Thursday, June 21, 2007
Drawing a Moral Line
My congressperson here in Denver, Colorado is Diana DeGette (D-1st District). I know her slightly through the double x fiance, who attended Colorado College with her a few decades ago. She's a raving lefty. She suffers, like I do, from a degenerating hip. Indeed, I believe she has had it replaced, although it's a little soon in the game for that. Her big thing is embryonic stem cell research. She wants to shower the researchers with federal money. The funding bills she co-sponsors pass both houses but not with enough support to override the President's veto. He's vetoed such bills twice; one was today, in fact.
Because of one of the ways we treat infertility (which effects an enormous number of people, one couple in five), there are surplus embryos, frozen, awaiting implantation. There are more frozen embryos than will ever be implanted. Eventually they stop keeping them frozen. I don't think they bury them, probably incinerate them in medical waste crematoria.
Embryos have stem cells which can grow to become any specialized cell in a more mature body. Embryos are by no means the only source of such cells. They exist throughout the birth process--cord blood, amniotic fluid, all over. American scientist have recently developed a way to turn skin cells into stem cells. Some scientists think the embryonic stem cells are the best, however, but the scientific enthusiasm has always been more theoretical than practical and has yet to produce anything approaching an actual medical breakthrough.
If you look at the frozen embryo as a fellow human who has not yet had the privilege of developing in a womb, the idea of cutting the embryo up for medical research is horrifying. I can't stop thinking about the Nazis when I hear about embryonic stem cell research. There is a straight line from the first Nazi medical atrocities, gassing the incurables with CO, to the gas chambers at Birkenau und so weiter. Couple that with the inhuman Mengele human medical experiments nearby at Auschwitz, and you can easily see the thin end of the evil wedge with medical research that ends individual human lives as its basis and subject.
If, however, you see a human embryo as a mere clump of cells, no more important from a scab or a broken off piece of toenail, then failing to use the soon to be medical waste extra embryos to try to cure diseases and suffering of real live, breathing humans seems pretty much like a crime.
I find it to be a very close call, but I have to go with the President on this. If you have to draw a line, draw it on the side of human life. Protect those least able to defend themselves. Do not be like the Nazis early on. (That's always good advice). As the President said today. “Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” Right on, as some of the less tragically hip used to say in the late 60s.
Of course, the President and, to a lesser degree, his party are paying a political price for his moral decision and it doesn't help that the main proponents, like my congressperson, and the Democrat's front runner for the job in '09, are obfuscating what is "banned" by the federal government. We have no ban on embryonic stem cell research. In fact no previous administration has spent more tax money on such research (limited to cell lines in existence when the 'ban ' passed). We just don't allow government funds to pay scientists to cut up new embryos for medical experiments.
We've heard all the promises of miracle cures to everything--including, I guess, plain old death from aging, and of Christopher Reeves walking again (We'll have to scratch that one off the wish list). If such miracles are so certain in embryonic stem cell research, wouldn't the private sector be lining up to become billionaires by developing cures for everything under the sun? Why does the government have to pay for it? Because of history, and the belief of a substantial portion of our fellow citizens that any embryo is human life, the only entity that should not be sponsoring these experiments is the government. The government should never be involved in the active killing of some human life for the medical benefit of another human life. That's a fairly clear moral line for right thinking types with even the barest grasp of the facts.
UPDATE: Longtime reader Jimmypol called to complain that he couldn't post a comment. Sorry. This is just a big typewriter for me. I can't fix 'em. But he did say that once you decide the embryo is a human, it's not a close question. It's an easy question. He's right and that was the crux of my argument. It's a rough situation to forego using those soon to be disposed of embryos to try to cure diseases, but that's the right thing to do.
Because of one of the ways we treat infertility (which effects an enormous number of people, one couple in five), there are surplus embryos, frozen, awaiting implantation. There are more frozen embryos than will ever be implanted. Eventually they stop keeping them frozen. I don't think they bury them, probably incinerate them in medical waste crematoria.
Embryos have stem cells which can grow to become any specialized cell in a more mature body. Embryos are by no means the only source of such cells. They exist throughout the birth process--cord blood, amniotic fluid, all over. American scientist have recently developed a way to turn skin cells into stem cells. Some scientists think the embryonic stem cells are the best, however, but the scientific enthusiasm has always been more theoretical than practical and has yet to produce anything approaching an actual medical breakthrough.
