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Aug. 4, 2006 The current flap over stem cell research (hereafter referred to as SCR) can be distilled into one fundamental question: Is an embryo deserving of a moral status equal to that of a human person? If the answer to that question is "yes", then opposition to such research is understandable, and President Bush's assertion that the destruction of an embryo is "equivalent to the taking of innocent human life" becomes childishly obvious. Is this, though, a defensible position? In this article, I will show that it is not, and furthermore, that such a stand is morally bankrupt and leads to insurmountable logical absurdities. Even a religious fundamentalist like President Bush is quick to acknowledge that a human embryo is not yet a human person - that, in fact, a real human person exhibits qualities that are not yet manifested in the small collection of cells that make up an embryo. That is why the concept of potential plays such an important role in the arguments for Equivalent Moral Status (EMS). The anti-SCR crowd contends that while embryos do not yet possess human qualities, they have the potential to possess those qualities, and this potential is sufficient to elevate them to EMS. There are a number of problems with this position, though. Most obvious is that while embryos do indeed have the potential (under the right conditions - more on this below) to become human, the undeniable and uncontested fact is that they are not yet human. If we confer EMS on entities that are not yet human, but have the potential to become human, then we run square into a logical reductio ad absurdum: we would have to confer EMS on every somatic cell in the human body, as all somatic cells have the genetic potential to develop into a human person. Organ transplants, tumor removals, chemotherapy, even male masturbation, would all pose serious ethical dilemmas because of the destruction of billions of tiny innocent lives that those activities would entail. In addition to this glaring absurdity, advocates of embryonic potential completely ignore the role of the uterus (i.e. the "environment") in fetal development. The embryo cannot exhibit its potential on its own - it must be provided with a suitable environment in which to develop. Just as a sunflower seed cannot achieve its potential from the inside of my colon, so, too, is an embryo powerless to achieve its potential in a laboratory dish. The embryos used in SCR have never been, nor will they ever be, implanted in a uterus, and, as such, are not being removed from conditions that might foster their development. Any potential they may possess has been rendered meaningless by the external environmental constraints. The anti-SCR crowd must also contend with its own hypocrisy. If an embryo in a laboratory dish deserves EMS - despite the logical quagmire this reasoning leads to - an embryo growing inside a human body surely deserves at least this same level of protection. Yet, scientists estimate that 60 to 80 percent of all pregnancies end in spontaneous (i.e. natural) abortions. President Bush and other like- minded folks are willing to deny the promise of this research to millions of suffering Americans because of a few hundred specimens in a laboratory dish, and yet they cannot seem to muster an ounce of concern or protest over the literally tens of millions of naturally aborted embryos that are flushed into the sewer system every year. If these embryos are deserving of EMS, as the anti-SCR lobby maintains, this is a crisis of monumental proportions. Where is the outcry? Why is President Bush not demanding that women undergo mandatory, daily pregnancy testing and then be quarantined in a stable medical environment when pregnancy occurs? Such a policy would save millions of potential lives, far more than even the most stringent anti-abortion laws. On this point, though, we hear nothing. The hypocrisy is astonishing. Even assuming an anti-SCR zealot could put aside this blinding hypocrisy and somehow navigate the twisted absurdities and ethical conundrums already touched upon, he would still be left with another hurdle - that of "twinning". Critical to the EMS stance is the assumption that the embryo has an individual identity. According to the President's Council on Bioethics, "individuality is essential to human personhood and capacity for moral status." But before gastrulation (the point at which the precursor to the spinal cord begins to develop), the embryo can split into two or more parts (hence "twinning"), each of which can develop into a human person given the right conditions. That embryo you've been calling "Jack" has the potential to become not only Jack, but also Jane, or John and Bill, or Jim and George and Mary. There is no way to know until gastrulation; hence, the pre-gastrulation embryo has no individual identity, and without an identity, EMS is just a fanciful construct with no logical foundation. All embryos used in SCR are pre-gastrulation embryos. The idea that "life" is being destroyed in the pursuit of this research is therefore patently absurd, and the denial of the benefits of this research to sick Americans - whose identity and moral status are unquestioned - is not only morally reprehensible, but also a disgraceful blot on America's reputation as a beacon for advanced civilization. That the bulk of SCR opposition comes from an increasingly erratic segment of society that purports to stand for "family values" and against "moral decay" would be laughably ironic if it were not so desperately tragic. ------------ About the author: David Gleeson is an aerospace engineer and skeptic of all things supernatural. He maintains a website at http://web.mac.com/coskeptic/iWeb/. Email: coskeptic@mac.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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