Killing embryonic human beings is wrong
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.” – Albert Schweitzer
There seems to be an attempt to obfuscate the moral issue surrounding the harvesting of the unborn. Human embryos may be less developed, or “immature”, but they are still human beings. The embryos are not potentially human, but humans with great potential. If the embryo is a human person, then the continual harvesting of the unborn is one of the clearest-cut examples of genocide since the Holocaust. German doctors convicted at the Nuremberg Trials argued that they were only using the brains of the Jews for “the common good”. They claimed that the troops, not the doctors, killed the Jews. The doctors argued that they had “a moral imperative” to make beneficial use of the bodies supplied to them. The Court rejected this claim. Any civilized society should also reject embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), which uses an evil means (killing) to secure an end some believe is for “the common good.”
The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics [www.stemcellresearch.org] have reported that: “Embryonic stem cells pose an unusual risk for genetic changes and tumor formation, with the risk increasing the longer the cells are grown, thus making their therapeutic use even more speculative and problematic.” Despite this, advocates of ESCR either downplay or completely ignore the alternatives. Stem cells can be acquired from adult sources and umbilical cord blood, which kills no one. President Bush recently signed the “umbilical cord blood bill” to the tune of US$79 million. Scientists now believe that adult stem cells are more flexible than previously thought and as a result are now exploring ways of treating disease using adult, not embryonic stem cells. In the British Medical Journal [January 30, 1999], Deborah Josefson notes that researchers have found that adult stem cells were as effective in reconstituting the immune system as fetal neural stem cells. In addition, the problem of immune rejection can be circumvented when an individual’s own cells are used. Adult stem cells can also reverse degenerative diseases of the eye [Science, Vol. 287, March 17, 2000].
Patrick Lee [Associate Professor of Philosophy, Franciscan University of Steubenville] and Robert George [McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University] ended one of their articles on the ethics of ESCR, on this note: “Human physical organisms come to be at conception, whether by a natural process or by lab technology. It is wrong to kill and dismember them – at any stage of their existence – in the hope of benefiting others.” I would strongly urge the policymakers in this country not to aid in any form or fashion – either through funding or promoting – this grotesquely immoral practice. Or do we lack the moral and the political wisdom to do so?
There seems to be an attempt to obfuscate the moral issue surrounding the harvesting of the unborn. Human embryos may be less developed, or “immature”, but they are still human beings. The embryos are not potentially human, but humans with great potential. If the embryo is a human person, then the continual harvesting of the unborn is one of the clearest-cut examples of genocide since the Holocaust. German doctors convicted at the Nuremberg Trials argued that they were only using the brains of the Jews for “the common good”. They claimed that the troops, not the doctors, killed the Jews. The doctors argued that they had “a moral imperative” to make beneficial use of the bodies supplied to them. The Court rejected this claim. Any civilized society should also reject embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), which uses an evil means (killing) to secure an end some believe is for “the common good.”
The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics [www.stemcellresearch.org] have reported that: “Embryonic stem cells pose an unusual risk for genetic changes and tumor formation, with the risk increasing the longer the cells are grown, thus making their therapeutic use even more speculative and problematic.” Despite this, advocates of ESCR either downplay or completely ignore the alternatives. Stem cells can be acquired from adult sources and umbilical cord blood, which kills no one. President Bush recently signed the “umbilical cord blood bill” to the tune of US$79 million. Scientists now believe that adult stem cells are more flexible than previously thought and as a result are now exploring ways of treating disease using adult, not embryonic stem cells. In the British Medical Journal [January 30, 1999], Deborah Josefson notes that researchers have found that adult stem cells were as effective in reconstituting the immune system as fetal neural stem cells. In addition, the problem of immune rejection can be circumvented when an individual’s own cells are used. Adult stem cells can also reverse degenerative diseases of the eye [Science, Vol. 287, March 17, 2000].
Patrick Lee [Associate Professor of Philosophy, Franciscan University of Steubenville] and Robert George [McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University] ended one of their articles on the ethics of ESCR, on this note: “Human physical organisms come to be at conception, whether by a natural process or by lab technology. It is wrong to kill and dismember them – at any stage of their existence – in the hope of benefiting others.” I would strongly urge the policymakers in this country not to aid in any form or fashion – either through funding or promoting – this grotesquely immoral practice. Or do we lack the moral and the political wisdom to do so?
