and endlessly repetitive imagery-- are frequently set up as paragons of success and pillars of conservativism.

Well, now I've just degenerated into kvetching, as Mr. Godbold would rightly note...

[Kip Watson]

Sorry, it's very late at night here in Melbourne, but your arguments are getting weaker and weaker.

That we should only be able to have kids by having sex, lest we suffer 'the illusion we can create human life at will', or we're 'manufacturing' human beings...

Well that may be Catholic doctrine, but it's nowhere in the teachings of Christ. It sounds too much like 'Because it is thus, God must will it must be thus', which is pure fatalistic superstition I'm afraid.

Christ healed people on the Sabbath and the lawyers were outraged.

Anyway, bye for now - catch you next time this topic comes up...

[Beth]

Thanks, Tony, for saying what I meant so well. :)

[GL]

Kip,

If you want a Bible citation, I can think of none better than Exodus 20:13. The word translated "kill" in the KJV and "murder" in many modern translations actually means to cause human death deliberately, recklessly or through negligence.  The methods you endorse do that.  Modern jurists may deny that embryos are persons (a legal, not a scientific, conclusion and an arbitrary conclusion at that), but modern science affirms that they are human.

[Gene Godbold]

No, no, J.D., I wasn't trying to denigrate kvetching. (I spend a lot of my time doing it.) But we should be *cheerful* kvetchers and not bitter ones.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>So women *don't* have a right to reproduce if they can? That sounds pretty extreme and not especially Christian to me I'm afraid.<<<

It is not a matter of whether they have a right, but whether that "right" requires the violation of the rights of another person. Where do you draw the line?

[Stuart Koehl]

Here is an interesting interview from National Review Online that addresses some of the moral issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research, and why so much of the clamor for unrestricted research in this area is disingenuous at best:

Ethical Alternatives
Keeping a focus on ethics in medical research.

An NRO Q&A

Dr. David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at Family Research Council and founding member of Do No Harm, the Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics. A stem-cell expert, he’s been closely involved in the recent congressional action on stem-cell research. As President Bush prepared to veto legislation that would federally fund embryo-destroying stem-cell research for the first time, Dr. Prentice spoke to NRO editor Kathryn Lopez about the debate.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Do adult stem cells have more promise than embryonic stem cells?

Dr. David Prentice: They certainly hold more promise for helping patients with diseases and injuries. Their normal function in the body is repair, and we’re seeing more and more examples of their utility in this respect. Embryonic stem cells are difficult to control, tending to grow out of control as tumors, or not form the necessary tissue and integrate to repair damage.

Lopez: What do you have to say about that recent letter that appeared in Science magazine on you and your work?

Dr. Prentice: It’s easy for someone to put words in your mouth and then claim that those words are false, which is exactly what the Science letter’s authors did. Do No Harm has not claimed that current adult-stem-cell treatments are “cures” or “generally available” at this time. We have consistently said these are examples where patients have been helped by adult-/cord-blood stem cells and shown some benefit and improvement, something that can’t be said to be even remotely close for embryonic stem cells.

In fact, if you look in the supplement to that letter, you find the authors repeatedly noting that the references in our list show “improved long-term survival,” “disease remission,” “extended disease-free period,” “alleviate the symptoms,” etc. They actually validate precisely what we’ve been saying.

As far as “FDA-approved clinical trials,” if people would like to see what’s out there, they should go here to see what trials are available. This is the list of all FDA-approved trials, all phases, currently recruiting patients. If they click the little box in the upper left of that page, they’ll get the list that includes trials where they’re done recruiting. As of July 19, it was 571 and 1,178, respectively. Keep in mind these are not results, these are trials under way at various phases of investigation. But they’re all adult stem cells.

Lopez: Can you stand by your list of 72 adult-stem-cell successes?

Dr. Prentice: Certainly. The Do No Harm list is based on published results where people have shown some benefit from use of adult stem cells.

Lopez: As you listen to the debate in Washington — what’s most misunderstood about stem-cell research?

Dr. Prentice: 1) The hope of stem cells vs. the reality of what’s really been shown with various types of stem cells, embryonic vs. adult.

2) The idea that current “approved” lines of embryonic stem cells are “disintegrating” and “contaminated.”

Good cell-culture technique includes saving back cells in the freezer so that you can replenish growing cells. As an example, a human cell line started in the 1960s was used for decades by researchers. It’s hard to believe NIH technicians wouldn’t be using good laboratory practices. And at least two publications, one just months ago by James Thomson (of University of Wisconsin-Madison, who first successfully cultured human embryonic stem cells in the lab) documents that any contamination can be removed from the current lines.

Lopez: Would surplus embryos get thrown away if they weren’t used for research?

