An Afraid New World
November 15, 2007
A New York Times headline today says;
SCIENTISTS USE MONKEY CLONES TO EXTRACT STEM CELLS
Not only is this the first time such cells have been produced in any animal other than a mouse, but the method, the researchers say, should also work in humans.
“We hope the technology will be useful for other labs that are working on human eggs and human cells,” the lead researcher of the group, Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton, said in a telephone interview. “I am quite sure it will work in humans.”
Not everyone is happy about this development. Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center said:
“I certainly think that this represents a new threshold in the entire discussion,” said the Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. “At this point, it becomes essential to ask a question as a society: Are there ever going to be circumstances where it is morally justifiable to clone human beings?”
What do you think?
November 15, 2007 at 9:32 am
huh
We’ve all heard the talk about a unifying theorem in all of creation. However, Hawking also wrote something to the effect of “even if we figure out the what, we cannot know the why”
As you and I have discussed, C, people, in the midst of their pursuits, rarely include human nature in the equation. As science attempts to scale these heights, and as idealists picture the brave new world, the reality is considerably darker.
Science will not ask itself why. Only what.
But Western society has already decided that protecting life is just unimportant, especially if the purported life in question inhibits that which, either individually or sociologically, leads to our current variety of progress.
Our society has chosen this route. Short of a Holy Spirit meltdown, there is no limit to how far our neighbors will go to do what they think is right…today. Tomorrow…well, we’ll see how we feel tomorrow (witness the non-absolute absolutes at Friendly Christian).
I certainly agree with the Catholic commentator, but the words he uses are meaningless to those who are pursuing these things and those who call themselves Christian but even tacitly endorse those who uphold abortion precedent and the legal stratification surrounding it.
“Justifiable” is meaningless to those who pursue this and these ideas. That would involve “why”. Not just “what”.
November 15, 2007 at 10:00 am
Of course I agree with you. But….proponents of cloning will undoubtedly say that they see life as being more important than you or I do because this research may result in the eradication of tremendous suffering. How do you respond to that?
November 15, 2007 at 10:32 am
To communicate meaningfully is impossible, I think.
For instance, witness Francis Beckwith’s or Scott Klussendorf’s working through through the “when is it a person” question. I find their logic to be unassailable. But that is because of my starting point. Trying to get a person who is rejecting our beautiful Lord to start from Christ, from “in the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth”, is nearly futile.
And I know that it is not a happy subject within all of “progressive” Christianity right now, but if we don’t fight via legal means to restrain this, it will happen. It is not an issue of compromise. Either our country endorses infanticide as the law of the land, at which point those who would count themselves among the followers of Christ must fight as hard, if not harder, than civil rights activists, or there is nothing at all wrong with it. To indicate that there is some middle ground or that there are other issues (even economics..and it kills me to say so!) that are more important is to say that a country can remain righteous while indiscriminately killing its most innocent.
I don’t think that there is anything we can say to “them”. “They” (among which are many who say that they are of Christ) only believe that they can alleviate suffering by committing a much, much greater injustice. How can you reason with a person who’s moral moorings are afloat along with them, in that, driven by only existential compassion, the person sees the suffering in front of them and wants to help by employing much greater horror which is invisible to them?
The necessity of political action on the part of those who love Christ is necessary to stem this, in the immediate sense. But the long term change speaks to what I consider to be the real need of heart change and, what must be, the centrality of the non-stop presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and making of disciples. Have we all witnessed the nearly overnight moral paradigm shift by those who have repented and put their trust in Christ alone? What the beautiful Spirit does to those who finally give themselves to the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness?
In reading Robert E. Lee’s and Lincoln’s musings on the Civil War, both, independently, came to the conclusion that the unbelievable carnage of the war was God bringing judgment upon a nation who collectively, if not individually, endorsed unbelievable injustice and suffering for what was perceived as some sort of temporal economic benefit. I think we are faced with a similar crossroads in abortion and all that stratifies it and has spun off from it.
