Suppose there were an established cure for diabetes that required embryonic stem cells. Suppose the couple hundred million people worldwide with diabetes could be cured at the cost of destroying a couple million 5-day-old blastocysts which had been created in vitro. What then?
Suppose there were a diabetes curing stem cell therapy available, but that the stem cells required a bit of differentiation. Suppose standard embryonic stem cells were insufficiently differentiated to work, and adult stem cells were overly specialized. Suppose the cells that would work were those from 28-day-old embryos grown in utero. Suppose extraction and destruction of twenty million such embryos would provide the material to cure diabetes. What then?
Diabetes is no longer the death sentence it used to be. We have methods of managing it. As far as I know, diabetics live pretty normal lives. My grandfather had diabetes (adult onset) and lived to be 78 years old; what killed him was cancer, not diabetes. I realize one person does not make a data set; however, from where I stand, diabetes is not so great a threat I could countenance destroying life to cure it. It doesn’t matter to me whether the life is 5 days old, 28 days old, 50 years old, in glass, in a womb or walking to class.
It strikes me as funny that early Christians were accused of bloody infant sacrifice in the scare campaigns of those who stood against them — yet today, it is proposed as a medicinal solution.
Suppose there were an established cure for diabetes that required embryonic stem cells. Suppose the couple hundred million people worldwide with diabetes could be cured at the cost of destroying a couple million 5-day-old blastocysts which had been created in vitro. What then?
Not a problem for me. The life of a cell composing a part of a 5-day-old blastocyte is not materially different, IMO, from the life of a cell lining my cheek. Both are alive. With the right conditions, both can be caused to develop into a separate person. Without the right conditions, neither will develop into a conscious being. At the stage of the hypothetical question, neither has the current capacity for consciousness.
Absent the capacity for consciousness (which applies not to an individual cell, but rather to a relatively unitary being that is composed of lots and lots of living cells), I don’t see a reason to treat 5-day-old blastocyte cells differently than we treat bacteria.
Suppose there were a diabetes curing stem cell therapy available, but that the stem cells required a bit of differentiation. Suppose standard embryonic stem cells were insufficiently differentiated to work, and adult stem cells were overly specialized. Suppose the cells that would work were those from 28-day-old embryos grown in utero. Suppose extraction and destruction of twenty million such embryos would provide the material to cure diabetes. What then?
I don’t know enough about 28-day-old embryos to know whether they have a meaningful capacity for consciousness or not, so I can’t apply my own particular litmus test to them. The question (for me) gets easier farther down the road, as I don’t think there are meaningful questions about the capacity for consciousness of six-month-developed fetuses.
I am immensely grateful that the Church has not jumped on the “stem cell research is murder” bandwagon. (And the “abortion is murder” bandwagon, too.)
It is a problem for me because a blastocyst does not just happen on it’s own, not in a lab. You can’t put a petri dish by the window and hope it’ll grow blastocyts. They’re a form of human life, not mold spores. The comparison to cheek cells is an incomplete comparison: your cheek cells can be removed with little to no harm to you. The process used to extract stem cells destroys the growing organism.
D&C 59: 6:
Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it. (Emphasis added for clarity.)
In the case of the test tube stem cells, those lives would not exist if someone had not “cooked” them up. To create life for the purpose of destroying it — to create it in a situation where it can never thrive — is abhorrent. It is an abuse of the powers of procreation given to us by God. He gives us children for their growth and ours, not for spare parts.
I’ve read several recent articles saying that scientists have been able to use other stem cells (not embryonic), and that there may not be a need to create embryos and then destroy them. I can go find the links, but they have been widely publicized.
I am a relative moderate on this issue, I think. I don’t think an embryo is a human life — I don’t think it has a spirit yet. Remember Adam was created out of materials and then later his spirit was breathed into him — he didn’t become human until he had a spirit.
On the other hand, I think we should be extremely careful about fooling around with human life and potential human life. In general, PDOE’s instincts are correct.
I’m o.k. with sacrificing 5-year-olds to cure a hangnail, is that what you want to hear?
This post seems to have no purpose other than to start an argument, which PDoE has embraced. If it’s like unto killing, why hasn’t the church made it an issue like they have abortion. We aren’t left to guess whether abortion is like unto killing or not.
JJohnsen, I think the Church may eventually discuss this. Stem cell research as a moral issue is relatively new. I’m personally hoping we completely sidestep the morality of this issue by avoiding the use of embryonic stem cells.
“This post seems to have no purpose other than to start an argument.”
