New Blog Alert Daniel McConchie not only has a job I envy (director of Public Relations and Public Policy for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity) but his new blog (McConchie on Bioethics) puts mine to shame. Anyone who thinks that bioethical issues are important -- and that should be everyone -- should add McConchie’s blog to their daily reading. Don’t miss it.
Ban Watch Brazil is on the verge of passing legislation that would ban research on embryonic stem cells as well as all forms of human cloning.
Assisted Suicide I The Liberal Democrat party in Great Britain has voted overwhelmingly to adopt medically assisted suicide as part of its official policy.
Assisted Suicide II Oregon has seen a slight increase (38 in 2002; 42 in 2003) in the number of medically assisted suicides.
Adult Stem Cells New research on mice is raising hope that ASCs may lead to a cure for baldness.
Virginia Doesn't Get It In the interest of full disclosure let me confess that I’ve never been impressed by Virginia Postrel’s blog. I’ve never found her arguments very convincing and her posts on bioethics rival on Glenn Reynolds in their complete lack of substance. One of her recent entries helps illustrate this point:
The United States has a politically influential religious right and a cultural tradition of distrusting government intervention in private affairs. (That's "distrusting" not "never allowing.") Canada has neither a politically influential religious right nor any cultural tradition of distrusting government regulation. Guess which country has banned cloning human cells for research?
Postrel appears not to have considered that there could possibly be valid reasons for banning cloning that have nothing to do with the 'religious right."
Update: In response to Mike's remarks in the comments section, Dan McConchie has added an excellent post explaining some of the reasons why we shouldn't kill embryos for 'therapy'.
1
Joe,
Other than because some denounce it as "playing God," what reason is there to ban therapeudic cloning?
It's easy for people like Kass, who have fully functional bodies, to be opposed to this kind of research. Kass and other "bioethicists" are typically not maimed, born with disabilities or suffering from debilitating diseases.
Mere plebes who live outside of the ivory tower have to deal with those realities. They have to deal with friends and loved ones who have less than the full human experience for some uncontrollable reason.
Kass would be singing a different tune if his sons and grandsons came home from a war badly maimed, he found out that there was a way to get their wounds completely healed, but that for religious reasons, it was a crime for a doctor to clone a new limb for his maimed progeny.
Why do we stop here with therapeudic cloning? Let's ban vaccines, antibiotics, hell let's ban almost every modern medical procedure because those too are "playing God."
It'd be easier to have some sympathy for these views if someone would actually cite Bible verses that say that God doesn't want us to pursue medical knowledge.
posted on 03.23.2004 11:14 PM2
Gee, I wonder why someone would think cloning human being in order to do experiments on them before killing them would be wrong?
posted on 03.24.2004 9:14 AM3
Josiah,
Therapeudic cloning doesn't require you to clone a full human being. That's not even the purpose of it.
posted on 03.24.2004 11:02 AM4
Kass isn't a luddite and doesn't oppose progress on principal. He wants to *think and talk* about what we are doing, and not just try to do everything just because it might be possible.
He holds that while a blastocyst isn't a "human being", but having the potential to become one, it isn't a lab rat either. As such we should consider their use more carefully.
posted on 03.24.2004 11:14 AM5
There are a lot of points in Mike's comments. Let me try to hit them all briefly.
First of all, saying that Kass cannot understand this issue because he's not suffering from a disease or wound that this research might fix is certainly a problematic line of argument. If true, then no one who is not intimately involved in a particular situation can opine on it. Mike then can't make judgments about international terrorists unless he is one or suffered as a result of what one did to him personally.
In addition, this argument assumes that every person who suffers from a disability that cloning that will supposedly one day fix MUST be in favor of it (presumably because they'd benefit from it). If so, then why is Charles Krauthammer--Washington Post columnist, President's Council on Bioethics member, and paraplegic--doing opposing ALL human cloning--for research, reproduction, AND "therapy"? Is he just nuts? There are many things we all could benefit from, but don't because it's just plain wrong.
Second, I've never bought the whole "playing God" argument. I've always believed it to be a cop out for coming up with an intellectually defensible argument from the Biblical text. Christian scriptures clearly proscribe killing. Since human beings are not killed for "vaccines, antibiotics," and "almost every modern medical procedure", these activities would not be proscribed. Only in the case of cloning is nascent human life being killed--the reason for opposing the research.