November 15, 2007 at 11:15 am
Okay, first of all I’m not BuddyO, I’m KathyO but wanted to leave feedback anyway. This whole subject of cloning and stem cell research is very scary to me. I think that we are trying to play God and that’s not a good idea. I’ve heard people say that “Well, if you had a sick child or were sick yourself, you would want a cure at any cost”. Well, guess what …I am sick with a chronic disease and though that disease may affect my body it does not affect my beliefs. I would not want a cure based on cloning or stem cell research.
November 15, 2007 at 11:17 am
And a hearty “Huzzah!” to the IncognitoO. I covet your brevity in such an issue.
November 15, 2007 at 12:07 pm
That’s what is so tough about these issues. Too many people like myself tend to speak about things that really don’t effect them personally. To hear Kathy speak out on someting like this is tremendous.
November 15, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I totally agree. The impact of a person who was or is impacted by ideas has incrediblee impact in and of itself.
And we need Kathy to testify to her perspective, since her’s is one which we don’t have.
There is a problem, though (and a groan rises from those gathered). If our reason to do or not do something is tethered to those who it impacts in that point in time, then that individual is the arbiter of truth at that point in time. I trust Kathy, but I don’t trust Michael J. Fox. Why?
Certain things have got to be presented as right and wrong independent of testimony, otherwise we fall into the same existential trap that I mentioned above, that what is important is what is in front of us.
November 15, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Good point. But who is Fox more likely to listen to; us or Kathy?
November 15, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I remember having dinner one time with a young college student. He was telling us how he thought communism was a really great idea and he even thought the idea of genocide for ‘cleansing’ purposes wasn’t a bad idea. See, all these handicap people were just a drain on society.
After letting him make his point Kathy says “so that means you think I should be executed then?”. He stuttered and stammered and didn’t know what to say. See people tend (espcially in theoretical sciences) not to realize that these social numbers and categories they speak of actually have names, and faces and families.
As for trusting MJ Fox… here’s a perspective. My wife Kathy’s point of view is that even though she might benefit from stem cell research, she would rather forgo a cure to honor God (selfless) as opposed to MJ Fox who would do whatever it takes for he and others like him to not have to suffer (selfish). I don’t mean to diminish MJF’s motives, I’m sure he means well, but my point is that it’s easier to trust someone who puts God first.
November 15, 2007 at 1:30 pm
It’s often so hard to tell who that is. Not with Kathy.
November 15, 2007 at 1:37 pm
“But who is Fox more likely to listen to; us or Kathy?”
True, Kathy, in this matter is a real 2 Cor 5 style ambassador in this and many other related matters.
No, pressure, Kathy.
November 15, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Again, Kathy, not Buddy. I would not speak of MJF’s motives as anything less than self-preservation, for both him and his family. That, in and of itself, is a tough call. Not only does a disease affect an individual but the family as well. Some would say that my position is selfish. However, I feel that the only legacy I will leave my children is how they see me respond to things such as this and most certainly and even more importantly maybe, is how I and Buddy respond to adversity. Please by no means am I a saint, just ask Buddy! But even in my weaker moments, it’s still a learning tool for my kids because they get to see a real person dealing with real emotions and getting through to the other side.
I’m sorry to make this all about me…One last comment from 2 Cor ch 12…”…I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
“My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness”
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size–abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And, so the weaker I get, the stronger I become”. (The Message)
November 15, 2007 at 2:56 pm
For those who don’t realize it, that last comment was Kathy’s.
November 15, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Michael is doing the best he can with what he has. You guys are correct to approach the possibility of mouthy me impugning his motives.
My comparison had much more to do with which worldview was centered on God and which was centered on us, and not to say that Mike is some Satainc slimeball making a huge mess. He is in and of the world. We can’t expect much more in that situation.
