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Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Answering the Arguments
By Josh Brahm, Director of Education and Public Relations,
Georgia Right to Life
I had the opportunity to attend a lecture (7/17/06) by Dr. George Daley, a Harvard researcher who has researched embryonic stem cells in mice for the past 10 years. He was invited to the University of Georgia as part of their lecture series on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research (HESR). I’d like to comment on the 15 minutes that he talked about the morality of HESR.
I commend him for his scientific expertise and his honesty. He admitted that it will probably be decades before cures are created with HESR. He is a basic researcher, interested in pursuing the science of stem cell research rather than justifying it on the basis of possible cures. However, I disagree with the underlying principles of HESR. Just because we can pursue a particular scientific course, does not mean that we should.
I noticed throughout Dr. Daley’s entire lecture that he was very careful about what he called the blastocysts his team destroys in their research. Dr. Daley called them “embroid bodies” and even “clusters of stem cells.” This is how scientists talk. However, language means something. Human beings, at any stage of development, should not be dehumanized through language. Even Dr. Daley would be hard-pressed to say that in cloning for HESR, human life is not being cloned. If history teaches us anything it is that calling fetuses "blobs of tissue," "cluster of cells," etc. helps a woman justify having an abortion. Promoters of euthanasia call the sick and disabled “vegetables.” Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood called the poor and ‘unfit’ names like “human weeds,”1 and “human grasshoppers.”2 Dehumanizing language helped to lead to slavery and the Holocaust.
Dr. Daley occasionally made comments that I did not agree with and which offended me about what pro-lifers know to be true. When we state that “these embryos are human beings,” and “that life begins at conception,” we are merely stating scientific facts. Experts, including Dr. Landrum Shettles, the first scientist to successfully achieve conception in a test-tube and Dr. Alan Guttmacher, the former president of Planned Parenthood all agree on this without hesitation. The law of biogenesis says that living things reproduce after their own kind only, so these embryos that are being destroyed in HESR are human. The “H” in HESR stands for human. Not fish, not frogs, not “potential humans.”
I appreciated that Dr. Daley was open to discussing his ethical justifications for HESR. My position is that Human Embryonic Stem Cell research is never morally justifiable. Dr. Daley offered many arguments on the other side, a few of them thoughtful. However most were shallow and he didn’t back them up to my satisfaction. Every assertion seemed to have one purpose: to erode the principle that life is sacred from conception.
Here is what I heard him say:
Conception is a process of 12 hours, not just a single moment.
I’m not sure why this matters, since HESR kills human embryos after they’re several days old. No matter how long the entire process of fertilization takes, it still results in a unique human being whose body parts are being exploited.
At conception, a new genome is formed. We don’t think of ourselves as a bunch of genomes walking around, so why should we put so much value in these?
It is true that we don’t think of ourselves as a bunch of genomes or zygotes walking around. We also don’t think of ourselves as a bunch of fetuses or toddlers either. Zygote, embryo, toddler are levels of development. Humans are valuable at every level.
The embryo is the size of the tip of George Washington’s nose on a quarter.
This is true. So what? A person’s value is not based upon their size. Killing human embryos for science is size discrimination, pure and simple.
All cells are living.
Let’s all agree that all cells are living. However I disagree with Dr. Daley if his point is that it doesn’t really matter that the embryo is alive from the point of conception, because all of our cells are living. I can’t believe that a scientist of his stature would confuse parts with wholes. As noted pro-life apologist Scott Klusendorf says, “Unlike bodily cells and sperm cells, which are merely part of a larger human organism, the human embryo is already a distinct whole and self-integrating human being. It is not merely part of another organism. In fact it is not a part of any organism. It is its own distinct entity. That is how it differs from the cells in our body, which are merely part of a larger human organism, in other words, you and I.”