From a utilitarian perspective, you can argue against killing human embryos for "therapy" or research as well. The argument goes as such:
1) The protected status of human beings is either absolute or subject to definition.
2) If it is absolute, then every individual human being, regardless of age or state in life, have the right to all the protections accorded to every other human being.
3) If it is subject to definition, then those who control the definition inevitably have life and death control over the rest--the strong are able to control and enslave the weak.
4) The only way to avoid granting such powers to the strong is to adopt an absolute standard of human protection from conception to natural death.
Interestingly, there are many pro-choice people who agree with this argument (though not generally those who are in the leadership of the movement), arguing that the unborn child an abortion kills dies as the result of a conflict of rights between mother and child. Though I disagree with their view and their conclusions, I think the argument has some validity. (The question then turns on which right is supreme--the mother's or the child's. Pro-choice people argue that the mother's right to choice is supreme, while pro-life supporters argue that the right to life is supreme.)
Then, there's also the argument from commodification that any research that turns a human being and/or their body parts into a marketable item commodifies the human race--again a type of slavery. Interestingly, many pro-choice people agree with this argument too.
If you believe that a) human embryos are nascent human life (a biological fact), b) that killing them for potential life-saving research is acceptable, then c) it would be consistent for you to also agree that we should take organs from other human beings (mentally disabled, physically weak, prisoners on death row, etc.) when they can save the lives of the dying.
UNOS estimated today at 12:01 ET that there are 84,144 people waiting for an organ transplant. Your organs could save how many people? Five? Eight? Why is your one life worth more than all theirs? We could even argue that it's actually worth less than an embryo's given the fact that you've already lived part of it. The embryo hasn't had the chance to see what she will become yet....
posted on 03.24.2004 11:26 AM6
"...explaining some of the reasons why we shouldn't kill embryos for 'therapy'."
I have noticed that a lot of these stem-cell therapies (such as the above-mentioned "cure for baldness") have to do with regaining youth and extending life, i.e. "immortality lite". (And judging from the Viagra, pseudo-Viagra, and "Health/Manhood Supplement" spams clogging my inbox, looks like there's only one possible thing you're expected to do with that immortality...)
Anyone remember Countess Bathory of Hungary? The one who kidnapped and killed young peasant girls (both younger and socially inferior to herself) so that she could bathe in their lifeblood to give herself immortality and eternal youth? Wasn't that a magick version of "overaged embryo therapy" for much the same reasons?
posted on 03.24.2004 12:20 PM7
First of all, saying that Kass cannot understand this issue because he's not suffering from a disease or wound that this research might fix is certainly a problematic line of argument. If true, then no one who is not intimately involved in a particular situation can opine on it. Mike then can't make judgments about international terrorists unless he is one or suffered as a result of what one did to him personally.
Actually, that is incorrect. Kass can speak from the perspective that he does because he has been blessed with a functional body that doesn't require any of these therapies. He is pontificating from the ivory tower on this subject. While the mere plebes suffer, he gets to argue against therapies that might save millions of people around the world a lot of suffering.
This is so very European; let's form a committee to discuss the social ramifications of forming a committee to discuss a solution to a problem. Kass might as well be doing the academic equivalent of fiddling while the city burns around him.
In addition, this argument assumes that every person who suffers from a disability that cloning that will supposedly one day fix MUST be in favor of it (presumably because they'd benefit from it). If so, then why is Charles Krauthammer--Washington Post columnist, President's Council on Bioethics member, and paraplegic--doing opposing ALL human cloning--for research, reproduction, AND "therapy"? Is he just nuts? There are many things we all could benefit from, but don't because it's just plain wrong.
There were many women who argued that women should not be allowed to vote or take part in politics, in opposition to the movement to get them the right to vote. What is wrong with therapeudic cloning? Let's assume for a moment that it requires the death of not a single blastocyst. Why is it still wrong?
From a utilitarian perspective, you can argue against killing human embryos for "therapy" or research as well.