Dr. Prentice: Unfortunately at this time in the U.S. some would be discarded, though the numbers are much smaller than the public claims of proponents of embryo research. The Rand survey a couple years ago showed that there are around 400,000 embryos frozen in the U.S., but it also pointed out that only a small percentage of those were discarded or available for research, and the number of potential embryonic-stem-cell lines (dishes of cells) is far less than proponents say they want for research and would not meet their “need” for genetic diversity in the cell lines.

And of course they don’t need to be discarded; there are other options such as embryo adoption (e.g., the Snowflake program).

Lopez: Are both Santorum bills that passed the Senate Tuesday — the alternatives one and the fetal farming one — necessary?

Dr. Prentice: The fetal-farming bill is definitely necessary legislation. Though there are no documented examples yet of human fetal farming, some scientists have done “proof of principle” experiments to grow cloned animal embryos to later stages for harvest of more mature cells and tissues. And legislation that could encourage that practice in humans has popped up in several states.

The alternative-pluripotent-stem-cell legislation is designed to encourage research on ethical alternatives for flexible stem cells. We do need more emphasis on ethical stem-cell research.

Lopez: Considering there is already private embryo-destroying research going on, is the fight against federal funding ultimately a losing battle?

Dr. Prentice: No, there is still an ethical and practical line to be drawn regarding use of taxpayer funds and allocation of important resources.

Lopez: Did the president’s August 2001 announcement prove to be a mistake?

Dr. Prentice: While people on both sides of this debate were upset with the decision, it drew an ethical line on use of federal funds, and provided direction, cells, and funding for the research.

Lopez: What’s most winnable in holding back a brave new world? What’s most necessary to win?

Dr. Prentice: Looking ahead and trying to channel research along ethical lines; the fetal farming legislation is a good example. It’s important to continue to hold the ethical line that no human life, at any age, should be used as raw material or be under the threat of government-sanctioned destruction.

Lopez: Some of the rhetoric is vicious, as you know. What do you say when you’re told you’re anti-science and want to stomp all over people’s hopes?

Dr. Prentice: My colleagues and I are pro-science, and that’s why we want to see the ethical science flourish.

[Stuart Koehl]

That didn't work the way I intended. Second try:

Who’s “Anti-Science” Now?
Proponents of embryonic-stem-cell research put themselves in a bad position.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Proponents of embryo-destroying research lost one of their favorite knee-jerk rhetorical points on Tuesday, as they succeeded in killing a bill that would have funded alternatives to embryo-destroying research. It’s hard to dismiss your opponents as “anti-science” when you’ve voted against it yourself.
The Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act was a great constructive opportunity for Congress. Early on Tuesday, a leading pro-life senator, Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum (who is in a tough reelection battle and could afford to be focusing on other things right now — like, oh, saving his political life), rattled off his record of commitment to stem-cell-research advocacy, none of it destructive. He talked about his attempt at finding a “middle ground” by sponsoring a bill to fund adult-stem-cell and other non-embryo-destroying research. This “alternatives” bill was even cosponsored by his Pennsylvania colleague Arlen Specter (who supports embryo research, abortion . . . very many things a Santorum never will). The bill, in both its House and its Senate version, was an embrace of research that is free of embryonic-stem-cell research’s unavoidable ethical baggage.

But on Tuesday afternoon, Delaware Republican Mike Castle, co-sponsor of a bill that would federally fund embryonic-stem-cell research for the first time, sent around an e-mail urging colleagues to vote against Santorum’s alternatives bill. (Richard Doerflinger responds to his e-mail here.) Since they already knew the president would veto the Castle bill, and since embryonic-stem-cell research will always be a lightning rod for political and moral debate, the alternatives bill was a gift to any politician. Embryo-research stalwart Mike Castle and, say, embryo-protection stalwart (Dr.) Dave Weldon could have united behind it. Given Congress’s dismal approval ratings, it would have even been good politics. Look at what we can do when we set our minds to it! We’re pro-hope, and pro-research, and pro-consensus.

So much for that. Under a rules suspension Tuesday night, the bill failed to get the two-thirds needed for passage, thanks to Castle’s eleventh-hour work. Even in the Senate, where the alternatives bill garnered unanimous support in the final roll call, Minority Leader Harry Reid couldn’t help but dismiss it as “meaningless.”

But Tuesday’s alternatives takedown in the House is about much more than just one vote. Limits always seem to be too limiting for proponents of embryonic-stem-cell research and cloning. The Beltway battle this week has had shades of a Bay State fight last year. The governor there, Republican Mitt Romney, met proponents of cloning research halfway. He said, O.K., the state government won’t fund it, but you can use so-called surplus embryos from in vitro fertilization procedures as long as you don’t create new embryos. But there was no line of legislators outside his door waiting to work with him. All or nothing, proponents of clone-and-kill research proclaimed. We saw something similar in New Jersey in late 2003. As Wesley Smith, author of The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, put it to me at the time, “It is remarkable — and very telling — that in less then two years, we have gone from ‘only’ wanting to harvest the stem cells from embryos left over from IVF procedures, to a state senate passing legislation that would permit the implantation and gestation of cloned fetuses to the ninth month, before requiring their destruction. This is not just a slide down a slippery slope, it is a headfirst plunge into the abyss.” Like the House vote Tuesday night, the Garden State debate was instructive.