If you look at the frozen embryo as a fellow human who has not yet had the privilege of developing in a womb, the idea of cutting the embryo up for medical research is horrifying. I can't stop thinking about the Nazis when I hear about embryonic stem cell research. There is a straight line from the first Nazi medical atrocities, gassing the incurables with CO, to the gas chambers at Birkenau und so weiter. Couple that with the inhuman Mengele human medical experiments nearby at Auschwitz, and you can easily see the thin end of the evil wedge with medical research that ends individual human lives as its basis and subject.
If, however, you see a human embryo as a mere clump of cells, no more important from a scab or a broken off piece of toenail, then failing to use the soon to be medical waste extra embryos to try to cure diseases and suffering of real live, breathing humans seems pretty much like a crime.
I find it to be a very close call, but I have to go with the President on this. If you have to draw a line, draw it on the side of human life. Protect those least able to defend themselves. Do not be like the Nazis early on. (That's always good advice). As the President said today. “Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” Right on, as some of the less tragically hip used to say in the late 60s.
Of course, the President and, to a lesser degree, his party are paying a political price for his moral decision and it doesn't help that the main proponents, like my congressperson, and the Democrat's front runner for the job in '09, are obfuscating what is "banned" by the federal government. We have no ban on embryonic stem cell research. In fact no previous administration has spent more tax money on such research (limited to cell lines in existence when the 'ban ' passed). We just don't allow government funds to pay scientists to cut up new embryos for medical experiments.
We've heard all the promises of miracle cures to everything--including, I guess, plain old death from aging, and of Christopher Reeves walking again (We'll have to scratch that one off the wish list). If such miracles are so certain in embryonic stem cell research, wouldn't the private sector be lining up to become billionaires by developing cures for everything under the sun? Why does the government have to pay for it? Because of history, and the belief of a substantial portion of our fellow citizens that any embryo is human life, the only entity that should not be sponsoring these experiments is the government. The government should never be involved in the active killing of some human life for the medical benefit of another human life. That's a fairly clear moral line for right thinking types with even the barest grasp of the facts.
UPDATE: Longtime reader Jimmypol called to complain that he couldn't post a comment. Sorry. This is just a big typewriter for me. I can't fix 'em. But he did say that once you decide the embryo is a human, it's not a close question. It's an easy question. He's right and that was the crux of my argument. It's a rough situation to forego using those soon to be disposed of embryos to try to cure diseases, but that's the right thing to do.
Labels: Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Moral Decisions
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:45 PM 
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"If you have to draw a line, draw it on the side of human life."
As you noted, both lines are drawn on the side of human life; they just use different definitions of human. It is not at all clear to me which definition should prevail.
That said, the choice here is between destroying that life (using whatever description of it you please) by disassembling it for its components and destroying that life by incineration. In the former case, there is some possibility of benefit, in the latter, none.
If you wish to invoke a slippery-slope argument, I'm afraid that you'll need to present a better argument to convince me. (Not that you need to do that, of course, I'm just sayin'.)
Further, I cannot agree with, "The government should never be involved in the active killing of some human life for the medical benefit of another human life.", either as stated or as I think you intended it.
As stated, this would prevent executions and wars, both of which are necessary more often than anyone would prefer. As I think you intended it, you are begging the question of the essential humanity of embryos.
"[A] substantial portion of our fellow citizens" believes that cremation is sinful; should the government then never pay for cremation? "[A] substantial portion of our fellow citizens" believes that vaccination is more harmful than beneficial; should the government then never pay for vaccination?
Now, none of this is an argument that the government should pay for embryonic stem cell research more generally than it does now. It's not clear that the benefits are worth the price (though I think they are). But, just as my points do not directly support stem cell research funding, your points do not persuasively oppose it.
As you noted, both lines are drawn on the side of human life; they just use different definitions of human. It is not at all clear to me which definition should prevail.
That said, the choice here is between destroying that life (using whatever description of it you please) by disassembling it for its components and destroying that life by incineration. In the former case, there is some possibility of benefit, in the latter, none.
If you wish to invoke a slippery-slope argument, I'm afraid that you'll need to present a better argument to convince me. (Not that you need to do that, of course, I'm just sayin'.)
Further, I cannot agree with, "The government should never be involved in the active killing of some human life for the medical benefit of another human life.", either as stated or as I think you intended it.
