Posted on 02/15/2003 9:12:45 AM PST by hocndoc
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Other People's Body Parts Exclusive commentary by Beverly Nuckols, MD
Feb 15, 2003
Even if you don't own anything else, you own your body, right? And, don’t we all agree that you have a right to the life of that body - you own the use of that body - unless you pose an imminent danger to the body of another human? Maybe, maybe not. Not if someone with the power (money, fame, media draw, platform or the ability to write laws) of Christopher Reeve, Mary Tyler Moore, or United States Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), believes that your body will make their lives better or might someday cure some disease, or if your DNA is “needed” for some other reason, such as research.
Last week, the State of New Jersey was posed to give a whole new meaning to “The Garden State” as well as perpetuate a classic example of newspeak. The Senate of that State had already passed S1909 and the Assembly was about to consider A1379 (now undergoing revision). These parallel bills which would create a new industry: “cultivating” and farming cloned human embryos for their value as “embryonic or fetal cadaveric tissues.” The Assembly bill would have allowed the implantation of cloned human embryos (for “reasonable payment”) into women who would later be required to submit to abortion at some time in the development of the “tissue” “through the…newborn stages,” to enable the harvest of the desired crop. (If you believe that I’m exaggerating, please see the letter from the President’s Council on Bioethics to Governor McGreevey at the National Review Online. http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document020303c.asp
These bills are typical of attempts to distinguish between “therapeutic” cloning and “reproductive” cloning as though the former would not “allow” the creation of a “new human individual.” Any such attempt ignores the facts: by the definition, the resulting living and developing product that results when a cell nucleus is implanted in the emptied, inactivated oocyte (“egg”) is a “human being” from the beginning. The Presidents’ Council on Bioethics, the experts delegated by our President to define the terms and ethics of cloning, has agreed on the following terminology: “Cloned human embryo: (a) The immediate and developing product of the initial act of cloning, accomplished by SCNT. (b) A human embryo resulting from the somatic cell nuclear transfer process (as contrasted with a human embryo arising from the union of egg and sperm).” http://www.bioethics.gov/cloningreport/terminology.html
The debate over cloning and embryonic stem cell technology or somatic cell nuclear transfer technology (which are always alternate words for cloning) rarely seems to consider the necessary exploitation of women who, even in the current legal climate, are considered “human individuals.” Each successful “stem cell nuclear transfer” will require at least one oocyte although current experience predicts that 3 or 4 oocytes will be used for each successful embryo. The high-end estimates are in the hundreds of millions of oocytes will be necessary before any disease. These oocytes aren’t human beings or deserving of protection, and, they may be harvested from cadavers of women and girls, and from the cadavers of the female fetuses killed in later abortions. But, the most likely source, at least with current technology, will be young women who are desperate for money and are willing to submit to months of harsh hormonal manipulations and invasive surgical procedures to produce more than the usual one monthly oocyte. (I’m sure that most of us know someone who has undergone fertility treatments and understand how hard this process is on the woman.) Even in the most successful ovarian stimulation, only 10 to 20 oocytes are obtained in each cycle. Since literally millions of oocytes will be necessary for the industrialization of human stem cell nuclear transfer or cloning, there are not enough possible donors in the United States, even if most women in their reproductive years were found to be willing to be used in this way. The most likely “source” will be found in the poorest women in not only this country, but others. (I haven’t even attempted to contemplate how women will be recruited to implant, gestate and submit to timely harvesting by abortion.)
I’m sure that there are some in the country who would prefer to look away and pretend not to see the bloated young women, the Petri dishes and especially the swelling bellies of the women recruited to gestate the embryos and fetuses until the date that the cloned humans are to be collected and killed for harvest. However, even the squeamish among us must face the problem of how we will decide (1) Which humans have the right to life? (2) Why do some human beings have the right to kill others? (3) How we are to protect the lives of other humans whose body parts may be deemed property of the State rather than themselves? Will we defer to the wants, needs and “choice” of the majority or the powerful?
Think carefully, because your choice could affect your ownership of your “own” life and body. Your body may become tomorrow’s source of body parts. Living donors are possible today for those who need livers, kidneys and skin, as well as the more easily obtained (and replaced) bone marrow and blood, and for half of us, oocytes. The quality of life of so many could be saved if the State had the power to allocate these “resources,” which you don’t actually “need” to live. What is your bodily integrity and comfort compared to the misery of someone dying for the want of your cells and organs?