The thought behind this post was more the lack of a basis for argument between those who favor embryonic stem cell research and those who don’t. Last week U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. President George Bush issued statements regarding a house bill to fund stem cell research. One of them is for it, and the other is against. Those for it cite the potential to relieve suffering and take as given that the means to do so are moral. If the means are moral, however, no extraordinary justification is really needed for such research. If blastocysts or embryos are just collections of cells with the moral significance of bacteria, yeast, or cheek cells, then researchers should be able to do whatever they want with them just because it’s interesting and maybe can teach us a little about biology. On the other hand, if destruction of blastocysts is morally dubious, then promising cures for debilitating diseases doesn’t address the objections to such research.
Opponents of stem cell research have a bit of wishful thinking going on too. They hope that either 1) embryonic stem cell research will never produce useful therapies, or 2) adult stem cells will be able to do anything embryonic stem cells can. They may well be disappointed in these wishes, and bringing them up is a bit misleading. Even if embryonic stem cells were necessary and sufficient to cure all manner of terrible diseases, stem cell opponents would still be opposed.
The only room for argument is over the status of embryos. That happens in some places, but not in politics. All that is possible there is to rally the base as Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Bush have done and see which side can prevail.
Pelosi’s statement:
http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/June07/stem.html
Bush’s statement:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070607-10.html
Terminating a blastocyst is not “anything like unto it.”
It’s not even remotely a person. I have no problem terminating it if it will serve a useful and important purpose. I think trying to shoehorn this into the “anything like unto it” category is just another example of America’s misguided obsession with legalistic trivialities.
Of course a fertilized egg isn’t “a person.”
Duh.
However, I also have issues with this statement:
“The life of a cell composing a part of a 5-day-old blastocyte is not materially different, IMO, from the life of a cell lining my cheek.”
OK, it’s not a person. But it also isn’t nothing either. A fertilized egg represents a part of the procreative process, which God has clearly designated as sacred.
Termination of a fertilized egg should be done with a little more respect than simply swabbing your cheek lining.
But it ain’t murder. Nor anything like unto it.
Seth R;
Until the Prophet comes out and says flat out that spirits do not enter their bodies until Week 26 I have to regard all stages of the fetus as a child of God. Thus destroying a blastocyst is indeed like unto killing.
All this talk about “it’s not a person” is dangerously close to the arguments behind slavery. “They’re not real people; they’re less than us. Therefore it doesn’t matter what we do to them.”
Eve,
It’s a clump of cells. It’s not working on a tobacco plantation singing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.”
And if you’ll re-read my comment, I do actually call for a bit more respect in how the process is handled.
I heard in Japan scientists were able to find skin cells to do the same as stem cells… they were doing further research on that..
Seth;
That’s pretty much my point. “Working on a tobacco plantation singing ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’” obviously meets your definition of human. So why doesn’t this clump of cells meet that definition? Because right now at this particular moment you don’t recognize their actions as human? But you know that someday it will meet that definition. For me, I cannot draw the line neatly. It will be human– it will learn, it will laugh, it will change the world. It has all the freight of human potential; I cannot deny its humanity.
I didn’t bring the Prophet into this discussion as a soap box to stand on and I’m sorry if I gave anyone that impression. I just meant that until I have God’s word on the subject this is a line I cannot in confidence make or cross.
PDOE, with respect, I disagree with your conclusion. In considering where exactly we might disagree, I’ve tried to tease out the details with a thought experiment that is not far from current technological reality.
I started my previous comment comparing a fertilized human egg cell with a cell from the lining of my cheek. If the question we’re interested in is whether the two cells are identical, then you’re absolutely right — they’re not. But I don’t think that’s the right question to focus on. Nor do I think that destruction of the cell the right question to focus on, since I think it’s entirely possible for the cells not to be “destroyed†or otherwise killed. Instead, I think the nature of consciousness is the right focus.
Here are the details of the thought experiment that leads me to believe that the “capacity for consciousness†is really the right way to define human life that merits our attention and protection:
Scenario: an in-vitro fertilized egg cell divides into two. One of those cells is removed from the Petri dish and is placed into the gap in the spinal cord of a quadriplegic. The other is implanted in a woman’s uterus. The first cell — now in a spinal cord environment — begins to divide. In that environment, it samples the area around it, and it responds to the chemical and electrical factors in the environment, forming itself into neural stem cells. Those cells, responding to chemical and electrical factors in the environment, form neurons and ganglia, bridging the gaps in the quadriplegic’s spine, integrating themselves into the former quadriplegic’s body, interconnecting other previously disconnected neurons.
