A Thinking Reed

ESCR, abortion, and consistency

Written by

Lee M.

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Speaking of abortion (and I’m not usually that interested in discussing it on the ol’ blog, but we’ll make an exception today), one thing that puzzles me is these congressmen who claim to be “pro-life” but favor embryonic stem cell research:

Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R., Calif.), a conservative who described himself as “100 percent pro-life,” choked back tears as he recalled meeting a seriously ill 6-year-old girl at a congressional hearing on medical research.

“I don’t want another 6-year-old to die,” he said haltingly. “I want to save life.”

Rep. Lane Evans (D., Ill.) endorsed the bill in a voice distorted by Parkinson’s disease. Rep. James R. Langevin (D., R.I.), another self-described “pro-life” lawmaker, spoke from his wheelchair about the promise of stem-cell research.

“Stem-cell research gives us hope and a reason to believe,” he said. “I believe one day a child with diabetes will no longer face a lifetime of painful shots and tests. I believe one day families will no longer watch in agony as a loved one with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s declines. And I believe one day I will walk again.”

I’m not saying you couldn’t make that into a coherent position, but it’s pretty much the opposite of my intuitions. As far as I’m concerned, not funding the industrial-scale creation, destruction, and harvesting of nascent human life is pretty obviously wrong, not to mention creepy.

Abortion, however, I find to be much more of a gut-wrenching issue. Mainly because one important aspect of it involves a person’s control over her own body.

But if these “pro-life” law makers think that it’s wrong to destroy/kill an embryo in a woman’s womb, how can it possibly be ok to do it in a petri dish? What’s the relevant difference? Since stopping (or even just failing to fund!) ESCR doesn’t involve the kind of coercion that would be required in outlawing abortion, it seems, to me at any rate, much more clear cut.

(Though props for consistency to, inter alia., Reps. DeLay, Burgess, Akin, Hyde, and Oberstar.)

Comments

12 responses to “ESCR, abortion, and consistency”

  1. Marvin

    I’m certain I haven’t thought about and followed this issue enough, but as I understand it, the embyros are the “extras” created for IVF which will never be implanted in a womb. Someone on NPR today said that there’s 400,000 in the U.S. alone. It seems like being opposed to using these embryos because using them kills an innocent life is like being opposed to organ transplants because you’re against the tragic car accidents that make said organs available.

    I guess what I’m really opposed to is IVF. But that genie’s been out of the bottle for a long, long time.

    In terms of new cures and improved quailty of life for persons with chronic illnesses, I wish we could muster the same kind of moral outrage about 40 million Americans lacking health insurance as we do on either side of the stem cell debate. Insuring those 40 million may well save more lives than any new therapy generated by ESCR.

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  2. Jennifer

    Deaths by car accidents are accidental. The death of the embryos are not accidental – as I understand it, in order to get the stem cells, you have to kill the embryo. It may be frozen currently, but it’s not dead. It would be like murdering someone specifically to get to their organs and use them for transplants.

    I agree about the health insurance issue.

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  3. Marvin

    What should be done with these extra embryos that have no prospects for fertilization? Even if a large number of women suddenly offered to have them implanted in their wombs, isn’t it usually the case that far more are implanted than can be brought to term, thus necessitating abortions at some point down the road?

    I’m asking; I’m not arguing a point.

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  4. Jennifer

    I was thinking about it more and saw that your point may have been that the fact that these embryos exist at all is accidental – they could be seen as by-products in a way. And, as you said, there’s the problem. We’re in a situation where we’ve created “extra” human life, disposable human life, and once it’s labelled disposable you can do anything to it, such as use it for its parts. That’s my objection. I don’t know what to do with them, honestly, but we should keep asking that.

    I think I heard that in Italy or somewhere, there’s more restrictions on IVF – you can only have one or two implanted at a time, which would reduce the likelihood of selective abortion and of “extra” embryos existing.

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  5. Joshie

    “As far as I’m concerned, not funding the industrial-scale creation, destruction, and harvesting of nascent human life is pretty obviously wrong, not to mention creepy.”

    The IVF embryoes are there and they are going to be destroyed, period. We can speculate on “what is to be done?” until we’re blue in the face, but until we come up with a solution or some restrictions on the number of IVF embryoes, it seems to me it is better if they’re going to be destroyed anyway their death could at least serve a constructive purpose.

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  6. Lee

    I agree that the problem, in part, starts “upstream” with things like IVF. It’s interesting to me that IVF has become so routine to the point of almost being non-controversial.

    Still, I think you cross an important ethical line once you decide that some human life (even if very undeveloped) can be treated as a “resource” to be exploited for the benefit of others. The whole language of “extra” embryos already presupposes this kind of utilitarian outlook.

    More practically, once they’ve promised the American people that the lame shall walk and the blind shall see, how many of those large-hearted congressmen will be willing to draw the line at “only” using embryos from IVF? We’re talking about potentially a multi-billion dollar industry, and the pressure to keep research going will be nigh-irresistible. Who’s going to have the guts to draw the line between the use of “extra” embryos and cloning them for the express purpose of harvesting them?