What makes us human? Is it our sentience? If you take a 6 month fetus out of the womb it will survive in most cases because it is a full human. Even a retarded child is a full human, because it is has a brain capable of sentience and it isn't brain dead. A blastocyst doesn't even have basic human structure. It is only related to humans in the sense that it shares the same genome. If something that basic has a soul then there are a lot of souls getting a free pass into heaven. Hell, I wish I had gone that way. Nothing'd beat a "get into heaven free card."
posted on 03.24.2004 1:12 PM8
You said that
Kass would be singing a different tune if his sons and grandsons came home from a war badly maimed, he found out that there was a way to get their wounds completely healed, but that for religious reasons, it was a crime for a doctor to clone a new limb for his maimed progeny.and that
Kass can speak from the perspective that he does because he has been blessed with a functional body that doesn't require any of these therapies. He is pontificating from the ivory tower on this subject. While the mere plebes suffer, he gets to argue against therapies that might save millions of people around the world a lot of suffering.
Your insinuation amounts to nothing more than character assassination by asserting that Kass hasn't the personal constitution it takes to make moral judgments based upon anything more than his felt needs. Your opinion doesn't answer why there are people out there like Krauthammer (an M.D.) who willing choose to reject a potentially therapeutic proceedure he (potentially) could benefit from. He's confined to a wheelchair (reduced to being a "mere plebe" because he isn't able to practice medicine due to his disability), and he believes that all human cloning is fundamentally wrong. According to your assessment, there are no reasonable grounds on which to oppose cloning when you could benefit from it. He must then just be nuts.
Second, I never argued that "therapeutic" cloning was wrong if it didn't require the destruction of a blastocyst. (If possible, then the question is akin to one where parents 'design' a child to be a tissue match for a sick sibling--a very interesting, but fundamentally different question.)
Third, concerning "what makes us human," as a mere mortal, I am restricted to what I can know here. Thus, whether a one-day old embryo get's a 'get into heaven free card' is beyond my capacity to know. Since I can't know this, what do I know? I know that upon conception a zygote has everything it needs to turn into a 6 month old fetus, a born baby, or an elderly chap. The only thing necessary for its survival is the proper environment for protection/sustenence and nutrients for growth (--something we all need). That zygote will be come you or me unless I intervene to stop its natural progression. When might a zygote 'have a soul' or 'become a person'? I don't know. But my intervention to stop a natural progression of life when I can't know its value is reckless and hubristic at the highest level.
posted on 03.24.2004 2:20 PM9
Your insinuation amounts to nothing more than character assassination by asserting that Kass hasn't the personal constitution it takes to make moral judgments based upon anything more than his felt needs.
Kass should be called into question because he is just another ivory tower philosopher who obsesses about hypothetical scenarios, but has infleunce with law makers who have the power to act on his illadvised suggestions.
Excuse me for being sensitized to the issue of people who are completely outside of the science/technology/art loop being given not only the time of day, but taken very seriously on matters of regulation in these areas. I am a coder and have seen way too many people who have never sat down in front of a computer with a real development toolchain installed on it make grandiose regulatory suggestions.
If you at best limited exposure to a field that is highly technical or artistsic in nature like biotech, software design, engineering, music, art, movies, you cannot really appreciate the effects of regulations on those areas. I have no respect for someone with a philosophy, poly sci, law, sociology or theology background who clamors for detailed regulation on a subject that they might as well be a gibbering chimp on.
Your opinion doesn't answer why there are people out there like Krauthammer (an M.D.) who willing choose to reject a potentially therapeutic proceedure he (potentially) could benefit from. He's confined to a wheelchair (reduced to being a "mere plebe" because he isn't able to practice medicine due to his disability), and he believes that all human cloning is fundamentally wrong. According to your assessment, there are no reasonable grounds on which to oppose cloning when you could benefit from it. He must then just be nuts.
Actually, it did. I pointed out that many women opposed giving the right to vote to women when that debate was still going on. People will deny themselves many beneficial things for personal reasons. Maybe Krauthammer feels that God made him this way for a reason. Maybe he feels that God makes people suffer from these ailments and damages and that we shouldn't fix them. I don't know why he holds the views he does. He has his reasons, none of which I would guess are logical.
