I was riding my bike home from work last week when a man with a petition stepped in my path, forcing me to stop. "Do you have a moment? Just a moment for a petition! It's about stem cells."
I had been asked once before to "sign a petition to cure diseases." After seeing it was about legalizing stem cell research, I declined. This time, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was blowing off, so I started asking some questions about it.
Are they adult, umbilical, or embryonic, I wondered. I was told "they get them from the baby and from the mother." That didn't answer my question, so I asked to read the petition. The petitioner kept talking, trying to worm out of two questions now. I again asked for the petition to read it, and he said this:
"You can read all you want man, but I just explained it to you."
Damn right, I wanted to say! I'll read what I want (this is America, after all) and I'm not going to have you, a person I've just seen for the first time in my life, "explain" it to me. I have no reason to take your word, I would have liked to say. But there was no point in being antagonistic.
I saw it was indeed about legalizing embryonic stem cell research, to which I am vehemently opposed. One phrase caused me to stop and think, though, and that was the stipulation that embryos used in this research would be those that are not suitable for implantation (think of Snowflake Children) and would otherwise be discarded.
But this was more designed to appeal to an individual's distaste for waste, rather than his or her distaste for disrespect for human life. Clever.
I again declined to sign the petition. I have no problem with adult or umbilical stem cells, but creating an embryo - a human at one of its most basic and vulnerable stages - with a purpose that prevents it from doing what it is genetically programmed to do, destroys a life. (Yes, I believe an embryo is a life, but I'm not going to defend that belief right now).
This experience left me with this conclusion: What about curing social diseases, like this proposed biocannibalism? I understand why the argument is made that these embryos will otherwise be discarded. However, allowing such embryos to be used for stem cell research will only promote those enterprises which produce those embryos in the first place. Ending practices that create human life only for it to be destroyed will be much harder, if embryonic stem cell research is to become legal. I think most people who share my position - that embryos are indeed human life - would agree also that it is desirable to end practices that produce embryos that are ultimately to be destroyed.
7 comments:
"But this was more designed to appeal to an individual's distaste for waste, rather than his or her distaste for disrespect for human life. Clever."
Surely you understand that there are many cases of embryos being discarded. And I am sure that you would view this also as a waste of life. However, if those embryos that would otherwise be discarded were used to help save another person's life (ie through the curing of diseases), wouldn't that be in line of the views of human life as most important as opposed to a "well-let's-not-trash-it" view?
I'm guessing you didn't read the end of the post, in which I explained my point of view concerning those embryos.
Yes, it is a shame that those embryos will be "discarded," for lack of a better term. But if they are used for stem cell research, and the scientific community comes to rely on those embryos, it will be infitely more difficult to end the practices that produce those embryos.
Also - somehow my comment got added before I was done - I think many people who consider those embryos to be human life (myself included) want to end practices that prodcue embryos for reasons other than allowing them to follow a natural course of life. Again, by making those embryos a resource for other fields of research, that only promotes said practices.
rwl, i always read the end of stuff. the scientific community is already trying to develop other ways of using different kinds of stem cells. they'd be able to rely on whatever proves most effective if they would be allowed to determine this through examining all of the options and then possibly be able to discover new ones through this crucial research (ie adequate funding for research that can save real and future human life).
if your argument is that you want these embryos that you believe to be alive to continue their "natural" course of life, hmmm. first of all, their creation wasnt "natural" to begin with. it was because scientists made it happen through the laboratory, not how life is naturally brought about. also, they'd die anyway if they were being trashed. so what difference does it make if their being "alive" for a time being can help save other people who have actually begun and continued to follow the natural course of life? wouldnt this actually be to society's advantage?
You've made my point for me.
The creation of these embryos isn't natural, so it shouldn't be done. It's creating human life with the purpose of destroying it. Not cool in my book.
But now, someone's going probably going to take what I said out of context and say I'm against fighting any disease, because that's not allowing a natural course of life to run.
Again, for the third time, THE DIFFERENCE IN NOT ALLOWING THESE EMBRYOS TO BE USED FOR RESEARCH IS THAT BY NOT USING THEM, THE PROCESSES OF UNNATURALLY PRODUCING AND DESTROYING HUMAN LIFE CAN BE TERMINATED.
If these embryos are used for research, ending the creation of these embryos will be infinitely more difficult. Supporters of that research will argue that their resources will be cut off, if the production of these embryos is ceased.
I don't think permitting this degradation of human life is to society's advantage at all. To me, it reduces life to a commodity.
And clever remark about using these embryos to save "real human life." Have you read my last post about the chimp? As I mention in that post, I believe human life is human life at ALL STAGES following the meeting of sperm and egg cells.
Since it appears we don't agree on that point, I think it's clear that we're not going to agree at all in this discussion.
Okay, buuuut, ending the use of embryos for research won't necessarily (or at all) end the creation of embryos unnaturally (which I think is what you're going after) because research facilities get the embryos from people who used them bc they couldnt get pregnant through the normal way so they made their own embryos in a lab to be inserted into the womb. So all you'd be doing is allowing for the creation of embryos and then letting the unused ones be trashed instead of putting them to use that can save people alive right now (i know we disagree on this) and future generations.
I'm not saying that ending the use of these embryos for research will end their creation. Yes, I would like to see an end to the unnatural production of embryos.
I repeat:
The goal of ending the unnatural production of embryos will be infinitely harder to achieve if we continue relying on those embryos in research. Stop relying on those embryos in research, and we can stop producing those embryos.
Consider this comparison.
We keep relying on gasoline (read: embryos for stem cell research). Because we rely on gasoline so much, we cannot possibly stop all production of gasoline. But if we stopped relying on gasoline, and on alternative fuels instead (read: alternative research methods), we could stop producing gasoline.
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