On the federal level this week we’ve seen supposed proponents of stem-cell research say, No, none of this alternatives stuff, we only want embryonic-stem-cell research. The embryo is everything. Or rather, destroying embryos is everything — that’s where they want research to be focused, and they’re happy to hold research that is free of embryonic entanglements hostage. Coming from a crowd that regularly throws the word “anti-science” at those who oppose embryo destruction and cloning, this is pretty rich. When given the option to vote for a bill that nearly no one could sensibly disagree with, they acted like spoiled two-year-olds who want their way and only their way — even if it’s impractical and Dad has already said “no.” They’ve given opponents a great campaign ad for November, turning the “anti-science” label on them: Care more about what the bioethics lobby wants than advancing science? Talk about hopeless.

Tuesday’s House action gives an advantage to those who talk about the sanctity of human life, specifically those who voted against the federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research and for the alternatives bill. A third of the members of House of Representatives will support stem-cell research only if it involves the destruction of embryos? Otherwise they’re against it? This is what they want their position to be? As Americans increasingly pay attention to these confusing issues, such clear Party of Death votes as we saw Tuesday night in the House should be as deadly to political careers as they are to life.

— Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.

[Gene Godbold]

Kip,

My understanding of the original intention of God is that he meant for the world to be ruled through his human vice-regent Adam. It was only by seducing mankind amay from obedience to God that Satan achieved some measure of influence over the world (otherwise he couldn't be called the "Prince" of it). As a result, the created order became cursed (not "fallen" as some are wont to say). Through the actions of the Messiah Jesus, Satan's authority over the world has been stripped from him and put back in the hands of resurrected humanity (which presently consists of just one guy). The curse, however, still abides and will continue until the general resurrection (I'm going with Paul in Romans 8 here.) At that point, creation will be renewed and everything will be better than great--at least for those who acknowledge the dominion of Jesus.

In any case, God's command to subdue the earth came *before* the unpleasantness in the garden so it wasn't a consequence of sin as you imply. He gives man dominion over things external to man (fish, fowl, cattle, earth, creeping things). It is difficult to see how you can exegete a rationale for IVF out of that.

To note that the curse on creation results in the death of human embryos in the "normal" course of many pregnancies doesn't help support the argument for IVF either. IVF produces human beings at the earliest stage of life knowing that some of them will die. We shouldn't do evil so that good may follow. I know your intentions were good. You and your wife probably are excellent parents. But you could have been parents by adoption. I'm going to close with what I posted on the previous thread (Nelson Mandela and the Frozen Embryo) when this topic came up:

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.

Physical barreness doesn't mean spiritual barreness and not having a few physical children might mean you're intended for a gracious bounty of spiritual children.

[J.D.]

Mr. Godbold,

No worries; actually I made that closing remark after having realized just how far I had veered off topic.

With that in mind, maybe we should take a closer look at what Mr. Moore has actually said, and address the question he has raised?

"Maybe pro-life voters need to start asking what the definition of 'pro-life' is."

[J.D.]

I.e., your and Beth's debate with the gentleman from Australia point to the need for a more fundamental understanding of science, technology, and medicine than simply a laundry list of thou shalt nots.

That is, generally people think "pro-life" and they simply think of abortion. But I should think the concept should be rooted in some broader vision of human nature, yes?

[J.D.]

.... as well as more specific, real-world rubber-meets-the-road sorts of litmus tests such as the recently vetoed bill.

[Christopher Hathaway]

So women *don't* have a right to reproduce if they can? That sounds pretty extreme and not especially Christian to me I'm afraid.

This seems to me to be missing one of the very fundmental priciples of Ethics: a good thing desired does not justify any and every means to obtain it. If we are unwilling to have our desires so retrained we aren't remotely Christian.

Furthermore, we must remember that children and all other human beings are not things to be desired. They are blessings to be received and loved. We may desire the blessing. But they are not property. Once we begin to look at them and treat them that way we lose the proper Christian esteem we should have for one another. How different will we be from the doctors who did experiments on the Jews in the death camps because "they were going to die anyway" and "they weren't really human, not like us"?

[James A. Altena]

Kip,

The problem with your position is that, with respect to God, we have NO rights whatsoever. We are fallen sinners who have forfeited our lives to death as the wages of sin. We do not have a "right" to have children on the terms we desire, but on those God provides. My wife and I happen not to be blessed with children, and are now at an age where the chances of that occurring are unlikely. We regret it and have sorrowed over it; but we have not for one moment ever thought we had a "right" to have children on our terms rather than God's.

