Letter: Embryonic stem cell research is insanity
Thursday, September 2, 2010In a recent column on Judge Lamberth's ruling on Aug. 23 which halts federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), Bonnie Erbe opines that "… to oppose help for fully formed human beings who are very sick and could possibly be cured, to 'save' a frozen embryo that will most likely never be implanted in a womb and therefore become fully formed, seems like insanity to me and like the height of cruelty."
Is ESCR morally complicated?
It seems to me that this comes down to just one question: Is the embryo a member of the human family? If so, killing it to benefit others is a serious moral wrong.
So what exactly is an embryo?
According to Robert George, writing for National Review, "Your life began, as did the life of every other human being, when the fusion of egg and sperm produced a new, complete, living organism — an embryonic human being.
"You were never an ovum or a sperm cell, those were both functionally and genetically parts of other human beings — your parents. But you were once an embryo, just as you were once an adolescent, a child, an infant, and a fetus.
"By an internally directed process, you developed from the embryonic stage into and through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages of development and ultimately into adulthood with your determinateness, unity and identity fully intact.
"You are the same being — the same human being — who once was an embryo. It is true that each of us, in the embryonic and fetal stages of development, were dependent on our mothers, but we were not maternal body parts. Though dependent, we were distinct individual human beings." (When Life Begins, National Review.com, 11/2/08).
In 1981, a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee heard expert testimony on when human life begins.
The subcommittee report concludes, "Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being — a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981).
To fully examine Bonnie Erbe's point, let's look at a hypothetical situation presented by Scott Klusendorf in his book, "The Case for Life":
"Suppose you oversee a Cambodian orphanage with 200 abandoned toddlers. The facility cannot care for them any longer. Water levels are critically low, and food supplies are exhausted.
"It's only a matter of time before starvation and disease will set in. A scientist has offered to take the toddlers off your hands and use them for grisly medical research designed to cure cancer.
"He confronts you with hard facts: Many of these children will die soon, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it, so why let all those organs go to waste?
"Nonetheless, you refuse. You could never, even for a moment, consider turning the kids over to the scientist on grounds that 'these kids are going to die anyway, so let's put them to good use.'
"True, given your impoverished circumstances, you are powerless to save them, but you would never be complicit in actively killing vulnerable human beings, which is what ESCR does."
ESCR — seems like insanity to me and like the height of cruelty.
Linda Nichols is a resident of Harleysville.
Is ESCR morally complicated?
It seems to me that this comes down to just one question: Is the embryo a member of the human family? If so, killing it to benefit others is a serious moral wrong.
So what exactly is an embryo?
According to Robert George, writing for National Review, "Your life began, as did the life of every other human being, when the fusion of egg and sperm produced a new, complete, living organism — an embryonic human being.
"You were never an ovum or a sperm cell, those were both functionally and genetically parts of other human beings — your parents. But you were once an embryo, just as you were once an adolescent, a child, an infant, and a fetus.
"By an internally directed process, you developed from the embryonic stage into and through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages of development and ultimately into adulthood with your determinateness, unity and identity fully intact.
"You are the same being — the same human being — who once was an embryo. It is true that each of us, in the embryonic and fetal stages of development, were dependent on our mothers, but we were not maternal body parts. Though dependent, we were distinct individual human beings." (When Life Begins, National Review.com, 11/2/08).
In 1981, a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee heard expert testimony on when human life begins.
The subcommittee report concludes, "Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being — a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981).
To fully examine Bonnie Erbe's point, let's look at a hypothetical situation presented by Scott Klusendorf in his book, "The Case for Life":
"Suppose you oversee a Cambodian orphanage with 200 abandoned toddlers. The facility cannot care for them any longer. Water levels are critically low, and food supplies are exhausted.
"It's only a matter of time before starvation and disease will set in. A scientist has offered to take the toddlers off your hands and use them for grisly medical research designed to cure cancer.
"He confronts you with hard facts: Many of these children will die soon, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it, so why let all those organs go to waste?
"Nonetheless, you refuse. You could never, even for a moment, consider turning the kids over to the scientist on grounds that 'these kids are going to die anyway, so let's put them to good use.'
"True, given your impoverished circumstances, you are powerless to save them, but you would never be complicit in actively killing vulnerable human beings, which is what ESCR does."
ESCR — seems like insanity to me and like the height of cruelty.
Linda Nichols is a resident of Harleysville.
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