The second of the two embryonic cells responds to the chemical and electrical factors of the woman’s uterus, developing into a human fetus. When it reaches full term, the fetus is born and a conscious child is the result.
The first question: which stem cell was destroyed or killed?
Isn’t the right answer to that question: “neither one”? Each cell responded to the environment into which it was placed. The combination of environment and the cells’ ability to respond to that environment produced different outcomes. Neither cell was ever destroyed. Both continued to divide and to transform. In the spine of the former quadriplegic, the first cell is not only alive — it’s a thriving part of a spinal cord. It’s not in any way whatsoever “dead,†“killed,†or “not alive.†It, and the daughter cells that divided from it, are all 100% living. Uterine implantation of the second cell yielded a separate person. But neither cell was destroyed. As nothing’s killed, nor even dead at the end of the process, applying a scripture about avoiding killing seems entirely unfounded.
(Aside: Recent cloning experiments have demonstrated that it’s not only embryonic stem cells that have the ability to turn into fetuses (or other interesting things). The most recent story I read reported that cells removed from the tail of a mouse can be used to create clones of the “parent” mouse. If tail cells can become embryo cells, so, too, can the cells lining the inside of my cheek.)
From my perspective, this statement skips over one of the more interesting issues. Of course, in the thought experiment I present, this statement is factually wrong: the fertilized egg does, indeed, continue to develop in a process that creates a living human being. But to only focus on the “organism†of the fetus and child seems peculiar. The first cell – the one that developed into neurons and ganglia and the rest – did not form a separate organism. But how does that matter? Would your response to my thought experiment change if instead of implanting the second cell in the uterus, it were implanted into a second severed spinal cord? Why?
I think (but am not sure) you believe that one form of development is “natural” and another is “unnatural.” But that’s one reason the thought experiment hypothesizes an in-vitro fertilization. The “natural” process for an in-vitro fertilized egg is to develop for a time, and then to die. I suppose one response to that is to reject all in-vitro fertilization of eggs. But if so, why? Why conclude that what we should reverence of life is a particular path of development?
Another line of inquiry that arises from the thought experiment is this: even if there is no separation and division of cells, and the in-vitro fertilized egg is implanted intact in a uterus, it will divide and some of those divided daughter cells will do exactly (and only) what the first cell will do: i.e., they will not develop into a separate individual organism (though they clearly could do so, if separated and placed into the right environment (a separate uterus)), but rather they will develop only into spinal cord neural stem cells, differentiating into neurons and ganglia that interconnect otherwise disconnected neurons. If it’s “like unto murder†to allow the first extracted cell to be used to develop into new neurons in the quadriplegic’s spine, why isn’t it equally “like unto murder†not to remove those cells from the uterine implanted cell, in order to ensure that each cell capable of developing into a separate and independent human organism also receives that opportunity?
While I’m not sure how you’d respond to that question (though I’m interested in hearing it), as I think about it, I conclude that there’s nothing particularly “natural†about one path of a stem cell’s development or another. Both are entirely “natural†– the stem cell gets to interact with its environment and to develop along the paths consistent with that environment. That some paths lead to a being with the capacity for consciousness and one does not tells me that the particular cell in question is not, itself, what is to be valued about human beings. If it were, we’d have to extract and separately implant every such capable cell, which, if followed to its logical extreme, would prevent the full development of any human organism, because we’d constantly be disaggregating the cells capable of human development, just to ensure that they aren’t enslaved into becoming “just†spinal cord cells, instead of independent humans.
I recognize that one other response to the thought experiment is to say, “This is all too complicated, and God can’t have intended something so complicated.†While I am tempted by that argument, in the end, I don’t think it leads anywhere.
So then I’m left with this: there is plainly something valuable about human life, and it’s also plainly not identifiable at the stem cell level. So what is it? That leads me down a number of other paths. At the end of those other paths is my tentative conclusion that what is valuable is consciousness – or at least the capacity for consciousness – rather than a particular combination of DNA, cellular wrappers for that DNA, and a specific environment that will interact with that wrapper.
(and, M* — I can’t seem to prevent the site from posting the corrupted version of my website url that repeats the http:// part. If you can provide a hint about how to fix that, please advise. gf)
Eve,
So how much “potential” does a guy destroy when he chooses not to have sex with his wife tonight?
Greenfrog:
The idea of taking some stem cells and using them therapeutically while the source embryo is not destroyed sounds like the best of both worlds to me. My objection is the to the destruction of the human potential not to the use of stem cells themselves.
One question I’ve never seen raised: since stem cell therapy is essentially a kind of transplant, do the recipients then have to take immuno-depressing drugs for the rest of their lives?