Dr. Maureen Condic, Assistant Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, explains the important distinction between individual body parts and whole human embryos: “The critical difference between a collection of cells and a living organism is the ability of an organism to act in a coordinated manner for the continued health and maintenance of the body as a whole. It is precisely this ability that breaks down at the moment of death, however death might occur. Dead bodies may have plenty of live cells, but their cells no longer function together in a coordinated manner.”3
From conception forward, human embryos clearly function as whole organisms. “Embryos are not merely collections of human cells, but living creatures with all the properties that define any organism as distinct from a group of cells; embryos are capable of growing, maturing, maintaining a physiologic balance between various organ systems, adapting to changing circumstances, and repairing injury. Mere groups of human cells do nothing like this under any circumstances.”4
When does life begin for the embryo created through nuclear transfer? (no conception, no sperm)
Whether a person is conceived through natural or unnatural means, the result is a living, human being. It will exhibit the four signs of life: metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli and cell reproduction. At this point, the embryo is alive, just like every embryo that dies in Dr. Daley’s lab.
Dr. Daley offered two examples that test our instincts about the value of early human embryos. To his credit, he admitted that these may not be very solid philosophically. His first example was “the acorn vs. the oak tree.” He asserts that thinking people feel worse about an oak tree falling over than an acorn being carried off by a squirrel. His second example is called “the fireman’s dilemma.” In this hypothetical situation, a fireman is in a burning IVF clinic, and has the choice of saving a baby, or 1,000 frozen embryos. Who should he save? Most of us would instinctively save the baby.
Fortunately our instincts about something’s value has nothing to do with its intrinsic value. Hitler’s instincts told him that Jews were less valuable than blond-haired, blue-eyed men. Were they? I often use pictures of pretty babies in my work, because they have emotional appeal. The unborn babies that are dying from abortion or human embryos used in HESR would become pretty babies if left alone. Pretty babies are not more valuable than a 12-week fetus no matter what my “instinct” would tell me.
Individuality is conferred later. (Twinning and recombination.)
This was definitely the best of Dr. Daley’s arguments. Up until the 14th day, human embryos have the potential of splitting into twins, and in more rare cases, even recombining back into one! Many pro-abortion philosophers conclude from this that your individuality isn’t set until your 14th day, thus you’re less valuable before that. However, as Scott Klusendorf noted, “Just because an entity may divide or recombine, it doesn’t follow that it wasn’t fully human prior to the split. If we take a flatworm and cut it in half, we get two flatworms, but it doesn’t follow from that that there was no single flatworm prior to the split. The fact that a human organism may split or recombine doesn’t mean it wasn’t fully human before that split.”
Religions like Catholics and Muslims disagree on the status of early embryos.
So what? Some people also believe that Americans are evil and should be killed if they don’t convert to the Islamic religion. The absence of consensus does not mean the absence of truth. Consensus or not, it is still possible to objectively weigh evidence and test arguments according to the dictates of sound reason.
People used to think that dissection of human bodies was wrong. People will eventually grow to accept this (HESR) too.
This is a very poor analogy. There is a huge difference between autopsies of dead people, and taking a living human being that just needs a proper environment and adequate nutrition and killing him or her for body parts. It doesn’t matter how much good could come from human embryonic stem cell research. The ends never justify the means and the assertion that our culture will eventually grow to accept this research is pretty scary. When do big people ever have the right to exploit smaller and more vulnerable people?
Dr. Daley attempted to show that early human embryos do not have the moral significance of more developed humans. I think he failed to do so. After this presentation I am even more confident in my belief that Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research is wrong. Dead wrong.
Sources:
1: Margaret Sanger, "The Need for Birth Control in America," in Birth Control: Facts and Responsibilities, ed. Adolf Meyer, M.D. (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Co., 1925), 11-49, here 48
2: Margaret Sanger, "Opening Remarks," the International Congress on Population and World Resources in Relation to the Family, at Cheltenham, England, 1948, 19-20
3: Maureen L. Condic, “Life: Defining the Beginning by the End,” First Things, May 2003.
4: Ibid.
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