As stated, this would prevent executions and wars, both of which are necessary more often than anyone would prefer. As I think you intended it, you are begging the question of the essential humanity of embryos.
"[A] substantial portion of our fellow citizens" believes that cremation is sinful; should the government then never pay for cremation? "[A] substantial portion of our fellow citizens" believes that vaccination is more harmful than beneficial; should the government then never pay for vaccination?
Now, none of this is an argument that the government should pay for embryonic stem cell research more generally than it does now. It's not clear that the benefits are worth the price (though I think they are). But, just as my points do not directly support stem cell research funding, your points do not persuasively oppose it.
I'm perfectly willing to give up the chance of a better quality of life in my advanced years so as to protect an innocent embryo. And I'm sure that embryo will grow up to be a much better human being than me. Something to think about while we sit in some nursing home like Jr. Soprano peaing in our pants.
# posted by 
: 12:07 PM
: 12:07 PM
Doug, I'll go point by point, but I start with the observation, as you appear to believe, that it is a very close call. I think burning or burying it because it will never be implanted is more moral than ending its so called life for medical experiments. The fact that in the long run we all die does not supply a license to shoot whoever you want for kicks. I'm trying to avoid slippery slope arguments because they are inherently weak. I went back in time not forward.
I specified "medical benefit" of another. Defeating Japan or Germany to free others is not a medical benefit, nor is executing a killer. Society is well served by justice but it's not a medical benefit. I'm assuming the inherent humanity of human embryos. What do you want me to assume for them, catiness? The substantial part of the populace argument was merely to point out that shading this close call to one side served some portion of society, i.e. conservatives. I hope my legal arguments are more effective. Usually they are.
Et tu, Antonii?
Peter b, it is hard to know when you are serious and not sarcastic. I certainly can't tell here.
I specified "medical benefit" of another. Defeating Japan or Germany to free others is not a medical benefit, nor is executing a killer. Society is well served by justice but it's not a medical benefit. I'm assuming the inherent humanity of human embryos. What do you want me to assume for them, catiness? The substantial part of the populace argument was merely to point out that shading this close call to one side served some portion of society, i.e. conservatives. I hope my legal arguments are more effective. Usually they are.
Et tu, Antonii?
Peter b, it is hard to know when you are serious and not sarcastic. I certainly can't tell here.
Doug put it better yhan I could yesterday, having arisen well b/f the chickens to put g=Grace on planes to Shanghai where she has arrived although her bag went to Detroit.
I don't blame you for thinking about the Nazis when you think of stem cell research on frozen embryos. I too think of them when I consider sending the unused and unwanted frozen embryos to the crematorium. Burying them instead is a distiction w/o a difference.
Doug has issues w/ government funding which is his right. That raises the question, however, if it is OK to perform research on frozen embryos using private funds.
A moral line in the sand cannot be loctaed depending on the source of funding.
Meanwhile I am having difficulty gauging th eirony comment in Petewr B's response. So I have imagined a scenario whereby the frozen embryos are assembeld and given a choice: "You can either sacrifice yourself in a process of experimentation that may or may not lead to medical advancements that will benefit mankind or you may go undisturbed to the crematorium or grounds of interment. Either way, you won't feel a thing."
I don't blame you for thinking about the Nazis when you think of stem cell research on frozen embryos. I too think of them when I consider sending the unused and unwanted frozen embryos to the crematorium. Burying them instead is a distiction w/o a difference.
Doug has issues w/ government funding which is his right. That raises the question, however, if it is OK to perform research on frozen embryos using private funds.
A moral line in the sand cannot be loctaed depending on the source of funding.
Meanwhile I am having difficulty gauging th eirony comment in Petewr B's response. So I have imagined a scenario whereby the frozen embryos are assembeld and given a choice: "You can either sacrifice yourself in a process of experimentation that may or may not lead to medical advancements that will benefit mankind or you may go undisturbed to the crematorium or grounds of interment. Either way, you won't feel a thing."
# posted by : 9:36 AM
: 9:36 AM
Tony - you miss the point on funding. Clearly, the source of the funding does not determine the morality of the issue. Those who object to stem cell research do not want fed. money spent on it precisely because it is their money. If private individuals want to make that moral choice, that is fine. But public monies should not be spent on an endeavor which a large segment of the taxpaying population disagrees with. (Analogous to unions spending dues on political causes which some of the members do not support.) I should have control over how my money is spent, and federal funds are my money at least a very tiny portion.
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