You’d better decide in a hurry, because Senator Hatch has just re-introduced a bill in the United States Senate.
There's no shortage of voices assuring us that we can't go wrong because God's our National Mascot.
Now let's go get those Evildoers!
But, now I read about Peter Singer and participated in debates on line with doctors willing to use their own names when they suggest worse than any in in history.
Animal Rights Book Review, David Kopel, Peter SingerBut if you compare a profoundly retarded child with one of the higher primates, the primate may have much more advanced skills in the traits that we consider human (such as use of language or tools) than does the profoundly retarded child.
If we acknowledge that the retarded child has rights, then what philosophically plausible claim can be made that the primate does not?
The best test for rights, argues Singer, is a test first articulated by the 19th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham: "Can it suffer?" If you saw someone using an electric cattle prod to torture an adult human, you would say that the person's rights were being violated. If the severely retarded child were being tortured, you would likewise say that the child's rights were being violated. [Medical Evidence that a Child Feels Pain]
And because gorillas, dogs, and eagles also feel intense pain when being attacked with electric cattle prods, their rights are likewise violated when they are tortured. In contrast, trees and rocks do not feel pain, as far as we know, and therefore using a cattle prod on a rock is merely a waste of electricity, and not the violation of rights on the part of the rock.[ The Emerging Reality of Fetal Pain in Late Abortion The disturbing concept that an unborn child feels pain while being destroyed has once again entered the public conscience in England, when a pro-choice fetal researcher suggested that anesthesia should be given to comfort the fetus from pain from abortions as early as 17 weeks gestation.]
In reply, Singer points out that: First of all, animals react in a manner which we would expect from a being in pain -- they scream, and they try to avoid the source of the pain. Second, all of the evidence we have regarding the nervous system of animals shows that their pain-sensing capacity is structurally similar to the pain-sensing portion of the nervous system in humans. [ The Silent Scream A Realtime ultrasound video tape and movie of a 12-week suction abortion is commercially available as, The Silent Scream, narrated by Dr. B. Nathanson, a former abortionist. It dramatically, but factually, shows the pre-born baby dodging the suction instrument time after time, while its heartbeat doubles in rate. When finally caught, its body being dismembered, the baby's mouth clearly opens wide - hence, the title]
Having set up a philosophical basis for animal rights, Singer then examines current treatment of animals by humans, to see if violations of rights are involved.
Singer's approach has no sentimentalism about animals in it. He describes his disgust as meeting a woman who gushed "Don't you just love animals!" -- and then offered him a ham sandwich.
Think carefully, because your choice could affect your ownership of your “own” life and body. Your body may become tomorrow’s source of body parts. Living donors are possible today for those who need livers, kidneys and skin, as well as the more easily obtained (and replaced) bone marrow and blood, and for half of us, oocytes. The quality of life of so many could be saved if the State had the power to allocate these “resources,” which you don’t actually “need” to live. What is your bodily integrity and comfort compared to the misery of someone dying for the want of your cells and organs?
Bump.
To legally exploit individual embryonic life, someone must arrange our agreement that killing and harvesting embryos is not the same as killing an individual. Scientists who would carry out these medical marvels know differently. Here's the key to their reasoning: embryology holds axiomatic that individual human life is a continuum with a beginning at conception, so those seeking legalization for embryonic exploitation must promote the blatant lie that ‘embryos are not individual human life’ ... or worse, have the nation agree that these are individual human lives being exploited in earliest stage of their ‘less worthy life’, defining a higher purpose for the body parts of these embryonic individuals, to sustain others. The first level of agreement is based on a calculated lie; the second descending level of agreement is acceptance of cannibalism based on that same specious axiom that embryos are not human individuals existing at a normal age in a human lifetime.
Many people warned of a slippery slope back when outrage over in vitro fertilization was squelched.
