1

I would wonder how many doctors have an ethical problem with taking life to save life, but then I remembered the tens of millions of healthy babies that have disappeared into American hospitals, never to be seen again.

"If men fight, such that a woman with child gives birth prematurely, and no harm follows, he shall do as the woman's husband demands and pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, you shall exact eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life."

2

Joe:
An even greater problem, though, is their presentation of a false dilemma: either we lift the ban on stem cell research or scientists won’t be able to find cures for diseases.

I don't think that the Post is presenting it that way at all. In fact, they note the shades of gray in the very next paragraph:

Far preferable is a narrower ban, on the use of cloning for purely reproductive purposes. Such a ban would have the advantage of enjoying nearly unanimous support.

You also make false comparisons between experiments on fully-formed adults and embryonic cells that have not yet taken form. From a religious perspective you might see no difference, but the scientific difference is huge.

And if destroying such embryos is indeed akin to murder, as I suspect you might want to argue, then I urge you to work tirelessly to ban fertility clinics, which create thousands of embryos knowing full well that the vast majority of them will be destroyed (murdered).

No, banning stem cell research would not completely destroy the ability of scientists to cure diseases -- it merely takes an incredibly useful tool out of their toolbox, rather like taking the power saws away from a carpenter.

I'm always puzzled at arguments like this against embryonic stem cell research, because they place a far higher value on the lives of the embryonic cells (which have no chance of survival anyway unless uterine implantation is available) than they do on the lives of fully formed people who are already here.

If stem cell research speeds the cure of, say, Parkinsons by, say, 20 years, how many adult lives are saved in that time?

3

tgirsch,

I'm always puzzled at arguments like this against embryonic stem cell research, because they place a far higher value on the lives of the embryonic cells (which have no chance of survival anyway unless uterine implantation is available) than they do on the lives of fully formed people who are already here.

The issue is decided by whether the embryo is considered a person. If the embryo is a person, then killing it to save other's lives is morally wrong. For example, consider the doctor who has 5 patients who need organ transplants -- one needs a heart transplant; two need lung transplants; and two need kidney transplants. Killing you to save these 5 people who need organ transplants, is wrong. Do you agree? If so, consider that if the embryo is a person, then prohibiting killing it gives it no more value than we give adult persons. In addition, all people eventually die, so all killing is accurately viewed as shortening someone's life. Killing someone who would have died the next day is wrong. An example would be someone, who needs medication to live, that is stranded on a deserted island with you. The person needs one pill to live each day. Purposefully destroying one such pill would be murder even though he would have died the next day. Therefore, the issue reduces to when the embryo becomes a person.

This is, of course, the type of thing in which honest people disagree. Some people don't think attorney's are persons and attorneys believe corporations are persons! Judgements differ.

4

its jake:

I like The Message translation better. NRSV also renders it this way. Whole different meaning when you read it that way, huh? Anyway, there's still debate over which rendering is correct, but recall that in Biblical times, premature birth meant almost-certain death.

JBP:

Agreed. But the truth is, there's no consensus concerning whether an embryo is an independent life, and if pushed, most people would argue that it is not (otherwise, why don't we have funerals for every early-term miscarriage?). Also, when people create and destroy embryos for the purpose of helping a couple conceive, nobody seems to have a problem with it. If allowed, nearly embryonic stem cell research would involve fertility-clinic-created embryos that will be destroyed regardless of whether or not the stem cell researchers get them.

5

tgirsch,

While I have already agreed with your consensus point, I am not so sure that the lack of funerals means we intuitively understand that embryos are not people. Sure, it suggest it, but an alternate explanation is equally powerful. Last year I had the opportunity to professionally work with funeral directors, one of the things that I learned is that the purpose of a funeral is give the bereaved an opportunity to grieve and say goodby. In other words, a funeral is not for the dead, it is for the living. After all, a funeral is not doing the dead any good. This understanding explains why we give funerals to pet goldfish who are not human persons. With embryos, we never knew a person, and therefore, we do not feel the same need to say goodby. Whether we need to say goodby depends upon our personal relationship with the dead. We do not go to stranger's funerals because we did not know them, not because we suspect they were not people. It also explains a relatively unknown fact that undermines your premise. Mothers who miscarry frequently do have quiet funerals. They feel a bond with the fetus. Therefore, the having or lack of having of funerals does not really speak to the issue of whether embryos are people.

6

JBP:
Last year I had the opportunity to professionally work with funeral directors, one of the things that I learned is that the purpose of a funeral is give the bereaved an opportunity to grieve and say goodby. In other words, a funeral is not for the dead, it is for the living. After all, a funeral is not doing the dead any good.

Actually, from a secular perspective, that's true, but from a religious perspective it's not necessarily so. In some religions (Catholicism at least, and probably other Christian branches as well), the saying of Last Rites is very important for the recently departed.

Mothers who miscarry frequently do have quiet funerals. They feel a bond with the fetus. Therefore, the having or lack of having of funerals does not really speak to the issue of whether embryos are people.

I submit that it still does. You'll notice that when women do have such funerals, they're already in the fetal stage, and usually well into it. I'd guess they're generally already "showing" by then. Truth is, if a woman miscarries an embryo (and in that case, I'm not certain "miscarries" is even the medically appropriate term), she probably doesn't even realize it happened. It happens all the time, with no grief or mourning.

But all of this is beside the larger point, which is where these embryos come from. If destroying embryos is morally equivalent to murder, then fertility clinics in America collectively make up the worst serial killer in human history.

7

tgirsch,

Good point on the religious issue. If I would have thought about it a bit more, I would have remembered that the ancient Greeks believed that placing a coin on a dead person's eyes helps them reach the afterlife. Since, however, that is not my belief, and I suspect not your belief, I am adhering to my logic until someone convinces me otherwise.

You'll notice that when women do have such funerals, they're already in the fetal stage, and usually well into it. I'd guess they're generally already "showing" by then.

This is consistent with the notion that funerals are about the relationship of the dead to the living, but not with whether the entity is a person.

But all of this is beside the larger point, which is where these embryos come from. If destroying embryos is morally equivalent to murder, then fertility clinics in America collectively make up the worst serial killer in human history.

While you did not say "murder," that is what you seem to imply. So if I have jumped the gun, let me know. Murder is killing someone with malice aforethought, it has to be intentional. Since the fertility clinics do not think they are killing a person, they are not murderers. In that sense, they are not serial killers.

But more to the point, I basically agree with your logic. The creation of a person is not a discrete event, but a continuum, which is why reasonable people's judgements may differ. Indeed, since a child is not aware of his or her individuality until approximately two years old, the continuum does not end at birth. Since it is not clear when an embryo becomes a person, I would not use a fertility clinic. I would not want to act with the knowledge that my act may kill a person. If the morality of an act is unknown and one has reason to believe the act may be immoral, the better moral action is to not act. For example, we tend to frown upon the attitude of "shoot first and ask question later."