Science Fiction – What pro-lifers are missing in the stem-cell debate
The issue of stem-cell research—which is back before the Senate—is often described as a moral dilemma, but it simply is not. Or at least it is not the moral dilemma often used in media shorthand: the rights of the unborn versus the needs of people suffering from diseases that embryonic stem cells might cure. As one of those people myself (I have Parkinson’s), I am not an objective analyst of what the U.S. government’s continuing near-ban on stem-cell research is costing our society and the world. Naturally, I think it’s costing too much. No other potential therapy—including adult stem cells—is nearly as promising for my ailment and others. Evaluate that as you wish.
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.
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.
My understanding is that the current administration is against government-funding of stem-cell research, not the research itself. I this is correct, any research company who felt that there was a profitable conclusion to this research would be doing it. Am I wrong about this?
You are correct Mark. This administration is against government funding of a particularly volitile aspect of stem cell research, something that should be praised these days not attacked vociferously and ignorantly by the left. Harvard, I believe, has actually begun a program to gather private investors for this research and it can proceed accordingly.
Given the heart of the objection of those that oppose this (overlook whatever view you may have personally of it) why not err on the side of caution and say “Look into this if you like, just don’t force people (through taxes) who have particularly strong moral objections to it to pay for it”
Stop show boating and being stupid people. The ‘virtual ban’ is a limit on what the government will help pay for. Feel free to send all your money to Harvard if you care so much.
You are both correct that it is only government funding of stem cells that is at issue in the current debate before Congress. If all the rich and famous who are so quick to criticize the Bush administration for their stance would contribute some of their money to the Harvard program, they’d have enough money to do this research.
Pro-lifers are not the missing the boat at all. In fact we have a very scientific approach to the entire debate. Use Adult Stem Cells.
While you look to debate when life starts/begins/whatever, we have already moved on to using the blood from the cord when a child is born. Within that blood, adult stems cells have already started to help cure cerebral palsy patients while stem cells from embryos are constantly being labeled as potential cures with no results to date.
Adult cells have also been proven succesful in treating different kinds of cancers and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. So while Senatos like Rick Santorum (R-Pa) hold debates and ethics meetings about embryonic-like (plurlpotent) cells, Pro-Lifers, as you call us, continue to scratch our collective heads as to why you would put so much time and energy into something that so far has provided no results.
Remeber we pro-lifers are not against Stem Cells we are against embonic Stem Cells which only have not been show to be useful yet (the guy from india that clamed they were useful is now facing jail time for falseifying his results) we are all for Plesentic Stem Cells, and Adult Stem Cells both of which do not involve the murder of an unborn child.
The media in general presents the issue as a “ban” on the research, and the uninformed sheep follow in lock-step. So are the media actually liable for something, or is this an acceptable level of editorializing the facts?
yes we should kill off healthy embryos to keep a bunch of old baby boomers patched up so they can go on destroying whats left of america and whats decent in this world… ill drink to that
Dudes, at best, you’re quoting a few superstitious commentators you rely upon to tell you what to think about tough issues. More often, it sounds like the sort of common knowledge relied upon for street corner sex education before minimal courses fought their way into school curricula.
I appreciate the fact that the folks Posting these articles for comment presume a certain level of information already in your personal database (brain?). I guess that’s why they don’t post (and repeat and repeat) biology 101 links to every sentence.
Please, go out into that “dangerous” world on your own and do some searches, do some reading. Not tracts from folks whose livelihood depends on ignorance and superstition. Try sources dedicated to building careers founded on advancing knowledge and health.
The reason for debate and discussion over federal assistance for such projects is terribly selfish, I know. It’s because many think we should continue to play a leading role in R&D in a field of science that was kickstarted in the US. Blathering about private enterprise is redundant. Some of the leading researchers have already left the United States. More will follow. They’re going to nations where they needn’t worry about federal stooges looking over their shoulder — even when they set out to purchase “approved” materials for study.
