Embryonic Stem Cell Funding is Worse than Abortion

Ethics & Medics ^ | September 2006 | Richard Stith,

[Mrs. Don-o]

Several prominent anti-abortion politicians, including Orrin Hatch and Bill Frist, joined the Senate majority in endorsing the public funding of embryonic stem cell research. To the casual observer it might appear that the arguments against abortion must be stronger than those against publicly funding the destruction of embryos. This conclusion, however, would be mistaken. The funding of destructive embryo research is actually worse than legal abortion.

Some might disagree, arguing that the continuing identity of a developing being means that embryo research cannot be better or worse than abortion. The politicians are wrong to say it is not as bad as abortion, but it is also wrong to say that it is worse. “All stages of life are stages of the same being. Each of us was once a human embryo. Each of us is just a human embryo that has grown up. And we have been alive the whole time we have been growing and developing—that is, since fertilization. If one of us had been killed at any time before we were born, a human life would have been lost. So abortion and lethal research on embryos are equally bad.”

Others might argue that, if there is any difference, abortion is the worse of the two. For abortion involves not only killing but betrayal. In abortion, parents destroy an unborn child entrusted to them, who depends on them, a child whom they have a moral duty to nurture. By contrast, the scientist who dissects an embryo is not harming his own offspring. He wrongs life, but not necessarily the family. So how can one possibly contend that embryo research is worse?

Dehumanization

Let us take a closer look. Someone choosing abortion need not be completely set against life. She typically does not want abortion with all of her heart. Rather, she is filled with desperation and panic. She often has been, or fears she may be, abandoned or harmed by one or more persons whom she herself has trusted. Even if her fears are not so great that moral culpability is absent, she is not fully an enemy of her unborn child. She may profoundly regret what she feels compelled to do. If only the circumstances were better, if only she had enough support, she would let her child live.

The abortion provider, of course, is not under such duress. He is not pressured by circumstances to perform abortions. And yet, in a sense, he too is only contingently against new life. He performs abortions only because his clients ask him to do them. By contrast, the scientist seeking funding for embryonic stem cell research wants to destroy life­—and convince the public to pay for it. His lethal aim is not even contingent in the sense that “if only there were another possible route to cures,” no embryo killing would occur. There is, in fact, a shorter route, via adult stem cells. Would-be embryo researchers demand to be carried by the public down the longer and more uncertain path.

Moreover, almost all abortions aim to preclude an “unwanted child.” Of course, this is profoundly contrary to the care owed by parents, as has been mentioned. But abortion paradoxically reaffirms the very parent-child bond that it betrays. The fetus is unwanted precisely as a child who must eventually be cared for by her parents. They fear and reject her because she is their own offspring. Because she is their child, they feel a duty to care for her if she lives. Therefore, so that they may escape this duty, she must die. Both a parental relationship and a parental obligation are acknowledged by the act of abortion. Therein lies its tragedy.

Embryonic stem cell research, by contrast, is wholly dehumanizing. When parents turn the living human embryos they have begotten over to science, they not only forget them as children but also turn them into commodities, donate them for eventual body parts. The embryos become wholly instrumental, they become resources to be calculated and consumed. They are degraded before they are destroyed. Like human embryos created by cloning, they do not die as unwanted children, or even as human beings, but as things to be used and used up. No greater negation of human dignity is possible.

The End of Choice

Lastly, tax-funded embryonic stem cell research is worse than legal abortion for our public community. Legalizing abortion is not quite the same as desiring abortion. It is logically possible, even if unjust, for a legislature to be both anti-abortion and pro-choice, just as people could once be anti-apartheid and yet defer to the sovereignty of South Africa.

By contrast, no one in favor of funding embryonic stem cell research can say “I’m not for killing embryos. I’m just pro-choice.” Such legislators want human embryos to be dissected. Stems cells must be extracted. In states like California and New Jersey, where embryonic stem cell extraction is funded by the public, the law can no longer be labeled even euphemistically “pro-choice.”

Even where abortion is publicly funded, the government does not insist on death. No officials are angry if funds previously allocated to subsidize abortion are left unused because women have freely chosen life. The abortion-related equivalent of embryonic stem cell funding would involve using taxes to pay women to abort their children, as part of scientific experiments aimed at distant and uncertain cures.

Richard Stith, J.D. , Ph.D. Valparaiso University School of Law Indiana richard.stith@valpo.edu

Fax 219-465-7872

This article may be reprinted if the following credit line is included:

This article was originally published in Ethics & Medics, volume 39, no. 9. © The National Catholic Bioethics Center. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission

[Mrs. Don-o]

Very timely article. If Bush vetoes the funding earmarked for destructive experimentation on live human embryos, it may be the most important thing he's done as President.

