A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

How not to argue against ESCR

In a story in yesterday’s Boston Globe on congressional moves to overturn President Bush’s embryonic stem-cell research policy Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is quoted as saying that ESCR is “unethical and ineffective”:

“The results speak for themselves,” he said. “Embryonic stem-cell research has produced no successful treatment for human beings, whereas adult stem cell research has produced results for over 70 different medical conditions.”

Now, I’m no expert on the science of stem-cell research, but I’m willing to bet that neither is Tony Perkins and I question his credentials to establish the viability of this kind of research. But, more fundamentally, I think opponents of ESCR make a mistake when they put so much emphasis on the results of the research. It appears to concede the utilitarian logic that if the treatment was successful (and it may well yet be), then it would be justified. This is sort of like when pro-lifers hype a supposed connection between abortion and breast cancer. My understanding is that this is a dubious claim, but even if it wasn’t, that’s not the real (or at least most important) reason they’re opposed to abortion. Likewise, ESCR opponents should be willing to make the case for the wrongness of using nascent human life for medical research regardless of whether such research would be effective.

I also notice, for what it’s worth, that you almost never hear anyone argue that this is an area that really doesn’t require the intervention of the federal government. You’d think that’s an argument that might appeal to conservatives. Since the question at issue is one of federal funding for ESCR, why not just take the libertarian position that it’s none of the feds’ business?

4 responses to “How not to argue against ESCR”

  1. Chip Frontz

    Lee,

    Everything up to your last paragraph is dead on.

    But your last paragraph is a miss. If governments are set up among us to secure the inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” certainly if a frozen embryo is a human life worthy of protection, it then follows that it’s government’s business to protect that life?

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  2. Chip Frontz

    OK, wait, I get it now. You’re saying that a libertarian argument is that “it’s none of the Feds business to fund ESCR.”

    But I still think it becomes a federal issue if you take the position that an embryo deserves government protection. The fact is, however, that few people agree with me. I guess I’m getting used to it.

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  3. Lee

    Right – I sympathize with your view, but it seems to me that an out-and-out ban on ESCR (as opposed to a ban on government funding) is not even on the political radar screen.

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  4. Kevin Jones

    I don’t know if utilitarian arguments should always be shunned in favor of principle. It’s hardly a secret that the American people are usually pragmatic and utilitarian to a fault. Often “what gets results” is the only common rationale available; the appeal to results is a breeze to sway otherwise indifferent opinions.

    In this debate, the consequentialist argument highlights the apparent wishful thinking of those favoring such research funding. Utilitarianism, for all its problems, is hardnosed and stiff-necked in its (aspirational) realism. It’s quite skeptical towards hypotheticals and arguments composed of a thousand subjunctives.

    The rhetoric might come back to bite, but if one’s opponents’ utilitarian arguments can be challenged on their own grounds, it deserves at least a few lines addressing the question.

    Or ought one not argue “badly” so that good may come of it?

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