Theres an extra point here. These embryos aren’t showing up out of thin air. They’re being created for the purpose of being killed. This amounts to harvesting of life, and if the corporations behind this have their way, they’ll extend it all the way to harvesting organs from older embryos, fetuses, babies. what’s the difference. its all in the name of science.
First, there is not a ban on Stem Cell Research in the US. There is a ban on Government Funded Research through various Federal agencies. California for one has encouraged and funded research.
Adult Stem Cells are not the same as Embryonic Stem Cells. Close, but no cigar. It would be the same as being given whole blood vs artificial blood during a transfusion. Or using a phillips screwdriver when a torx is required.
For those who enjoy the “Right to Life” and Pro-Life monikers, a great many, if not the majority, are true hypocrites. Few have much compulsion with the Government funding ever more deadly weapons to kill more efficiently and with certainty, but cry foul when there is something that might give hope at a better life for many. The same people that screamed so loudly to save Terry Schiavo were very quiet as a baby boy was put to death in Texas because no one would pay the hospitalization.
I find the terms Right To Life / Pro Life disingenuous. That suggests that any other camp is against life. Not only is that a fallacy, but hypocritical. These radicals care nothing about diseases that ravage a body and shorten a person’s lifespan. Yet, if a cure for some disease is found using Stem Cells, I doubt very much any would refuse treatment.
Many in this camp use the cry that there are couples waiting to adopt that can’t find a child, all the while every state has a long list of kids needing foster and adoptive homes. Some even go outside the country to find a child, ignoring the needy in their own back yard.
I have yet to hear what the “Pro-Life” crowd would do with the frozen embryos due to be destroyed. May they be discarded? Must they be saved? If saved, for whom and at who’s cost?
“I find the terms Right To Life / Pro Life disingenuous.”
That’s funny, I find the term “Pro-Choice” disingenuous. This is a fallacy based on the proposition that a fetus (regardless of age) is strictly a cluster of a woman’s cells. That would give her the choice to destroy them. If I don’t like my neighbor, I don’t have the choice to beat him in the head with a brick. There is more than enough evidence given that a fetus is a living human long before exiting the birth canal……where is their choice in the matter?
That being said, I support stem cell research. I’m not sure when human life begins (either is anyone else with any scientific accuracy)…..however, you would have to do some strong evidentiary arguments in order to convince me it’s at the blastocyst or any of the pre-fetal stages. Since this is the stage where stem cells are farmed I see no difficulty in garnering these cells here. Especially from ones slated for destruction anyway (as is the case in unclaimed cells from a fertility clinic.)
#11 Calin says “If I don’t like my neighbor, I don’t have the choice to beat him in the head with a brick.”
Not even if he’s inside your uterus? 😉
(sorry, I can’t resist a little humor)
Someone mentioned privately funded embryonic stem cell research being organized as a Harvard project. With all the people who believe full rights to life are conferred upon a fertilized egg, are we going to see the same “Right-to-Life” rallies outside Harvard, screaming “baby murderers,” as we sometimes see outside Planned Parenthood clinics? Will they start having bomb threats as well? For that matter, why aren’t we seeing these protests outside the fertility clinics that have been creating and destroying extra embryos for years? Is it just because many people didn’t know about these practices? I’m curious how they’ve escaped the wrath of the right-to-life movement.
I think because there are a lot of people in the Pro-Life movement (myself included) that can’t bring themselves to moral outrage over pre-fetal life as we can to late-term D&E abortions.
However, as far as a neighbor in my uterus, I’d have to have one first. I guess I could make the argument that my wife’s uterus is half mine……but that was cut out and thrown away around 9 years ago. Three kids is enough, thank you 🙂
#11 Calin says “If I don’t like my neighbor, I don’t have the choice to beat him in the head with a brick.”
