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is an old saying among trial lawyers that goes something like this:
"If you can't argue the facts, argue the law, if you can't argue
the facts or the law, blow smoke." This proverb is equally applicable
to political arguments. In the Great Stem-Cell Debate the smoke
blown by proponents of federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research
(ESCR) has grown so thick that global-warming activists should sound
the alarm.
Up until now, those who advocate federal funding for ESCR have driven
the debate. This isn't surprising given the blatantly biased coverage
by the mainstream media as exposed by the Statistical
Assessment Service (STATS), which I described in a
previous NRO piece. But now, opponents of federal funding are
beginning to hope that time may actually be on their side. Indeed,
the longer President Bush ponders what to do, the clearer the air
is becoming.
The following are the primary arguments in favor of federal funding.
What once appeared to be concrete pillars supporting a compelling
argument have turned out to be constructed out of wispy particulate
matter that may be beginning to collapse.
Only IVF Embryos Would Be Targeted For Destruction:
The American people are deeply pragmatic. Thus, the most potent
argument in favor of federal funding has been the promise that only
embryos destined for destruction from IVF fertility experiments
would be used in federally funded research. Opponents' response
to this argument--that no law requires these embryos to be destroyed,
that some might be ultimately adopted by infertile couples, that
such attitudes lead directly to the slippery slope, etc--while certainly
true, have not persuaded a public that seems to view the use of
unneeded IVF embryos as being akin to recycling aluminum cans.
But a story has now exploded into the news that should shatter this
popular complacency. Scientists at the Jones Institute for Reproductive
Medicine in Norfolk, Virginia bragged in a press release that they
paid women between $1,500 and $2,000 apiece for their eggs, and
then used them — with the egg providers' consent — to
create embryos for the purpose of destroying them in ESCR. These
scientists claim that making embryos for research is "as ethical"
as using frozen IVF embryos. Moreover, they contend, freshly created
embryos might be "superior" for research purposes to those thawed
out of a deep freeze. If that is true, how long would scientists
be content to use "in excess of need" IVF embryos?
The response of pro-ESCR scientists and bioethicists to this development
has been especially telling. Rather than forcefully and unequivocally
condemning Jones Institute, their primary complaint has been that
the "timing could not have been worse" — meaning that the disclosure
makes a bad appearance that could give President Bush grounds to
refuse federal funding. There has been no reported outcry from the
ESCR crowd that the creating human embryos solely for the purpose
of destroying them in research is immoral.
With this breaking story, it is now clear that the IVF boundary
would never hold. Instead, federally funding ESCR would merely
free up private dollars, now used for IVF research, to fund the
kind of activities undertaken by the Jones Institute. Moreover,
we must not forget that the biotech industry is lobbying hard against
the Weldon Bill — crucial legislation that would ban all human
cloning — on the basis that cloning would be a necessary aspect
of embryonic-stem-cell medicine should the research ever become
clinically viable. Thus, all of this talk of restricting the research
to IVF embryos is really nothing but the old bait and switch.
Embryos Would Not Really Be Destroyed in the Research:
Some advocates of federal funding who are queasy at the thought
of destroying embryos have settled their uneasy tummies by changing
the scientific definitions. Thus, the Washington Times's
Suzanne Fields wrote, "Though these fertilized eggs are popularly
referred to as embryos, they really aren't, not until implanted
in a uterine wall. They are more precisely blastocysts."
Fields may be a good writer but she clearly doesn't know her human
biology. An embryo by any other name is still an embryo. The 1989
edition of the American Medical Association's Encyclopedia of
Medicine explicitly states, "From the time of conception until
the eight week, the developing baby is known as an embryo." In its
earliest stage of life the embryo is known as a zygote. The embryo
is called a blastocyst when it reaches the stage of development
where it can implant into the womb. At this point the embryo may
be made up of more than a hundred cells encased in an embryonic
lining. This is the stage of the embryos that are destroyed when
their stem cells are harvested.
Along these same lines, Senator Orrin Hatch, former Senator Connie
Mack, and other ESCR supporters who self-identify as pro-life, have
taken to asserting that life doesn't really begin until actual implantation
in the mother's womb, thereby seeking to hold on to a thin thread
of consistency with their previous anti-abortion advocacy. (Hatch
put it rather indelicately, stating, "Life begins in the womb, not
a refrigerator.")
The idea that life begins in the mother and not a Petri dish may
reflect a metaphysical belief system to which these anti-abortion
politicians are surely entitled. But it isn't biology. Biologically,
an individual human life commences as soon as sperm merges with
egg. At that point, its entire genetic makeup of a human individual
has been determined. The rest is simply a matter of time and development.
Only Embryonic Stem Cells Offer the Full Promise of Medical Breakthroughs:
For years, the propaganda coming from ESCR supporters has claimed
that only embryos offer the potential for the full range of cures
that scientists hope to develop with stem-cell research. Happily,
amazing breakthroughs using alternative stem cell sources —
umbilical cord blood, organs, fat, etc. — have dramatically
altered the playing field. Indeed, terrible human maladies have
already been healed using stem cells found in umbilical cord blood.
Moreover, a recent scientific journal report stated that stem cells
found in bone marrow might be as flexible as embryonic cells. Thus,
scientists may be able to obtain virtually all of the medical benefits
that ESCR advocates hope to achieve using alternative cell therapies
without our society having to accept a Faustian bargain in which
medical advances are paid for at the cost of human lives commodified
into a crop, ripe for the harvest.
The Stem-Cell Issue is the Latest Chapter in the Pro-Life versus
Pro-Choice Debate:
The media has played the Great Stem-Cell Debate as merely another
front in our country's never-ending cultural struggle over abortion.
But it isn't. The point of legalized abortion — whether or
not one accepts the premise — is that the law should not force
a woman to use her body for gestation and giving birth against her
will. But in ESCR, there is no woman being forced to do anything.
Thus abortion is utterly irrelevant.
In the Great Stem-Cell Debate our nation confronts a crucial question
that cannot be finessed or compromised. Indeed, it is an ultimate
issue: does human life have inherent value simply because it is
human? If so, then federally funding ESCR would be wrong because,
in effect, it would, place the people's seal of approval on destroying
life for the utilitarian purpose of harvesting its valuable parts.
If not, if we have no inherent value different from that of other
life on the planet, then what's all the fuss about?
Perhaps this is why the issue sears our collective consciousness
with such burning intensity. In the end, the denouement of the Great
Stem-Cell Debate may not be about embryos at all, but about the
meaning and purpose of human life.
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