Do Blastocysts Go to Heaven?
And other distractions in the stem-cell debate.

July 11, 2001 4:20 p.m.

t is good to know that, on an issue as emotionally charged as that of embryonic stem-cell research has, perhaps surprisingly, become, a civil and even friendly debate is still possible. Robert Bartley, the editor of the Wall Street Journal, and Jonah Goldberg, editor of National Review Online, have both written thought-provoking columns criticizing the pro-life campaign against this research. To provoke thought is, of course, not necessarily to inspire agreement. Believing as I do that the "hard-line" pro-life position is, in the deepest sense, reasonable, I retain the hope that continued argument will bring both men into the fold.

I. Robert Bartley
Bartley wrote a column on June 11 supporting the research. His follow-up column this week notes, with probable understatement, that this column "drew the reproach of my Catholic friends who believe destroying a blastocyst is murder." Bartley proceeds to argue for the acceptability, indeed desirability, of Congress's reaching a democratic conclusion to the issue whether that conclusion matches his own or that of his Catholic friends.

Having criticized Bartley on stem cells before, I should pause before doing so again to commend him for being willing to publish many pro-life essays even though he is not himself pro-life. Not every editor of a major American newspaper is so broad-minded.

But Bartley is approaching the issue in an entirely wrong-headed way. In his latest column, he follows up the sentence about his Catholic friends with the remark, "Either you believe the blastocyst has a soul or you don't." Later he writes, "The Catholics and evangelicals who believe that the soul enters at conception deserve a chance to make their case in the full light of day…." He claims that the Catholic Church used to hold that ensoulment occurred at the moment of quickening, i.e., when the mother can feel a fetus in her womb, and expresses sympathy for those Catholics who want a "return to that position."

Bartley's column reflects a widespread misconception of what pro-lifers believe. On his characterization, Catholic (and evangelical) pro-lifers "believe that the soul enters at conception." Actually, the Catholic church does not teach that ensoulment occurs at conception. It has not made up its mind about when ensoulment occurs, or even whether ensoulment is the right way to think about the matter. The Catholic case against abortion does not and has never turned on when ensoulment happens. It is not just that the church does not rely on that premise in making its case in public. Ensoulment has never had anything to do with the church's internal deliberations about what position it should take.

The church's position is that all members of the human species — all living human beings — have an inviolable right to life. That position depends on no theological understanding, and it can therefore be accepted and defended by those of us who are not Catholics. For the same reason, it can in theory be refuted by reasoned arguments. To be sure, to grasp the full import of another being's humanity requires theological knowledge: We may be informed by revelation that human beings that perish in the blastocyst stage go to Heaven, or that we have to love all human beings, even the neighbor's bratty kids. But we do not need revelation to know not to kill.

It is true that common law centuries ago punished abortion only after quickening. But this was for evidentiary, not moral, reasons. In an age without ultrasound or sophisticated home pregnancy tests, quickening was the way pregnancies were known to exist. Abortion was a crime that could be proved only if quickening had been known to occur. No educated person thought that life began at quickening.

Bartley is right to suggest that the stem-cell issue should be decided democratically, as the Supreme Court prevented abortion policy from being decided. The church contributes to democratic deliberation, and not only by advancing arguments that can be debated by people with varying theological commitments. It also reminds us that democracy rests on the equality of human beings.

II. Jonah Goldberg
I have fewer quarrels with my colleague Jonah Goldberg's column, and not just because he kindly cites an essay of mine. Goldberg doesn't give me much to argue with. He does not deny the propositions that human lives begin at conception and that these lives deserve protection. He argues merely that opposing embryonic stem-cell research is futile because most Americans will not be convinced of these propositions.

Even if his prediction is correct, it is not a reason for those of us who do accept these propositions to stop acting on their implications. Goldberg argues from the logic of a slippery slope: Since we've accepted in vitro fertilization, which entails the freezing or destruction of many embryos, we have already lost the stem-cell debate. Former senator Connie Mack makes a similar argument: Why should embryos that are going to be discarded anyway "remain unused"? (Does anyone think that because we have a death penalty, we ought to harvest the organs of the condemned? They're just going to "remain unused" otherwise. For that matter, how about taking organs from terminally ill patients?)

If pro-lifers should accept the destruction of embryos for stem-cell research because they will not convince people that life begins at conception — and I'm not sure that's what Goldberg is arguing — then presumably they should stop opposing abortion, at least early in pregnancy, as well. That's the direction abortion-rights advocates such as Richard Cohen and Anna Quindlen are pushing those pro-lifers who favor embryonic stem-cell research.

My own view, for what it's worth, is that the first thing you do when you're on a slippery slope is try to arrest the slide.