Over 250 protesters greeted bioethicists Peter Singer's first class at Princeton. Singer says parents should be able to kill their disabled newborns, and says that people with cognitive disabilities should have fewer rights than the rest of us. Associated Press story
Nathanson Hand of God Silent Scream He describes how the science of fetology had advanced due to ultra-sound and other techniques. The "Silent Scream," which shows one of the very last abortions performed in his clinic, was the fruit of that technology.
Dr. Nathanson not only left that culture with its massive cover-up, but began to battle against it. He started that battle as an atheist who had become convinced by scientific evidence. But the evidence was about human life and therefore the fifth commandment "Thou shall not kill." That he himself had violated that commandment not once but thousands of times was indeed a heavy burden. By facing the personal meaning of the moral law, he was quickly carried to the question of God. He began reading the great Christian authors and as he did so, the evidence for Christianity mounted.
The final chapter describes how he went from atheism to Christianity. In reading it, I was reminded of another great convert, C.S. Lewis. As a young university professor he was quite comfortable in his atheism. But then, because of some good influences, he began to try to live the moral law. Things began to unravel. He did try to be moral and at the same time to cling to his atheism. But in the end says Lewis, "God checkmated me." The same happened to the author of "Hand of God." His autobiography not only analyzes the greatest moral issue of our times, but gives a searing picture of one soul caught up in that struggle.
Why Abortion Isn't Important In fact, when I first learned that the Doctor Exsecrabilis Peter Singer was now somewhat of a fan of bestiality,2 I caught myself being not nearly as surprised as I thought I might be: surely this was the logical working out (by a thinker who satisfies G. K. Chesterton’s definition of a maniac—not someone who has lost his reason, but someone who has lost everything but his reason) of a moral position that had already been poisoned decades ago by those first thoughts about whether morality is all about costs and benefits, and whether the job of modern moralists was to overthrow tradition and replace it with a brand new morality for our brand new times.
Here is one of the (to my mind) greatest philosophers produced by England in the last century, telling people-especially other philosophers-that sometimes it is better to walk away than to argue. Why? Because a person's conscience can become so corrupt, and lead to such equally corrupt rationalizations, that to engage them in serious argument about those rationalizations is both pointless-being unlikely to have the slightest impact on their thinking-and, what is worse, dangerous-bringing the thinker of good will into serious danger of having his own conscience perverted by the sophistries of the other.
Heaving the Cat." (Remember Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn's cure for warts?)
Fault any detractor as "whistling past the graveyard."
Thank you for getting the truth out with such force and conviction. The public needs to understand what really is happening amidst the oceans of liberal lies. Keep on writing!
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Scalpel
The same agenda driven framework that brought lazy acceptance for careless exploitation of embryos for in vitro fertilization is happening now regarding embryonic stem cell and cloning exploitations, with powerful politicians (like Orrin Hatch and New Jersey state leaders) aiding this manipulation. The withholding of truth, deeper truth regarding these procedures, is decidedly manipulative and IS designed to 'prepare the confused atmosphere' in which the debates occur.
Our tacit agreement for this 'benefits-outweigh-the-features' is being exploited, in order to arrange public acceptance of cannibalism in the name of 'higher purpose' for individual human lives deemed 'of less worth' since they are merely embryonic individual humans.
Unless media venues willing to air the facts regarding nascent individual human life are found (and I have been frantically searching for doors that will open, with little success so far), to get the truth out there prior to 'demand for the benefits' driving the debates to ignore the 'features', this nation will embrace cannibalism as enlightened policy for medical advances.
In Europe, the citizens have already been manipulated to focus on benefits and ignore features, ignore the truth of 'how these marvels' are accomplished; in Europe, the citizens have already lent their tacit acceptance to this cannibalism, without actually ever facing the stark truth, due in strong measure to calculated, selective dissemination of information by the scientists and industries planning to profit from the exploitations, from the cannibalization of individual human life.
Who are the board of directors? They might have some knowledge of the science behind the tech. They have more knowledge of the finances and they don't spend any time at all in the lab. When they aren't in board meetings where are they? Doing PR for the product, that's where. Talking to their personal politician, writing press releases, making the world safe for the product.
That's who is stretching the concepts of morality and ethics beyond all limits. Don't look at scientists: they don't know about these things and don't write the forward-looking press releases. Look at the boards of directors, and ultimately at politicians: they are creating our new moral and ethical strucutres for us.
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