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President Bush reads his briefing papers before his epochal decision
on stem-cell research, I hope they include a copy of the July 15
Sunday lead editorial in the New York Times, "The Embryo
Taboos." Twice the Times tells us that "religious conservatives
oppose using embryos as a source for the cells because that requires
the destruction of what THEY DEEM a nascent form of life," and that
they oppose government support for "work that requires destroying
what THEY CONSIDER to be a developing human life."
What, then, does the august Times itself deem and consider
these embryos to be? The editorial states it outright: "They have
the potential, if implanted in a womb, to develop into a person."
That is exactly the judgment of the facts reached by religious conservatives,
as well as by elementary textbooks of biology. It has this potential
because the embryo is, by textbook definition, that union of sperm
and egg that constitutes an individual member of the human species.
Here, of course, the Times hides behind "Senator Orrin Hatch,
a pro-life conservative," in exclaiming that "an embryo in a freezer"
does not "equate," in his imagination, with "a child living in the
womb, with moving toes and fingers and a beating heart." Alas, the
Times itself has many times written in favor of destroying
through abortion the "child living in the womb, with moving toes
and fingers and a beating heart." And now it would like to destroy
the "embryo in the freezer," too, even though this embryo has quite
fully and equally with that "child living in the womb" the full
textbook status of an individual of the human species, with "the
potential, if implanted in a womb, to develop into a person." The
Times is consistent in its preference for death, even if
the Senator is not.
Yet both the Times and Senator Hatch seem to have a difficult
time holding onto the principle which they both confess to: that
the embryo is an individual human being, possessing all the potential
of developing its own capacities for reflection and choice, and
its unique talents — perhaps those of a Mozart, an Einstein,
a Sulzberger, or a senator. All of these, all of us, were once embryonic
cells.
Of course it is true that at each stage of our development we cannot
quite be "equated" (the term is coldly arithmetical, not quite appropriate
for evolving, developing persons such as ourselves) with ourselves
at earlier stages. If we were, what would be the point of aspiration,
effort, growth, and the hard work of "becoming all that we can be"?
The uncertain teenager is not the settled man of character. A man
after a religious conversion is not the same man he was before.
Much has happened to the seventy-year-old that is not yet predetermined
in the embryo or later the infant kicking in the womb. An unbroken
line of development is traceable — the existence of an individual
human life — but not a univocal equation of stage with stage.
Despite its conviction about the potential person in each embryo
— in each "primitive blastocyst stage" — the Times
is willing to urge the certain deadly destruction of some of these
embryos in order to obtain what? A purely speculative gain in medical
knowledge, a gain which is now merely a matter of faith. The point
of the recent immense campaign to stampede the President into a
premature commitment of federal funds cannot be this purely speculative,
at this point imaginary gain in uncertain knowledge. The point is,
surely, that the human embryo is unworthy of any serious respect.
For, as a column on the facing op-ed page makes clear, "much of
stem cell research is still basically alchemy. We keep throwing
things into the bubbling cauldron of our petri dishes until something
emerges." Maybe great good will emerge, maybe not.
Let us suppose that this touching faith is one day rewarded with
success. In what kind of world will the persons now cured by new
medical techniques live? A world in which some potential persons
are destroyed in order that some might be saved. A world without
the habit of heeding moral principles, when the heat of desire waxes
hot. A world in which the human life of the vulnerable must yield
to the pragmatism of the sophisticated and the powerful. A world
in which utilitarianism turns all human beings, in principle, into
means, not ends.
If I were President Bush, I would ask myself if I could decide against
the life of actual cells, ready to develop into persons like myself.
If by imagination he can think his way back in time to the period
when he was still an embryo, would he want to have destroyed his
own life at that "primitive blastocyst stage"? If he cannot will
such destruction for himself, how can he will it for another?
This is, roughly, how Lincoln reasoned against slavery, when all
around him "pragmatists" counseled accommodation, that is, treating
Negroes in utilitarian terms, as means.
When principle and "pragmatism" are in conflict — a highly
speculative pragmatism, in this case — character is decisive.
"Pragmatisms" come and go, usually with diminished reputation over
time. Any fool can flow with the stream.
On balance, and in most matters, I would like to be known as a man
of practical wisdom, prudence, even a large-minded pragmatism. But
on a few core matters, such as life and liberty, I would rather
link my reputation to principles. In the history books, on certain
matters, principles live forever.
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