Stem Cell Research
While this was not a big issue in the last political campaign, the topic of stem cell research did come up. You can be sure, it will come up again in the presidential campaign. I have heard both politicians and commentators repeatedly say that President Bush or evangelicals are against stem cell research. However, as far as I know, no one in political office is against stem cell research. There are no major religious bodies who are against stem cell research. The controversy is over embryonic stem cell research.
Most evangelical Christians (I included) are not opposed to stem cell research but are opposed to embryonic stem cell research. Scientist can conduct stem cell research without killing anyone. However, to conduct to conduct embryonic stem cell research one must kill the baby.
Here is what President Bush had to say on the matter:
“…scientists believe further research using stem cells offers great promise that could help improve the lives of those who suffer from many terrible diseases -- from juvenile diabetes to Alzheimer's, from Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries. And while scientists admit they are not yet certain, they believe stem cells derived from embryos have unique potential.”
He goes on to say that while stem cells can be derived from sources other than embryos, “most scientists, at least today, believe that research on embryonic stem cells offer the most promise because these cells have the potential to develop in all of the tissues in the body.”[i]
Yet, even though embryonic stem cell research holds such great promise, President Bush is opposed to it. Why? He opposes it, not on scientific grounds, but on moral grounds. If you believe that an embryo is a human being, then to destroy that human life, even for something as noble as finding a cure for terrible diseases, is still morally wrong. We do not kill any human beings for the purpose of scientific research.
Our nation is divided on the value of an embryo. Yet, even among people who are Pro-Choice, most would say that a fetus is not the moral equivalent of a tonsil. The fetus is not just tissue in the woman’s body. For example, in his famous speech on abortion, President Clinton said that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” If there is nothing morally wrong with abortion, then why should it be rare? However, President Clinton argued that abortion should be rare because he knows that there is something special about a human fetus. Either a human fetus is special, and therefore should be afforded the protection of all its human rights or the fetus is not special, which means that there is no moral imperative to make abortions “rare.”
Some argue that the life of a human outside the womb is more valuable than the fetus within the womb. That is essentially the argument that was put forward by the late Christopher Reeve and by Michael J. Fox in favor of embryonic stem cell research. However, do we really want to value one class of humans over another? Are smart people more valuable that dumb people? Are athletes more valuable than non-athletes? Are the young and healthy more valuable than the elderly and infirmed? Are the rich more valuable than the poor? Our country has already been down that road of considering one group of humans as being more valuable than another and the results were disastrous.
So, stem cell research may be a wonderful avenue for scientists to improve the lives of thousands of people. However, embryonic stem cell research results in the violation of some people’s human rights. So, opposition to embryonic stem cell research is not a "right wing" issue. It is civil rights and social justice issue that should concern all of us.
For more information on the topic of abortion, I invite you to read or listen to some of the resources available on the website of University Presbyterian Church.[i] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html, Remarks by the President on Stem Cell Research , The Bush Ranch,
posted by Mark Bates | 11:37 AM
3 Comments:
Good post. I think you put the focus right where it belongs - on the embryo.
There is another aspect of this issue that seems to slip by people. That is that embryonic stem cell research is legal and going on in the U.S. The only question is if there should be government funding of such research.
The truth is that there is all kinds of stem cell research going on currently, and the ones showing the most promise (adult stem cell, cord blood) are the ones getting plenty of private funding dollars.
If embryonic stem cell research ever starts showing the kind of results the others are getting, they'll probably start getting a big chunk of private dollars also. California even passed a $3 billion ballot initiative to work on cell lines taken from 5 day old embryos.
So ultimately I think the debate will come down to how we value life, not how we fund programs.
It's easier to get people to agree not to kill things that look like babies, which is why crisis pregnancy centers offer free ultrasounds, but the embryos used for stem cell research are lumps of cells that don't resemble a person. The argument goes, Is a small lump of cells of equal value to a person who could use those cells? If not, since we would gladly sacrifice, say, a monkey to save a person, a fortiori we should feel the same way about these cells that are not a person.
So it seems that it comes down to our idea of what a person is. Is it physical resemblence, the presence of a soul (which we don't know much about), a specific age or event (e.g. conception, implantation, a beating heart, brainwaves)? I don't think the Bible or general revelation are as clear on the answer to that question as some people on both sides do, but I do think we need to err on the side of caution, particularly when the potential consequences--viz. murder--are so grave. Of course the potential consequences of not acting are also potentially grave, but in such vague ethical scenarios, I think one must choose the passively grave scheme (i.e., possibly letting someone die but leaving it in God's hands) to the actively grave scheme (i.e., possibly killing someone and taking matters into our own hands). I don't necessarily expect that argument to fly with people who have a different notion of what a person is, however.
As for President Clinton and "safe, legal, and rare," I think he's playing phrasing it that way to playdown his view for the benefit of those who differ. I think he'd like it to be rare because people are more sexually responsible in using other forms of birth/conception control, not because he thinks there is anything inherently wrong with killing an embryo or fetus.
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