Your response is to dismiss your interlocutors out of hand and appeal to a kind of literal Biblicism that is, frankly, intellectually and morally bankrupt. Why? Because it does not seek to interpret Scripture in a coherent, consistent, and principled fashion, but rather in a legalistic manner of finding and rationalizing a loophole to do whatever one wants if there isn't a flat-footed, explicit "thou shalt not" in the text. On your approach, child molesting of the sort practiced by the false prophet Mohammed is OK because Scripture doesn't explicitly forbid it. What Prof. Esolen and others here present, by contrast, is a position on this issue thoroughly grounded in Scripture, in the divinely created means and Scripturally appointed purposes of procreation. You will gain the right and truly Scriptural perspective on this matter only when you approach it in terms of a "gift" given by divine grace and not of a "right" to be pursued unilaterally according to your own desires.

[J.D.]

"a good thing desired does not justify any and every means to obtain it."

Careful, Christopher. You're coming perilously close to suggesting that the interplay of Human Rights does not compose the font of morality.

[Russell Kirk]

"Certain sanguine neoconservatives inform us that America in this year of our Lord 1989 is virtually an earthly paradise of democratic capitalism.

This sensate, materialistic, bored, trivial, and often perverse culture of ours today, the summit of human striving?

What an absurd contention!

But then, most neoconservatives are liberals thinly veiled.

Leviathan does not need to pursue such people: they swim eagerly into his maw."

[Christopher Hathaway]

You're coming perilously close to suggesting that the interplay of Human Rights does not compose the font of morality.

Heaven forfend.

[J.D.]

Of course, witticisms aside, the language of "rights" would seem deeply intertwined in the vision of society as comprised of atomized individuals.

I.e., do what you like, so long as you don't infringe on anybody's rights. This rather ignores the interconnectedness of human existence; none of us exists in a solitary state, as a social, psychological, or spiritual island.

The fradulent notion that we can somehow be defined in isolation is found both in the Left's attempts to deconstruct tradition, and in the corporate capitalist's dogmatic commitment to unrestricted mercantilism.

Both demand that tradition, culture, taboos, etc. get their oppressive paws off of the choice-making, liberation-seeking individual.

The pro-abortionist's refusal to recognize the link-- a literal, physical link-- of the fetus to the mother appears to be the ad absurdum result of this atomized conception of humanity.

[Ranee Mueller]

Yes, most embryos will fail to implant and will die, as do many or most naturally conceived embryos,

Kip, you are wrong. The highest estimate of loss of embryos is about a third, that is not most, and it is the high estimate from pro-abortion types who want to make it sound like it's not such a big deal that you abort or miscarry.

Note, too that there are also similarities between condemning women to sterility who could readily be treated by modern medicine -- for philosophical reasons -- and the sterilisation of 'undesirable' women by the 20th Century eugenicists -- also for philosophical reasons. In fact, I find opposition to IVF to be a very strange sort of way to sanctify life -- since it denies it.

Nobody need condemn anyone to sterility. And the comparison to forcible sterlization is a straw man. One may as well compare shooting someone in the heart with a heart attack.

Much of what we do to "treat" infertility is really just treating symptoms or overriding the natural processes of the body. This is why so many of the treatments fail.

I feel for you and your wife, I really do. When I was 20, I was diagnosed as infertile because of polycystic ovarian syndrome. We were told that we couldn't have children without the aid of medical agents. We saw the ultrasounds, had three doctors in two states confirm my diagnosis. We also were prayed over and were healed. I am pregnant with our fifth. I am not offering this as a condemnation or a panacea (just pray and you'll get what you want!), but as an alternative. No, prayer doesn't always bring what we desire.

We, too, were ill informed as to the deeper levels of the pro-life ethos when we were younger and first married. We had plans to use Clomid, should we fail to conceive normally withing five years. I am thankful that we never did. There is a great deal more in common with your eugenicists in the fertility clinics than there is in prayerfully accepting the will of God, who is the Author and Creator of Life. That is not fatalism, even Paul understood when the answer was no with that thorn in his flesh.

It is arrogant, at best, to think we can "help" God make life. We are given the privilege of being allowed to be vessels of life and partners with Him, but He makes all life.

I am sure that it hurts to hear that the decision you and your wife made is not in line with the pro-life ethic, but saying it is doesn't make it so. I am not Roman Catholic, but I believe their argument is that IVF (among other infertility treatments) is wrong because it separates reproduction from the marital act. The same reason that contraception is wrong.

Scripturally, others have pointed out the example of Abraham and Sarah, but you don't seem to want to hear or understand. There is also that matter of the husband masturbating to create the sperm sample (this is something Rich and I had to discuss) and that pornography is usually what is offered to help him along. While I understand your reluctance to admit any misunderstanding on your part or to view your decision as sinful, you are making the opposing argument better than you know.

Your children were allowed by God, they are, as someone else said, made in His image, and God can redeem all of our sins. In a way, I wonder that you don't just see it as a sin committed, confess it, repent and move on. Many of us have done so about other decisions we've made in our marriages, or before. It seems like you are holding on to it so strongly and promoting it, to justify the decision you made.

