pro, a superb discussion on Life.
reason.com
Cell Division By Jacob Sullum
They say stem cell research will produce medical marvels. They
say it could allow scientists to create replacements for defective
organs and tissue, leading to cures for a wide range of disabling or
deadly maladies, including diabetes, arthritis, heart failure,
cirrhosis of the liver, and Parkinson's disease.
All that is irrelevant, however, if the procedures needed to
conduct stem cell research are morally indistinguishable from
murder. If, as anti-abortion activists maintain, the microscopic
embryos from which stem cells are taken (and which are destroyed
in the process) are human beings, it does not matter how many
lives the research could save or improve.
Both Kantian ethics and classical liberalism (whether grounded in
natural law or utilitarianism) insist that people be treated as ends
in themselves, not as means to an end. If a blastocyst, the
hundred-cell clump into which a fertilized ovum develops after a
week or so, is a person, stem cell research is like killing someone
to harvest his organs, which would not be morally acceptable even
if it prevented several deaths.
"Such research involves the intentional destruction of embryonic
human beings, which reason and science tell us are just as human
as I am," writes Father Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton
Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, in The Wall Street
Journal. "In short, the procedures...involve the intentional killing
of another human being."
If Sirico is right, the debate about whether cells taken from an
adult could be as useful as cells taken from a blastocyst is a red
herring. Once you assume that the moral status of stem cell
research hinges on exactly how useful stem cells are compared to
possible alternatives, you've already determined that harvesting
the cells is not tantamount to homicide.
If it is, one can only be puzzled by the recently broken taboo
against creating embryos specifically for research, as opposed to
using surplus embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. For
that matter, in vitro fertilization is itself condemned by the same
logic that condemns stem cell research, since it results in the
production of embryos that are either destroyed or kept frozen
indefinitely.
If stem cell researchers are murderers, it is hardly enough to deny
them federal funding, as conservatives want President Bush to do.
Legislation sponsored by U.S. Reps. David Weldon (R-Fla.) and Bart
Stupak (D-Mich.) would ban some forms of stem cell research, but
their bill sets a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $1
million in fines--rather light punishment for intentional homicide.
Until Congress passes a ban, private action, including the use of
force to stop the slaughter of innocents, would seem to be
justified. I've never understood the position of people who
maintain that abortion is murder but insist that activists
shouldn't try to prevent it through violent means. Violence may be
imprudent because it ultimately hurts the cause, but it's hard to
see why it's wrong in principle if you accept the premise that
personhood begins at conception.
Clearly, though, most Americans do not, as the continued legal
and social toleration of abortion shows. They could be wrong, but
abortion opponents have not made much headway in convincing
them that they are.
"Science tells us the human being doesn't begin as a `non-human'
entity from which a human life is later `produced,' " Sirico writes.
"Each of us was a human being from the point at which we became
a distinct organism--that is, conception."
But there is nothing inevitable about the development of a
fertilized ovum into a person. About two-fifths of embryos never
become implanted in the womb, and perhaps half of those that do
spontaneously abort.
Given the proper environment, a fertilized ovum has a decent
chance of becoming a baby. But as Reason magazine's Ronald
Bailey has observed, the same could be said for any cell in your
body, given the availability of cloning technology. Each contains
the genetic code that's necessary to create a person, but failing to
develop that potential is not the same as strangling a baby in its
crib.
Abortion opponents are right that there is no room for
compromise on this issue. As Ramesh Ponnuru writes in National
Review, "Either conception results in a new human being deserving
of legal protection or it doesn't." Regardless of the benefits
promised by stem cell research, its moral status cannot be decided
without addressing that question.
© Copyright 2001 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
reason.com
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