Actually you do, you just have to be willing to pay the consequences… You always have choice…
Heck, I just find it refreshing to see anyone from Calin’s side of the debate admit to a bit of moral uncertainty and a recognition that shades of gray exist. I’ve always seen that as a sign of strength, not weakness, because those are the people with whom you can have a discussion. Chances for civil discourse evaporate quickly when people profess to know the unknowable, and that’s where the moral certainty of religion often gets in the way in this debate.
And….even if abortion were still illegal……..the woman would still have the choice. Where’s the Pro-Choice? She had a choice when it was illegal….she has a choice when it’s illegal.
My point was in legality. I don’t have the legal option to bash his head in with a brick. With abortion legal, she has no consequences to the actions. If she decides to have sex with a loser with no job, then abort the fetus after she’s 7 months pregnant because he’s now in jail…….she’s legally given that choice.
On the other hand, if I pick up a girl in a bar for a one-night stand….I have no choice in that child’s future…..other than the fact that I’m going to be legally forced to pay for it.
This is not equal choice……it’s consequenceless actions for women alone. Up to and including murder (in the 9th month D&E). According to the pro-choice movement, an abortion is the woman’s choice up to the moment she gives birth. The viability of the fetus is not called into question. The man who can be forced to pay for this child for the next 18 years gets no choice in the matter.
Of course, that’s the lunatic fringe of the pro-choice movement. My side has it’s own lunatic fringe. However, because of these two extreme sides with their loud voices; a viable alternative, or a middle ground of compromise will never be heard. One side thumps their religious beliefs into the argument…..the other side sticks their fingers in their ears and shouts “WOMANS RIGHTS WOMANS RIGHTS” over and over.
Yep, Calin, your last paragraph sums it up pretty well, and each side tends to see the other as amazingly monolithic.
And BOTH sides fear the slippery slope 😉
i believe there was a legal initiative to give men the same rights women were given long ago and allow them to walk away from parental obligation… but that’s not about to happen soon!
i know most will probably consider me an extremest for saying this, but i always wanted to go to an abortion rally wearing a shirt that says “I should have been aborted”…
personally i just wish this had nothing to do with subjective interpretaions of life and morality… if the resources (fetuses) are already there and are going to be destroyed anyway, what’s the issue…
i do respect life, but the universe is a big place and we really don’t matter all that much… as someone stated before, in different words, nature doesn’t dicriminate or care… in order for one thing to live, something else must die, that is the cycle we exist in…
all this bickering and arguing with moral zealots is getting so old, about 2000 years too old… i can’t wait till this species gets past this crap and simply takes advantage of what is being wasted anyway… no need to destroy real potentials, but the life which is going to serve no purpose and be disposed of anyway could be put to use saving the lives of those who are living and have more potential to live, in this way the life which would have gone to waste is actually promoting the cause of life…
this isn’t about morality, it’s about reason and logic… the moral majority doesn’t seem to want to think this through…
oh well… here’s to another 200 years of anti progression!
sorry, i meant 2000
Mr. Fusion and Moss…..you do a great job of belittling(nicely) and being outraged, but neither of you responded to the facts of #4″s argument that nothing has been discovered using embryonic stem cells, but adult stem cell research has already proven valuable in several areas of medicine.
I see nothing wrong in the private sector footing the bill for R&D in this area, thats who will reap the profits no matter who discovers *cures or other useful things*. I would be willing to bet that all the major drug companies are already very quietly spending great sums in this area of research.
I see where #4 is coming from, we have been inundated with this *magic cures* stuff from embryonic stem cells since I was 12 or 13 y/o, but so far…..zilch!!!
At some point the rhetoric has to stop and the puddin needs to be proofed.
We aren’t the only country doing stem cell research, the E.U. has no ban and it’s hot and heavy there and in many asian countries, but still….no results. Hell, Harvard is just whoring for dollars as usual, they are the richest endowed university in the nation, but they are begging for our millions….bahhhh………research is being done here, and has been, Harvard just figured out it could make more money.