[Stuart Koehl]

From the First Things web site (www.firstthings.com):

>>>Joseph Bottum writes:

We were unable to get away from New York to attend President Bush’s stem-cell speech yesterday, but our friend Wesley J. Smith flew from California to see the event, and he promised to let us know how it went:

I attended President Bush’s stem cell speech yesterday, and I have to say, it was a real thrill as an American to be invited to the White House to hear the president of the United States give a major policy address. Here is my impression of the day: I was seated in the third row on the right side of the podium and so had a very clear and close-up view of the president. His body language and, particularly, the “on fire” look in his eyes, convinced me that, agree or disagree with Bush, he believes in his stem cell policy wholeheartedly. And he is keeping a campaign promise—imagine that in a politician! In other words, Bush is not “pandering to his base,” as some have said. Nor is he being uncompassionate about people needing medical treatments. He truly believes that he has drawn an important moral and ethical line that does not place the imprimatur of the United States on harvesting nascent human life—as if so many ears of corn—but which at the same time does not impose his moral view on a country that substantially disagrees (at least when the embryos are “leftover IVF embryos due to be destroyed anyway” are concerned).

At a deeper level, Bush’s policy has kept the ethical debate where it belongs: Does human life have intrinsic value simply because it is human? With his stem cell policy and advocacy to outlaw all human cloning, Bush says yes. And whether the issue is the ethical propriety of embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, redefining death so that people like Terri Schiavo can be harvested for their organs, human enhancement, personhood theory, or a myriad of other biotechnological and bioethical controversies of the day, that is the fundamental issue that our nation and our world faces. Kudos to President Bush for understanding this and acting accordingly.

Meanwhile, Carlos Lima has published his research demonstrating that a patient’s own adult stem cells and olfactory mucosa can treat paralysis caused by spinal cord injury. This study, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, reports on seven patients treated with the procedure. (Lima has treated at least two dozen more.) Two of the seven regained bladder control. One regained control of the anal sphincter. This alone is huge! “Every patient had improvement” in “motor scores.” “Most recovered sensation below the initial level of injury that was repaired.” No side effects other than those associated with any surgery.

Let us caution: This isn’t a cure. It is an apparently effective treatment that may one day substantially improved the quality of lives of spinal cord injury patients and may return some to the potential of mobility.

I hope I am wrong, but I will bet that the mainstream media ignores the story. They will be too busy reporting on rats with improved mobility from embryonic stem cells.<<<

[White House Press Secretary Tony Snow]

"And I’ll tell you what, it’s worth pointing out one thing — actually several things on stem cells.

Number one, the President is the first ever to have financed research using embryonic stem cell lines...

This is a President who’s spent more money on embryonic stem cell research and stem cell research generally than any President in American history.

He’s got the track record.

What’s happening now is that people are trying to politicize it by accusing him of standing in the way of science, when he’s the guy who’s made it possible to open up the way to science."

[GL]

Parole19,

Indeed, even President Bush is complicit in allowing federal funding for the use of embryomic stem cells and his press secretary offers that fact as a good thing.  That is unfortunate, but at least he is now drawing a line beyond which he will not go.  For that, I applaud him.

Stuart,

[A]t the same time Bush is] does not impose his moral view on a country that substantially disagrees.

With the support of Congress, Bush has limited ability to "impose his moral view on a country that substantially disagrees" and if Congress gave him that support (which is highly unlikely even were he to seek it given that it just approved funding for such research), many of the individual members might lose their seats.

For that reason, and for the reason I am about to discuss, Wesley J. Smith is praising as a virtue that which is not.  In a democracy, leaders are to lead the people to accept what we might at first reject.  He is not a king; he cannot impose his morality on the nation.  He can, however, exercise persuasion to lead the country toward the correct moral position.  Bush attempted to do that in his speech, but Tony Snow's remarks, undoubtedly approved by the President, impaired his ability to do so by clouding the moral issue.  That is, while I applaud what Bush did and said earlier this week, his earlier compromise and his press secretary holding that up to show that Bush is not some right-wing Christian fanatic who does not care for ill people has impaired his ability to lead on this issue to the degree he should.

[Martha S]

I have had IVF, too, and I don't think it's wrong or sinful. IVF is the best technology medicine has for preventing miscarriage. I am not so hypocritical that I would repent of something I don't believe is a sin, even though other Christians think it is. Because someone else thinks eating meat offered to idols is a sin, should I repent if I don't think it's wrong? I think it would be worse to repent of something I don't think is wrong.

[Susan Peterson]

Martha-no one but you and God know your conscience. But you are obliged to inform your conscience. That means informing yourself about the state of the question, giving serious attention to arguments pro and con...especially con if you are tempted in the other direction. It means spending significant time in prayer over the issue. It might mean consulting a priest, minister or other person whose spiritual wisdom you trust. If you are Catholic it means listening to the teachings of the Magisterium and obeying them unless your conscience demands that you must act otherwise -not allows that you can, but demands that you must.