[trisham]

Embryonic stem cell research, by contrast, is wholly dehumanizing. When parents turn the living human embryos they have begotten over to science, they not only forget them as children but also turn them into commodities, donate them for eventual body parts. The embryos become wholly instrumental, they become resources to be calculated and consumed. They are degraded before they are destroyed. Like human embryos created by cloning, they do not die as unwanted children, or even as human beings, but as things to be used and used up. No greater negation of human dignity is possible.

*****************

Powerful words. President Bush will do the right thing, I pray.

[Brilliant]

I think that this bill should be renamed "The Dr. Frankenstein Research Lab Relief Bill."

[NewCenturions]

Bump

[linda_22003]

That would make you even more of a Drama Queen than the author of this article! :)

[wagglebee]

Thanks, bookmark for later.

BTTT!

[Gone GF]

"Embryonic stem cell research, by contrast, is wholly dehumanizing. When parents turn the living human embryos they have begotten over to science, they not only forget them as children but also turn them into commodities, donate them for eventual body parts. The embryos become wholly instrumental, they become resources to be calculated and consumed. They are degraded before they are destroyed. Like human embryos created by cloning, they do not die as unwanted children, or even as human beings, but as things to be used and used up. No greater negation of human dignity is possible."

So is this even more degrading than throwing the unused and unwanted embryos in the trash?

[trisham]

So is this even more degrading than throwing the unused and unwanted embryos in the trash?

***************

We all know that isn't the only other option. Nice try, though.

[Gerish]

When parents turn the living human embryos they have begotten over to science, they not only forget them as children but also turn them into commodities, donate them for eventual body parts.

These "living human embryos" are gifts from God. To destroy them is purely evil.

I agree and hope with you that President Bush vetos this funding.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Veto is scheduled for later today in The Rose Garden. Can't wait to watch liberal heads explode soon thereafter. ;)

[gridlock]

Three questions to ask any supporter of Embryonic Stem Cell Research:

Question 1: Do human beings have a soul? Are they endowed by their Creator with something that makes them more than just thinking machines?

(Most folks will answer yes to the soul question. All but your die-hard atheists will at least give you a maybe on this one)

Question 2: At what point in development does that soul attach to the human being?

(You'll get answers all over the board for that one, from the moment of conception to birth to baptism to when the kid gets a driver's license)

Question 3: How sure are you about your answer to Question 2?

(To which you'll generally get mumbling or they'll accuse you of being a Bible thumper)

The point is, that most people do believe that there is something about human beings that makes us more than an evolutionary accident, and that we are endowed by our Creator with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Most people will agree that this soul, this spark, this endowment, attaches to the person at some point during his development, but there is a great deal of uncertainty as to when or how this happens.

Given this uncertainty, a utilitarian argument over the value of this nascent life is abhorrent.

[Frwy]

Embryonic Stem Cell Funding is Worse than Abortion

That statement implies that there are degrees to the evil that man does.

God says SIN IS SIN period, and He is the Judge, thankfully, not us.

[Gone GF]

"We all know that isn't the only other option. Nice try, though."

Educate me. It was my understanding that most end up in the trash.

[linda_22003]

He's right, there's also the "embryo adoption" program. Of about 400,000 available embryos, 99 or so have been implanted in women who have gestated them to birth.

99 down, 399,901 to go....

[Gone GF]

"These "living human embryos" are gifts from God. To destroy them is purely evil."

What do we do with the hundreds of thousands that couples no longer need? I'm serious, NOT playing devil's advocate.

[Paloma_55]

I notice the media often leaves out the words "embryonic" and implies that Bush is against doing stem cell research.

I visualize a factory making large vats of human DNA like cottage cheese with the objective of manufacturing organs for wealthy and prominent citizens to help them live longer.

Of course, like the processing of cottage cheese, you need the original milk source. That, in this case, would be young girls who could be professional aborters. They get impregnated, wait a few months, then bring in their embryos for bucks.

Like sperm donors, only human beings would be harvested.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Hilarious stuff. But what do people OUTSIDE the Loony Bin think?

[gridlock]

So is this even more degrading than throwing the unused and unwanted embryos in the trash?

Yes, it is.

Substitute a two-year-old for the embryo.

Is it more or less degrading for a toddler to die in, say, a car crash than for him to be experimented on, cloned, frozen, thawed, cut into little pieces and then eventually killed and discarded?

Or...

Is it more degrading for a toddler die in a car accident or to kill a child because you decide that his life is worth less than a new boat, car or RV?

The point of the first question is that the experimental processes the embryo is to be subjected to are objectively degrading and dehumanizing. The point of the second question is that the utilitarian argument central to the Embryonic Stem Cell debate degrades nascent human life because it seeks to say that the value of the research, whatever it may be, is more valuable than that life.

[justshutupandtakeit]

But will this cause the crackpots to be more likely to support the GOP this fall? I say "no" they will find some other nonsense to stay pissed.