I have yet to see anyone address all the discarded embryos from regular in-vitro fertility clinics. Why aren’t the pro-lifers picketing them to reduce the number of viable embryos (humans by pro-life definitions) they waste?
Until they do, this is hypocritical and myopic.
Yeah — what he said.
>who would mandate roadblocks on the basis of religious “morality”.
So you would have no objections if the companies managed to clone outright, grow the embryos longer until they were say 4 years old, and then killed them for organs?
#24 asks “So you would have no objections if the companies managed to clone outright, grow the embryos longer until they were say 4 years old, and then killed them for organs?”
Is that really just about religious “morality”? I’m not religious, and I find your suggestion offensive that religious morality is somehow the only basis on which to oppose your proposition.
Any sort of cloning is a continuing issue in medical ethics, and murder of a clone is simply a matter of humanity. A useful debate will be more likely if you don’t suggest that killing a 4-year-old clone for parts might be somehow OK with those who simple reject religion as the basis for laws.
>Any sort of cloning is a continuing issue in medical ethics
What do you think stem-cell research is? It is cloning. What Ron Reagan talked about at the Democrat Convention is cloning. They clone to produce the embryos in question.
#26, do you really not understand the difference between stem cell research and cloning? The embryos from which stem cells are harvested are not clones. You should do a little more reading on this topic before commenting on the ethics or morals involved. Maybe that explains some of your positions.
#16, Calin,Up to and including murder (in the 9th month D&E). According to the pro-choice movement, an abortion is the woman’s choice up to the moment she gives birth. The viability of the fetus is not called into question
Comment by Calin — 7/10/2006 @ 12:49 pm
OK, do you have a link or any evidence where a woman would abort in her ninth month? C’mon, how many have happened. I’ll tell you, NONE. Simply because it is physically impossible to abort at that late a stage.
The only late term abortions (after the beginning of the seventh month) would only be done to save the life of the mother in an emergency situation. By the start of the eight month the fetus is too large to pass through the birth canal without inducing the mother or a cesarean section. That is called a birth, not an abortion. This is totally different from a D & E done at 12 weeks or less.
By the start of the eight month, the fetus is viable and by the start of the ninth month is only considered slightly pre-mature. The Supreme Court does allow states to regulate late term abortion and most have done so. But you won’t be finding any “9th month abortions” except from the “Right to Life” propagandists. Nor would you find any physicians who would perform one.
>The Supreme Court does allow states to regulate late term abortion
Then what was the point of the Stenberg vs Carhart ruling? Doe v Bolton came out the same time as Roe v Wade, and basically forced states to allow late-term abortions.
Gary, you’re right it does explain some of my positions, though even the killing of non-cloned embryos bothers me. It’s still the harvesting of human life to help others. It’s not so bad when the embryos are due to be discarded anyways, but that is huge incentive for creating such embryos. However, I think you need to learn about how this stem cell research works. There’s a reason why cloning bans are being resisted by researchers.
From Wikipedia:
starting a stem cell ‘line’ requires the destruction of a human embryo and/or therapeutic cloning.
From the Boston Globe:
Harvard scientists now report that they have clearance to enter the race to be first to produce embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos.
I didn’t say they happened all the time. I said they were legal, or should be based on the stances of the rabid side of the pro-choice movement. I was using them as an example of extreme.
However, do some more research and tell me what the physical differences are between an 8month fetus and a 6month fetus. Both are viable, (although mathematically one is more viable than the other). I have a cousin who was born 4 months premature. He’s 14 years old now…..that was pretty viable.
However, the arguments of the rabid side of the pro-choice side state that it is a woman’s choice PERIOD. There is no question of viability given, there is the staunch believe that a fetus is not human until it leaves the birth canal under it’s own power (or more technically the muscles of the mother.) I point out the extreme of a 9th month abortion as a balance to the extreme of my side stating that a fertilized egg is human before it even implants into the walls of the uterus. Of course, that being the case every woman who has ever had sex has probably killed at least one human in her life, at least accidentally.