    Also, I agree with Marvin and Jennifer that if we’re going to spend more money on health-related needs, why not, say, shore up Medicare (for starters)? ESCR has the potential to be a vast corporate welfare boondoggle, even while lots of people are not getting their basic health care needs met.

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  7. Joshie

    Well whether we like it or not there are extra embryoes whether we like how the word sounds or not. They’re going to be destroyed, unless some organization is planning to adopt them, bring them to term and raise them all. The choice at this point is should they be destroyed or should they be destroyed after being put to some good end. The choice there seems obvious.

    I have yet to hear a single reasoned arguement against stem cell research that was not based on feelings, conspiracy theories or a slipperly slope arguement. It sounds creepy, no doubt, but we have to have more than that to go on.

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  8. Dwight P.

    I don’t have a clue what I feel about this particular issue. But what comes to mind is a lecture by Paul Ramsey, arguably the foremost ethicist (certainly as regards medical issues) of his day. I heard the lecture (which gives you some indication of my advanced age). Ramsey argued against genetic research — and specifically, genetic manipulation. He indicated that no matter what precautions were taken, there were bound to be some “monsters” born — and given that it is God-created “life” that is being screwed around with, even one monster is too costly to human being.

    It seems to me that among the “monsters” correctly envisioned by Ramsey is the question of how to deal with the “byproducts” of our prior attempts at the manipulation of life. The human aim and claim to control life and death traduces on God’s territory — and whenever we go where only God should go, we get into and cause trouble. (Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden before they sampled the tree of eternal life for a reason and to a relevant point here.)

    So now we’ve got ’em and we will have to kill ’em one way or another? If that isn’t a Sophie’s choice, there ain’t one. And the choice drove her mad.

    Reply
  9. Joshie

    That arguement, that we shouldn’t mess around with life and death, comes pretty darn close to saying we shouldn’t avail ourselves of medical science at all. There are many Christians who believe that, certainly, but most don’t. Every time we take a drug, undergo surgery, look up medical info on the internet or in a book we are messing with the natural order of life and death. I myself should have been dead years ago from asthma or depression. Does using an inhaler or taking anti-depressents constitute trampling on God’s perrogative?

    No, we can recognize that God also gave us the ability to reason and take care of ourselves and that to say God will heal us without availing ourselves of the tools of medical science constitutes putting God to the test. When adressing issues like these we may find us wishing we had a little MORE reason to bring to bear on these problems.

    The end of your comment merely illustrated my point. You ridicule my arguement and then make an emotional appeal without any sort of evidence to back it up. This issue has plenty of heat. I’m still waiting for any glimmer of light.

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  10. Lee

    To me the most compelling argument against ESCR is that it involves using human life as a resource – as a means, not as an end in itself.

    And I don’t think this requires ascribing full “personhood” to the embryo (something I’m not sure I’m prepared to do); it just requires seeing human life at that stage as having some intrinsic, non-instrumental, value.

    If that’s right, then to use even “extra” embryos for research purposes seems to me to be affirming in principle that some human life may be intentionally destroyed for largely hypothetical benefits. I don’t think it’s a specious slippery slope argument to suggest that might lead to other abuses. And it will almost certainly, IMO, create pressure for the creation of embryos for research via cloning.

    Reply
  11. Joshie

    We already see human life as a resource for labor, money-making ideas, etc. So that “genie is out of the bottle”

    Unless the embryoes are brought to term and raised as adults they will be destroyed. It is not economically fesable to store thousands of fertilized embryoes in perpetuity. This is a problem that must be adressed outside of any stem-cell considerations.

    And the benefits are not, as it is often said, hypothetical. Stem cell therapy is already being used to help repair tissue that cannot repair itself. I know at least two people who have benefitted from it, including the former pastor of our former church who suffered spinal cord damage as a result of a cancerous tumor in his neck. He can now walk thanks partly to stem cell therapy. So it is already proving benficial to some people.

    Gilbert Meilander uses the same arguement in his bio-ethics book about pressure being brought to bear on organ donation. He urges that Christians not donate organs because soon pressure will be brought to bear on the organ donation organizations to snatch up organs as quickly as possible. He cites some documents where people in organ donation organizations refer to people as “pre-deceased corpses”. In his view any one donating their organs is just encouraging the bio-industrial complex who, he seems to think, will soon be knocking on our doors demanding our livers like the organ collector in Ponty Python’s The Meaning of Life.

    The arguement with regard to stem cell research seems to me, to be very similar. I’m not accusing you of this Lee, but most of the peieces in the CC exhibit this same slipperly slope and jumping to conclusions as Meilander’s boardline paranoia. Like organ donation, stem cell donation is done now at the discretion of those to whom the embryoes belong, i.e. their parents, and it is not done in return for money. As long as money for embryoes is not involved, I think the practice can remain sufficiently in check so that the baby mills envisioned by some will not be a reality. The enormous numbers of embryoes in cold storage will hold off any pressure to do so for a while. In the mean time, we ought to allow this life saving and improving to proceed, albeit with caution. The benfits are already proving to be great.

    Reply
  12. jon

    Looking at allergy asthma info online today while my son coughs I came across this post. Does anyone know a good allergy asthma site to help?

    Thanks

    Reply

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