March 22, 2004
DISPOSABLE, BUT NOT REUSABLE (via Christopher Badeaux):
What’s morality got to do with it?: Some 55 million foetuses are aborted each year. Why, then, all the fuss about destroying embryos in the course of stem-cell research? (Mary Wakefield, 3/20/04, The Spectator)
Although ‘reproductive cloning’ is illegal in Britain, many people oppose cloning embryos on the grounds that scientists, once confronted with a blastocyst, will be unable to resist implanting it in a human womb. The resulting clone baby will then, they imagine, suffer hideous genetic defects and accelerated ageing in the manner of Dolly the sheep. ‘There is every reason to expect an expansion of the context of therapeutic cloning to include foetuses,’ says Dr Fleming, director of Southern Cross, an Australian bioethics think-tank. ‘Particularly given the fact that it would be much easier to allow organs to develop “naturally” in the cloned foetus before harvesting. There have, in fact, already been calls for the harvesting of organs from embryos and foetuses. If cloned foetuses were allowed to develop, the next “natural” consequence would be to allow cloned embryos to be implanted and develop until birth.’It’s a horrible thought but I’m sure Dr Fleming is right. If it can happen, it will, and probably already has somewhere in an underground lab in Belgium. But here’s another horrible thought: isn’t the whole attempt to draw a wavy line between the sorts of embryocide we like and don’t like basically nonsense? Can we really persist in thinking that a tiny blastocyst has some sort of right to respect if we are in favour of aborting 24-week-old babies?
The government attempts to make sense of the issue by giving an embryo this ‘symbolic moral status’ — a term cooked up by the Warnock committee in 1990. ‘The special status of an embryo as a potential human being is accepted,’ says the Department of Health, ‘but the significance of the respect owed to developing human life is regarded as increasing in proportion to the degree of development of the embryo. At the very early stages of development, according to this view, it is morally justified to use embryos for research purposes in order to benefit others.’ It’s a comfort to think that the little blastocysts have some standing in the world even as the syringe approaches, but what exactly is a ‘symbolic moral status’? To what is an early embryo morally equivalent? A dog? You’d have the RSPCA in fits. An iguana? Perhaps something in-between a mouse and a skin cell? And what does its ‘special moral status’ entitle an embryo to, apart from the right to be scrutinised by the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority before it’s whacked?
Those who object to therapeutic cloning, but not to IVF or abortion, claim that there is a difference between creating an embryo just in order to nix it and killing it after an accidental pregnancy. But treating an embryo as a means to an end is only ethically problematic if it has human status. And if the intention of scientists doing the therapeutic cloning is to alleviate a considerable amount of suffering, then what’s the problem? Why is it better to abort a foetus for the sake of convenience than to kill a blastocyst in the interest of finding a cure for heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, liver failure, blindness, senile dementia, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and arthritis?
Ms Wakefield is right, but begs the question. There is something deeply foolish about people who support abortion for the purpose of killing the child but oppose abortion to harvest tissue for "therapeutic" purposes. But the point is that both should be banned. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2004 12:55 PM
Agreed, but how is that different from a Creator God who creates a bunch of humans and then unchooses them and consigns them to eternal punishment for Original Sin they never heard about?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 22, 2004 4:18 PMHarry:
Which is why that God probably doesn't exist.
If, however, it does, that doesn't mean that humans shouldn't behave in the highest moral manner, any more than having an abusive alcoholic father means that one must be scum.
Same as your comments in the other thread about standing up to cruel Gods.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 22, 2004 5:04 PMHarry:
The point is that you are sinful, because Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. If you were still as ignorant as an animal the immoral things you do wouldn't be sins.
Posted by: oj at March 22, 2004 8:23 PMHow about little babies? Are they sinful? Are they damned?
One of the most popular preachers here, the Rev. Harper Mitchell, preached a sermon when the plane went down off Long Island that the people died because they were sinners. Including, one must suppose, the 6 infants in arms.
What sins did they sin?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 22, 2004 8:35 PMNo they can't sin if they can't comprehend the nature of their acts.
Posted by: oj at March 22, 2004 8:44 PMOJ:
No, the point is exclusivity. Get born in the right place, eternal salvation.
Choose your parents badly, eternal damnation.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 22, 2004 8:49 PMJeff:
No, you won't be damned if you are ignorant of God and don't know all of the commandments. Though your failure to behave decently in prehistoric Polynesia should way against you.
Nor are you saved simply be knowing of Him.
Posted by: oj at March 22, 2004 8:59 PMHarry,
Rev. Mitchell is an idiot. What, precisely, does this prove?
Posted by: at March 23, 2004 2:07 AMOJ:
Is that what the Bible says, or are you making it up?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 23, 2004 7:22 AMAl:
Rev Mitchell claims to know absolute Truth. How do you know he is wrong?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 23, 2004 12:07 PM"Rev Mitchell claims to know absolute Truth. How do you know he is wrong?"
Probably because Al's Absolute Truth says so.
Posted by: Ken at March 23, 2004 12:41 PMRev. Mitchell was not is. He and his wife hanged themselves in their garage last year.
Almost made me believe in God.
However, if he was an idiot, he had a great many followers.
In other words, Christians cannot recognize Truth, they have no idea how to discriminate between true Truth and false Truth.
Under the circumstances, it's rum for people so ignornant to offer instruction to the rest of us.
Orrin, as usual, displays a heterodox interpretation of Christianity. It's a good thing he enjoys the protection of secular law or he'd be hounded out of New Hampshire.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 23, 2004 1:31 PMHarry:
Christians can't--they're just as fallible as anyone else. But the Truth doesn't change just because folks misapprehend it.
Posted by: oj at March 23, 2004 3:24 PM"OJ: Is that what the Bible says, or are you making it up?"
Jeff, first you make it up, then you read the Bible. Kinda like a Rorschach test.
If they're just as fallible as anybody else, they ought to be a whole lot less positive about telling anybody else how to behave.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 23, 2004 8:01 PMWhy?
Posted by: oj at March 23, 2004 8:44 PMBecause Cromwell gave good advice when he begged his opponents, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you might be mistaken!"
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 24, 2004 2:13 PMWhy?
Because claiming to possess absolute truth, while standing on mountain of fallibility, is ridiculous.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 24, 2004 6:39 PMJeff, merely being ridiculous never deterred a Christian yet.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 24, 2004 8:59 PMJeff:
Do you not tell your children what to do or are you infallible? Never minnd--forgot you and Harry are without sin...
Posted by: oj at March 24, 2004 10:10 PMNo, I do not tell my children that. I also don't tell them I possess absolute truth.
I do tell them no one else does, either. No matter which book they are thumping.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 24, 2004 10:27 PMYou tell them it is a matter of complete indifference whether they steal or kill or whatever?
Posted by: oj at March 24, 2004 10:32 PMDo you possess absolute truth?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 5:16 PMWe all do--unfortunately it is cluttered with human error.
Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 6:11 PM