Seth;
That potential is not destroyed; it goes the way God and nature intended. Clearly God didn’t intend every single one of the millions of sperm cells a man produces — or even the hundreds of thousands of eggs a woman is born with — to become human. Sperm and egg cells on their own have a set life. Most of them never become an embryo. An embryo however has a life of its own that must be respected. It is the beginnings of humanity, not a spare parts locker. As I said above to Greenfrog, if stem cells could be harvested without harming the emergent life, I would view that as the best of both worlds and be happy for all involved.
From a political perspective, the question is pretty simple. The government doesn’t recognize the existence of a person until a living child is born. It’s only then that a birth certificate and social security number are issued. These are essentially the state’s official documentation of a person’s existence. If the state accepted the existence of the life prior to birth, it would issue some sort of certificate as soon as proof of pregnancy was established. Yet we don’t do this, and many states don’t even acknowledge the existence of babies that were stillborn, by not providing parents with birth certificates indicating a stillbirth. A pregnant mother isn’t charged with child abuse for drinking or doing drugs, nor is she charged with neglect or child endangerment for failing to get appropriate prenatal care. Take these facts, throw in the fact that abortion is legal, and it seems pretty clear that in the eyes of the state, life begins at birth. Politically then, this is a non-issue.
Morally, I think the issue is far more complex. Although, greenfrog’s analysis provides support for what I have believed about stem cell research. To add to what s/he says, I think it’s important to note that when in vitro fertilization is done, several eggs are taken from the would be mother and fertilized. Some of the embryos create are frozen and some are implanted in the uterus in hopes of establishing a viable pregnancy. If a pregnancy occurs, what should be done with the remaining embryos?
They can remain frozen, but if they do have spirits, then those spirits will remain in a sort of purgatory. Never really experiencing life, getting tested, or doing any of the other things we are supposed to do in this life.
Someone can volunteer to be a surrogate mother for the frozen embryos. While there are organizations that do this sort of thing, I suspect the difference in the number of surrogates compared to the number of embryos is orders of magnitude.
Then of course they can they can be destroyed. Allowed to thaw, the embryos would probably resume cellular reproduction for a short period of time, but without the necessary environment to survive, would quickly die.
However, these collections of cells could become something useful. Scientists might be able to use these cells for cures to any number of diseases or injuries. If the embryos were going to be destroyed anyway isn’t it worth it to find out?
Marcus:
Bobby gets adopted. Yay for Bobby. But Lisa, Michelle and Brandon don’t get adopted “in time” and get sent to the labs for research. We’ve got the resources, after all, and they weren’t going to have good lives in the orphanage. Isn’t it worth it to find out?
Not exactly a fair comparison. I acknowledge that but that’s what it feels like to me. I don’t know. I really don’t know. Many pregnancies begin and end before the woman even knows she was pregnant. What about those lost embryos? What about fetuses lost at later stages of development? I really don’t know; neither does anyone else.
When it comes down to it, we are supposed to be learning to be Godlike. I don’t think cannibalizing our unborn is an action in harmony with that.
I’m not certain you’re right there John. I think that if stem cells could be harvested without harm to the source embryo, thus not necessitating its destruction, then stem cell opposition would diminish greatly. It’d be like a specialized kind of transplant with a special kind of donor. There probably would still be people who opposed it but I think people would find it much easier to support without the “life or death” issue.
Is there anything to be made of the fact that the opposition to stem cell research — at least here on this thread, which is not exactly representative I know — seems to be men = for and women = against? (I apologize to anyone I’ve mistakenly labeled and I thank Geoff B. and acknowledge his temperate comments. This is, I admit, a very superficial observation but it has piqued my curiosity.)
Eve,
Our church does not follow the Pope’s lead on this. There is no current position that life begins at conception.
My position is that spirits are waiting their turn. If one embryo gets terminated, they’ll simply wait for another one. Otherwise, you have to take some pretty nonsensical positions about literally millions of spirits never, ever having a shot at mortality due to simple miscarriages and spontaneous abortions via natural processes.
When is the spirit irrevocably tied to the body?
Neither of us know, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t at conception.
A reason I included my second stem cell scenario involving destruction of a 28-day-old embryo is that that is the direction I expect these things to take. I believe it will be found that stem cells that are a completely blank slate will not be the most effective to transplant. What will be better, and for some purposes the only thing that will work, will be to harvest cells at an intermediate stage of differentiation, cells that will produce neurons but not insulin-producing islets or vice versa. And nothing works to produce such cells like a short pregnancy. The number of pregnancies intentionally aborted I would guess far outstrips the number of spare embryos produced in IVF labs. The argument that they exist anyhow so they may as well be used applies to aborted embryos and fetuses as well as it does to IVF spares.