It is impossible to repent of something you don't think is wrong, until and unless you are convinced otherwise. If you were to be convinced otherwise,you would have to repent, and almost certainly would as a matter of course. Of course that wouldn't mean you would be repenting of the life of your child assuming the procedure was successful.

God bless,
Susan Peterson

[Martha S]

My conscience is well-informed. I know the science around miscarriage and infertility far better than anyone posting on this website, and I am not Catholic. IVF is really a "meat offered to idols" type question.

[Scott Walker]

Martha, with respect, unless you're telepathic you cannot possibly know that you "...know the science around miscarriage and infertility far better than anyone posting on this website..." Meaningless assertions do not help your case.

[GL]

Martha,

Having experienced infertility for several years, I understand the pain of that situation.  I cannot possibly understand the pain of miscarriage, having not suffered through that, though several family and friends have.  Please understand that I do not want to cause you pain, but "IVF is [most definitely not] really a 'meat offered to idols' type question."  I am not Catholic either and, for purposes of this post, I will lay aside the natural law arguments against IVF, though I believe they are valid.  IVF normally results in the creation of human embryos who (not which) will never be permitted to fully develop and who will eventually be killed.  That violates the commandment against causing the death of a human deliberately, recklessly or negligently.  It also violates what Christ called the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbor (in this case our own children) as ourselves.  Love does not deliberately cause other humans to come into existence with the intent that they die or with reckless disregard as to whether they die or with negligent indifference as to whether they die.  "Know[ing] the science around miscarriage and infertility" is not the same as having developed the correct understanding of the morality of IVF.  Understanding the science behind IVF is, of course, necessary in evaluating its morality, but it is not sufficient.  As with Kip, I would refer you to Professor Charles Rice's 50 Questions on the Natural Law, What It Is & Why We Need It, Ignatius (revised ed. 1999), p. 372-82, and the documents cited therein as a good starting point.

[Martha S]

Scott, granted, if anyone else has read hundreds of medical research papers on infertility, miscarriage and hormones, or is a reproductive endocrinologist, they do know more than I do. However, I don't see evidence of accurate knowledge of embryo/miscarriage/fertility statistics in the previous posts. For a woman with recurrent miscarriage, IVF can reduce the miscarriage probability from 90+% to ~20%.

Refer to this First Things essay for an analysis of Jewish and Catholic views of embryos.
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0506/opinion/cohen.html

[GL]

Martha,

Thanks for the citation to the Eric Cohen's piece in First Things.  I read it with great interest.

[GL]

Closing the italics.

[GL]

Closing the italics.

[GL]

One other point, if IVF could be accomplished without the creation of "excess" embryos -- which at least some claim can be done -- then I am aware of no argument against it other than the natural law arguments.  I would appreciate any Scriptural (i.e., non-natural law) arguments that would apply in those circumstances.  (I accept the natural law arguments, but those are unlikely to persuade many Evangelical in the absence of loss of human life.)

[Ranee Mueller]

would apply in those circumstances. (I accept the natural law arguments, but those are unlikely to persuade many Evangelical in the absence of loss of human life.)

There are only a few I can think of off the top of my head: The example of Abraham and Sarah as already mentioned, short circuiting God's plan by using another means to achieve a "good," masturbation being a necessary part of many of the treatments (Onan, etc), pornography being an agent for that masturbation (Paul on jailing one's thoughts, keeping one's mind pure, et al).

The last two are the dirty little secrets of the process, as far as I am concerned. It was something that came up while we were looking toward that direction ourselves, and Rich was put off by the whole thing. One may choose not to utilize the pornography, by either using images from one's own mind, which may or may not be pornographic in nature, or by having one's wife in with him, but the fact is that the masturbation is required to get the sample in all but a few methods which rely on stimulating the woman's system and allowing the couple to try to conceive in the traditional way, but this also has the problem of an increased liklihood of creating more eggs and, therefore, more embryos. This increases the chances of miscarriage of some or all, and also poses the problem of the decision to "selectively reduce" or not. Also, the porn is available, whether or not one chooses to use it, it is part of the infertility industry set of tools, including both magazines and film.

One should not sin so that good may come.

[Andrea]

These "embryos" that would be used for cell stem research will just be thrown away then. It's not killing, their frozen, and will never become anything but a bunch of frozen cells. They will be thrown away eventually so the question is: Is it worth throwing away a link to what might be a possible future cure for deadly diseases? (Parkinson's, some cancers, MS..etc) It's a hard call. Murder? I don't think so. But a very sensitive subject.

[Christopher Hathaway]

Andrea, there is similar issue with regard to relvant scientific knowledge gained by the Nazis in the death camps. The question was: since the evil was already done by the Nazis, should not their research be used? No one new was going to suffer. The scientific evidence gruesomely gained was just lying there. Why let it be wasted? The conclusion was that it would be unethical to make the evil of the Nazis profitable after the fact. It was perhaps out of respect for those who had been murdered, even though it was recognized that use of that research might even save lives, for the Nazis had done a lot of study on human ability to withstand extreme envoronmental condition.

