Embryonic stem cell research - is it ethical?
I would like to raise some concerns surrounding the ethics concerning embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Are you against Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR)? I say no, IF… if it doesn’t kill an innocent human being. We certainly should explore all scientific avenues that might provide cures and we need to care deeply for the sick, not just in word but also in action. Yet the facts of science are stubborn: embryonic stem cell research always kills a human being in the embryonic stage when researchers remove the stem cells. We can only derive human embryonic stem cells by killing the embryo. Removing its stem cells leaves it with no cells from which to build the organs of its body. The entire moral question surrounding ESCR essentially boils down to this: are the embryos human? If the embryo is a human, killing her to benefit someone in the “here-and-now” is a serious moral wrong.
As in the case of abortion, let’s be careful of the language used in ESCR, since we must be clear about what ESCR actually does. Before abortion was legalized in America, a pro-choice advocate instructed nurses in a prominent medical journal, “Through public conditioning, use of language, concepts and laws, the idea of abortion can be separated from the idea of killing.” Regarding ESCR, there has been a consorted attempt to do the same thing – to separate ESCR from killing. Some say the blastocyst (an embryo at an early stage of development) is morally different from the other stages of human development. Here’s the picture some paint: in the first case you do not have a human being but in subsequent stages you do. Proponents of ESCR will say that it (blastula) is not a human being; it is “just an embryo”. Excuse me? “An embryo”? Think about it ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as “an embryo” in the abstract. Embryo is a stage of an organism, not a type of organism (big difference). To say “an embryo” doesn’t tell us what kind of thing it is. It could be a young squirrel, fish, or a human. The terms embryo and blastocyst only describe the earliest stages of development. They give us no information about the thing that is being developed.
ESCR proponents often appeal to emotion and it’s seriously flawed. American Senator Tom Harkin argues, “the embryos in question are no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence. They do not have the capacity to become a human being. It is morally wrong to oppose funding.” Mary Tyler Moore, who suffers from juvenile diabetes, shares a similar view, “The embryos that are being discussed, according to science, bear as much resemblance to a human being as a gold fish. We’re dealing with flesh and blood people now who feel and deal with real debilitation right now are our obligation is to those who are here.”
The point? “The embryo doesn’t look like us, therefore it’s not one of us”. But the issue is not what a human being in the embryonic stage looks like. The issue is this: it’s a human being. Don’t all human beings have intrinsic value and shouldn’t all human beings be treated equally? As Scott Klusendorf [www.str.org] points out in, “Harvesting the Unborn: The Ethics of Embryo Stem Cell Research”, this logic violates the very principle that once made political liberalism great: the concern for the oppressed, weak and defenseless. Proponents of ESCR believe that human beings at the embryonic stage do not deserve the protection of law. But can we really exclude the embryo from the moral community of human beings simply because of size, level of development or place of residence (womb, house or Petri dish)? Whatever happened to “Do unto others?”
As in the case of abortion, let’s be careful of the language used in ESCR, since we must be clear about what ESCR actually does. Before abortion was legalized in America, a pro-choice advocate instructed nurses in a prominent medical journal, “Through public conditioning, use of language, concepts and laws, the idea of abortion can be separated from the idea of killing.” Regarding ESCR, there has been a consorted attempt to do the same thing – to separate ESCR from killing. Some say the blastocyst (an embryo at an early stage of development) is morally different from the other stages of human development. Here’s the picture some paint: in the first case you do not have a human being but in subsequent stages you do. Proponents of ESCR will say that it (blastula) is not a human being; it is “just an embryo”. Excuse me? “An embryo”? Think about it ladies and gentlemen, there is no such thing as “an embryo” in the abstract. Embryo is a stage of an organism, not a type of organism (big difference). To say “an embryo” doesn’t tell us what kind of thing it is. It could be a young squirrel, fish, or a human. The terms embryo and blastocyst only describe the earliest stages of development. They give us no information about the thing that is being developed.
ESCR proponents often appeal to emotion and it’s seriously flawed. American Senator Tom Harkin argues, “the embryos in question are no bigger than the period at the end of a sentence. They do not have the capacity to become a human being. It is morally wrong to oppose funding.” Mary Tyler Moore, who suffers from juvenile diabetes, shares a similar view, “The embryos that are being discussed, according to science, bear as much resemblance to a human being as a gold fish. We’re dealing with flesh and blood people now who feel and deal with real debilitation right now are our obligation is to those who are here.”
The point? “The embryo doesn’t look like us, therefore it’s not one of us”. But the issue is not what a human being in the embryonic stage looks like. The issue is this: it’s a human being. Don’t all human beings have intrinsic value and shouldn’t all human beings be treated equally? As Scott Klusendorf [www.str.org] points out in, “Harvesting the Unborn: The Ethics of Embryo Stem Cell Research”, this logic violates the very principle that once made political liberalism great: the concern for the oppressed, weak and defenseless. Proponents of ESCR believe that human beings at the embryonic stage do not deserve the protection of law. But can we really exclude the embryo from the moral community of human beings simply because of size, level of development or place of residence (womb, house or Petri dish)? Whatever happened to “Do unto others?”