Here’s an additional consideration: The health of harvested embryos will matter, so they will be extracted in a living state, not poisoned in the uterus.
Greenfrog, I edited out the extra “http://”. Since the site software is prepending that to your URL, try leaving it off when you send comments.
Seth #20, I agree with your take on this. But I also agree with PDOE of that we need to be very careful about the use of embryonic stem cells.
I also agree. Medical ethics also require the respectful use of donated cadavers in anatomy classes and scientific research.
Actually….
I think that’s actually a very good guideline for using embryos. You treat both of them with respect. But neither of them is a “person” and entitled to the same protections a living, breathing person is.
I know Eve thinks the potentiality matters in distinguishing the two. But I don’t think the potentiality of the embryo is entitled to any greater respect than memory of what the cadaver was.
For a Mormon, I would hope that all stages of the procreative process would be approached prayerfully. For society at large, all I really ask is appropriate handling and ethical guidelines.
Speaking as a person who has had diabetes for the last 20 years I would welcome any therapy, stem-cell or not, that will cure this disease. Yes, diabetes can be “controlled” but it still ravages the body, internal organs, vision, circulation, etc., plus diabetics are more prone to heart disease and strokes. If stem-cells work, so be it. I have no problem with it.
Mitt Romney has an article today on NRO that addresses this issue.
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZmY2OTUxMTgyZmM0ZDkwMGRmMzhkYjAxZmMyOWZlM2U=
Here are the highlights:
First, on Wednesday, we learned that researchers in Massachusetts, building on prior accomplishments by colleagues in Japan, had managed to transform regular skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice. Their work points to a way to produce cells with the qualities scientists value about embryonic stem cells, but without the need to create, harm, or destroy human embryos, and therefore without ethical or political controversy.
But then, on Thursday, the Congress passed a bill that would for the first time use taxpayer dollars to encourage the destruction of embryos for research. Just as it is becoming increasingly clear that scientific ingenuity could offer a way around the divisive controversies of the stem-cell debate, congressional Democrats are working to stoke those very controversies. They have opted to exacerbate what they see as a political debate that works in their favor, rather than encourage a scientific solution that would work in America’s favor.
….
Some advocates told me that only the creation of human embryos for purposes of experimentation, otherwise known as cloning, could help them better understand and perhaps someday treat a series of dreaded diseases. But they ignored the importance of protecting human equality, dignity, and life. Opposing advocates told me that the pluripotency of stem cells — their ability to become a very wide variety of different cell types — would not be of great therapeutic value, and that other sources of tissues and cells could serve the same purpose. But they ignored the unique role pluripotent cells could play in basic science.
Couldn’t the strongest part of each side’s argument — the utility of pluripotent cells on the one hand and the importance of protecting human life on the other — be brought together? I studied the issue for many months, and entered into conversation with experts from across the nation who were looking for consensus solutions, like Stanford’s Dr. William Hurlbut. In the end, I became persuaded that the stem-cell debate was grounded in a false premise, and that the way through it was around it: by the use of scientific techniques that could produce the equivalent of embryonic stem cells but without cloning, creating, harming, or destroying developing human lives.
NOW, THIS IS A COMMENT FROM GEOFF B: What I don’t understand, and nobody has been able to adequately explain to me yet, if we can get stem cells without destroying or harming or creating embryos, then why are we even debating this? Destroying embryos is controversial — getting stem cells other ways is not. Let’s do it without destroying embryos.
#22 — thanks John. For some reason, even when I only enter the address starting with the “www” part, it still posts (as you can see from this one) with the double http: part. It must be embedded in a cookie somewhere on my machine. I’ll see if I can find it on this end.
In response to Geoff B’s #26 — the experiment described could be exactly the issue-avoidance mechanism they’re looking for, but the cells so engendered would have to be tested and poked and prodded and tried out to determine if they’re as fully capacitated (is that a word) as embryonic stem cells. And if they are, then I think the point I raised above obtains with respect to them, just as it does with respect to embryonic stem cells that compose an embryo — they’re just as “embryo-like” capable of engendering a human being as embryos, so what’s the difference? Surely we don’t conclude that humans only merit protection if they’re engendered via a sperm-and-egg combination? To take that position would deny person status to clones (and some identical twins).
I don’t get the reason why source material for a clone should be free of all ethical considerations if the source material for a sperm-and-egg human is not.
All you have to do is get Sperm Pills.l They can buildup your fertility