That these embryos will be destroyed is the evil comparable to the Nazis. Our making use of them would make us complicit in the science and mindset that sees value in their death, rather than their life. That is the ethiocal line we must not cross. We have been crossing so many. Let's not add to them.

[Martha S]

I oppose federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Let us not pretend, however, that making even private funding for such research illegal would "prevent a line from being crossed." Most of the cutting edge research has already gone to countries without moral qualms and with government support, specifically South Korea and Singapore. The question is not whether the research will occur; the question is whether it will occur with the imprimatur of the US government.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The question is not whether the research will occur; the question is whether it will occur with the imprimatur of the US government.<<<

Embryonic stem cell research is driven mainly by the desire to push boundaries. In this country and elsewhere, advocates of ESC research are generally pushing a subsidiary agenda to make abortion acceptable on "therapeutic" grounds.

But the fact that ESC requires government funding of research is itself indicative of the "promise" of the technology. If in fact, ESC were are "promising" as its advocates claim, then there would certainly be venture capitalists lining up around the block to invest in it. But we see, rather, that private capital is and has been for some time, backing adult stem cell technology, which has already generated a number of treatments and is advancing at a very rapid pace. On the other hand, ESC technology faces a number of serious hurdles which even unrestricted access to new stem cell lines will not eliminate. Among the most serious of these is the tendency of ESC to spontaneously mutate into oncogenic cells (i.e., they become cancerous tumors). Moreover, nobody as yet has any idea as to how to make ESC transform into specific types of tissues in a predictable and controlled manner.

Because of these problems, ESC research has trouble finding private backers. Scientists who want to go down this road find their path blocked by a lack of funding, which only government grants can rectify. But, even if government funding were forthcoming, it would not result in any miraculous cures in the foreseeable future--the science just isn't there.

Even if it was, though, the ethical barriers remain. If we cross this line, we have taken a giant step towards the commodification of human life. And barriers of that sort, once crossed, make it progressively easier to cross subsequent barriers. There really isn't that much difference between harvesting human embryos for stem cells, and harvesting organs from adult human beings deemed by society to be 'expendable". Thus, condemned prisoners, rather than being executed and buried, will be kept alive while all useful organs are taken. And that can be for a long time, as a human being can continue to live with half a lung, half a kidney, one third of a iiver, no eyes, no ears, arms or legs--you get the idea. Something of this sort may already be happening in China.

But why stop at condemned prisoners? There must be hundreds of people living in persistent vegetative states who are a drain on society. Why not make lemonade out of lemons by removing their superfluous but functional organs so that others more worthy (or more economically valuable) might live fuller lives?

And having gone that far, why not the mentally retarded? Sure, their brains don't work up to snuff, but they have functionig kidneys, lungs, corneas, etc.?

You see where this leads? If you take a utilitarian approach to embryos, then there is no reason whatsoever to taking a similar approach to those outside the womb.

And that's why we won't go there.

[Martha S]

Stuart, what you say is true. Exactly how does your argument against utilitarianism affect the fact that research is being funded, privately and publicly, in southeast Asia?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, what you say is true. Exactly how does your argument against utilitarianism affect the fact that research is being funded, privately and publicly, in southeast Asia?<<<

The fact that such research is being conducted does not affect the moral argument. Rather, the fact that such research is being conducted outside the United States is often used as a utilitarian argument for the U.S. to support such research here: "If we don't do it, the South Koreans--or Japanese, Chineses, Singaporeans, etc--will get ahead of us".

To which we should answer, "So what?" This technology is poisoned fruit, comes, in fact, too close to being that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. It makes the promise of the serpent, "You will not die, but will be as gods". It is, verily, too much like Sauron's Ring, which does not bestow more life, but only stretches out that which one has, until every living moment becomes a torment. Eternal life is not ours to attain, nor is the creation of human life an artifact of man.

[Ranee Mueller]

I thought of one other scriptural reference, Jesus saying that looking at a woman lustfully is the same as committing adultery with her. That goes along with the pornographic element of IVF.

[GL]

The fact that such research is being conducted does not affect the moral argument. Rather, the fact that such research is being conducted outside the United States is often used as a utilitarian argument for the U.S. to support such research here: "If we don't do it, the South Koreans--or Japanese, Chineses, Singaporeans, etc--will get ahead of us".

To which we should answer, "So what?"

In the 1980s, I lived in Missouri when the state was trying to introduce the lottery.  The proponents kept pointing across the Mississippi River at Illinois, saying, "Look at all the cars with Missouri licenses driving over to Illinois to buy lottery tickets.  We should be getting that money."  At the time, my response was to ask what if the state of Illinois began pimping women and selling cocaine to raise revenue for the state, would that justify Missouri doing the same to avoid losing that lucrative source of state revenue.