I'm certainly more willing to listen to Krauthammer because he is a M.D. and that means that he has perhaps some scientific opinions to contribute. While I think that everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion on this issue, I do think that the final decision on any technology that doesn't involve the maiming or killing of real human beings should be based on the opinions of those in the medical and biotech professions. Someone with a degree in, or who only has experience in theology, political science, sociology, philosophy or something else not related to the subject is not qualified to formulate regulatory decisions on this subject without major input from the biotech and medical professions.
America has gotten where it has technologically by putting the burden of proving that a technology is wrong on the luddites who oppose it. Technology should be innocent until proven guilty. People like Kass would have us "democratically decide" who gets to research what. He is not a conservative version of the left-winger who wants essentially nothing to be left outside the scope of the state's regulator powers. He epitomizes what FA Hayek said about conservatives and big government; he has no principled opposition to big government at all, only to what ends the powers are used.
posted on 03.24.2004 5:16 PM10
"Kass should be called into question because he is just another ivory tower philosopher who obsesses about hypothetical scenarios, but has infleunce with law makers who have the power to act on his illadvised suggestions.A native of Chicago, Dr. Kass was educated at the University of Chicago where he earned his B.S. and M.D. degrees (1958; 1962) and at Harvard where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry (1967). - http://www.bioethics.gov/about/kass.htmlExcuse me for being sensitized to the issue of people who are completely outside of the science/technology/art loop being given not only the time of day, but taken very seriously on matters of regulation in these areas. I am a coder and have seen way too many people who have never sat down in front of a computer with a real development toolchain installed on it make grandiose regulatory suggestions."
What were you saying? I have a Master's of Science in Electrical Engineering, am I allowed to make grandiose suggestions?
posted on 03.24.2004 8:17 PM11
ummm..."a blastocyst is not a human" sounds like a pine seed is not a pine tree or a pollywog is not a frog or a fertilized egg does not have a chicken within. We might have to go back to figure out where does life begin rather than where do we wish for life to begin in order to slip in our carefully contrived ethical armature designed with ample room for equivocation. The germ of life does not occur suddenly at 7 or 8 or 9 months or at birth or at some other convenient time. Either the blastocyst has the life within it or it does not. If it does, then it is a human in progress. If it does not, then we become human through extracellular influences and not different than a genetic accident rather than a carefully and wonderfully made creature. Moreover, if the blastocyst has no life, then it is mere tissue not different from a slice of bacon or a scab on a wound which then denies all the wonderful capabilities to work miracles. Of course, we can play games with scientific jargon and byzantine arguments while fully cognizant that creation was not an experiment but rather a declaration of divine will from nothing into something that has integrity regardless of our human inclination for disingenuity. Embryo research might have all kind of wonderful potential benefits but it also has the ominous specter of unforeseen consequences much as the events that Mickey unleashed in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. It will be a sad and desperate time the moment when the brooms begin to multiply and bring a deluge upon us. Prudence in the face of danger is not cowardice. Playing God or playing sorcerer does not make us either God or sorcerer. It only makes us players.
posted on 03.26.2004 8:34 PM12
I agree that everyone should be interested in Bioethics. I also agree that Mr. McConchie's blog is worth reading. In fact, I do not have any serious disagreement with anything in the root post here. The last comment, though, requires a response:
Either the blastocyst has the life within it or it does not. If it does, then it is a human in progress. If it does not, then we become human through extracellular influences and not different than a genetic accident rather than a carefully and wonderfully made creature.
Perhaps the terms "human" and "life" have more than one definition. If so, it is not valid to argue that, if the blastocyst is not alive, then the quality of being human must arise from an extracellular process. (By extracellular process, I assume it is implied that there is a supernatural origin to the quality of being human.)
Perhaps there is no scientific definition of human-ness. Perhaps it is a social construct. In that case, the humanity of a life begins whenever society says it does.
After all, there is nothing intrisically special about the flag of the United States of America. The flag is special, but only because US culture defines it as special.
Human life is special, too. But trying to define that special quality using physics, chemistry, or biology, is pointless.
People try to define the moment that human life begins in some objective way, as though finding an objective benchmark will end the debates over abortion and other matters of bioethics. It will not. These are social debates. If science has the answer, the answer will be found in one of the social sciences.
posted on 04.20.2004 12:34 AM