If other nations develop effective treatments from ESC research, we can, if we choose, use those treatments.  Of course, the revenue will go to the nations which develop the treatments, at least initially.  So when someone raises this point, they are really saying that we should fund ESC research so that we, not the Koreans et alia, receive the money generated from discovered treatments.  That is the reason why I said in an earlier post to this thread that worship of Mammon was involved.  Worship of Molech is involved because we would be sacrificing our children, just as we do with contraception and abortion.  As I said above, at the end of the day, it boils down to whom we worship: the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or Mammon and Molech.

[GL]

Ranee,

Thanks for your response to my question.  I now realize that I was wrong when I said that when my wife and I received fertility treatment it was consistent with Catholic teaching (and Scripture).  When we received infertility treatment, they asked for a sperm count and I need not say how the sample for that count was obtained.  Yet another sin to confess and yet another reason why I have been contemplating conversion to Catholicism.  Why doesn't the SBC, the denomination to which I have belonged most of my adult life, provide teaching on the issues surrounding fertility treatment in general and not just treatments which result in the death of embryos?  If I must look to the Catholic Church to receive correct moral instruction on issues such as contraception and fertility treatments, why shouldn't I see that as evidence that it is what it claims to be?

[Gene Godbold]

Gentlepeople,
I mostly support embryonic stem cell research--my one caveat is that the embryos not be human. It is true that a number of Asian countries have sunk a lot of money into human embryonic stem cell research. So far, all they've gotten for tens of millions of dollars of cash is deceit and recriminations. Governments in Asian countries seem prone to the idea that they can pick "winners" in technology just by the mere fact of selection. (The idea of a "command economy" still has positive resonances with them.)

Stuart is right in noting that the smart (private) money in the US is flowing overwhelmingly to "adult" (human) stem cell work and not embryonic. My experience in biological science tells me that Stuart is also correct in the motivations of those who endorse embyronic stem cells (in the total absence of therapeutic success); these guys have:
1) a desire to push boundaries (because we might be able to do it, we should do it
2) an ideological drive to poke a finger in the eye of religious rubes

[GL]

Gene,

I know little about this.  Does research using the ESC of animals hold promise for the development of treatment of humans?  As I am not opposed to animal research in general (as long as the animals are treated humanely), I can think of no objection to going that route, which the first part of your post seems to be driving at.

My wife and I paid to have the umbilical cord stem cells of all three of our children stored in case they might be beneficial to our children or others in the future.  Of course, use of UCSCs does not involve the killing of a human.

[Gene Godbold]

GL,
The promise of animal embryonic research is that it has a decent possibility of revealing what biochemical pathways are necessary and sufficient for promoting the features of stem cells that we find attractive--notably their ability to continue to divide without ceasing (and without suffering a deleterious shortening of telomeres). After figuring out the proteins involved in maintaining "stem-ness" in (mammalian) animal cells we can look for similar proteins encoded in the human genome.

[Stuart Koehl]

I mentioned in one of my posts that in China, organs are already being harvested from criminals. I should modify my statement to say that organs are being harvested from those deemed criminals by the Chinese government. Whether they are guilty of any offense other than opposing the Chinese government is debatable. See the following by Jay Nordlinger in today's National Review Online:

>>>In late March, I wrote about the alleged horrors at Sujiatun. (For that article, please go here.) The charge, in brief, is that Chinese authorities are killing Falun Gong practitioners so that their organs may be “harvested.” It is a repellent thought, but we should not turn away.

I wish to draw your attention to the Matas-Kilgour report, published earlier this month. (Please go here.) David Matas and David Kilgour are Canadians. The former is a human-rights lawyer and champion; the latter has served in the positions of prosecutor, parliamentarian, and secretary of state. What they have produced is a “Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.” Here are two key paragraphs:

Based on what we now know, we have come to the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners.

We have concluded that the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centres and “people’s courts”, since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas, were virtually simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.

Friends, I will say what I said in my March piece: Be skeptical if you want to; but I would not be ignorant, burying my head in the sand. People have always been late to recognize atrocities — even widespread ones — much less to condemn them.<<<

[Charles Liu]

Kilgour's FLG report has since been discredited. Please check out the rebuttal from long time Chinese activist Harry Wu. Wu investigated FLG's allegation inside China and found it not credible, echoing US State department's investigation:

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006amp;m=April&x=20060416141157uhyggep0.5443231&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm

http://www.cicus.org/news/newsdetail.php?id=6492

http://crc.gov.my/clinicalTrial/documents/Proposal/TCM_Stroke%20TrialProtocol%20synopsis.pdf (page 3)

As you can see, the hospital FLG fingered is actually partly owned by a Malaysian healthcare company, and is subject to oversight beyond Chinese authority. Malay officials have visited the alleged site in previous year; the place has been open to public for years.