November 15, 2007 at 3:08 pm
And I seriously doubt where I would stand on this issue if it was my own wife, or one of my children, or even myself facing this type of challenge. I just am hesitant to guarantee how noble my actions would be under such stressful circumstances.
November 15, 2007 at 3:15 pm
oh, yer noble…
November 16, 2007 at 1:50 am
Just a thought…
It does not seem to be true that advances in science and health care has lead to societies and people within those societies living healthier…I wish they did…but we seem to be living longer, getting sicker…and generally being less the wiser.
Poetman
November 16, 2007 at 3:05 am
“I wish they did…but we seem to be living longer, getting sicker…and generally being less the wiser.”
It really is true isn’t it. These advances have led to advances in long term care insurance.
November 16, 2007 at 10:23 am
I wonder how it was in years past when great scientific discoveries and consequent advances were made? The religious/spiritual people of that time were also very “skeptical” of those advances and I would guess there was talk of “playing God”. We have for years engineered new plant species for much less noble causes, where is the outcry there? I know that engineering on the genetic level and stem cell research is on humans and not plants and that is the arguement, humans are more “important”. I don’t know if I am unbiased or not. I would love it if there could have been a cure for Parkinson’s then maybe I wouldn’t have lost my grandpa or a cure for degenerative heart disease and I may not have lost my grandma. But these reasons do seem selfish, but isn’t any reason? All sides are biased I guess in the end. The real trick is to sift through the superficial and get to the “meat of the matter”. I don’t have an issue either way and I guess am just playing the devil’s advocate.
November 16, 2007 at 11:16 am
Your right about the plants preecaman…
I was discussing this with a friend the other day. She pointed out a case where Monsanto (the maker of RoundUp as well as lots of other stuff) had genetically engineered and patented a RoundUp resistant strain of Canola. They sued a local farmer for patent infringement because half of his 1030 acres of fields were covered with the patented plants. The farmer had never purchased the seed, he claims his fields were seeded by polen from neighboring ‘corporate’ farms.
Monsanto won..
How can you claim patent rights to a plant? Is this rediculous? Just hope your neighbors patented tom cat clone doesn’t roam near your cat.
November 16, 2007 at 11:16 am
“The religious/spiritual people of that time were also very “skeptical” of those advances and I would guess there was talk of ‘playing God’.”
Preech, I know that this is a common caricature amongst those who are in opposition to Christ (I’m ont saying you, I don’t know you), but broadly speaking, your assertion is very, very untrue. A significant number, in fact pre-1800’s a vast majority, of scientific and medical endeavors were undertaken by the “religious/spiritual” people.
And you aren’t actually playing Devil’s Advocate if you aren’t advocating a position. You are advocating not having a position.
Perhaps address the substance of the implicit argument you are making in favor (or just throwing it out there without supporting it) of seeing plant life as the moral equivalent of human life. Stop eating your vegetables, for instance.
All you are doing is saying “I would love it ” which is utterly meaningless in matters of ethics and morals. The feelings of any number of people on this and thousands of other matters are, practially speaking, irrelevant. What are the civil and sociologiccal consequences of following through on your feelings?
Or, how about I make an assertion and you actually play Devil’s Advocate and take the other side and let’s see where it goes.
Propostion: A human life occurs at fertilization. To destroy a fertilized embryo is to take a life.
tag.
November 16, 2007 at 11:27 am
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November 16, 2007 at 11:43 am
Yeah, I’m reading a book right now, set in the early ’50 s. It talks about how so many of the dangerous hallucinogenic out there were developed by pharmaceutical companies at the behest of medical researchers working for the government. Psychological warfare stuff. Often these drugs were used on patients – essentially guinea pigs – who either were not told of the possible implications or were institutionalized and were allowed no say in the matter. These techniques were even questioned, citing the mandates of the Nuremburg tribunal but the experimentation was found to be legal if the subject was deemed already “unfit”. All for the “better good”.
November 16, 2007 at 11:51 am
A human life does not occur at fertilization – it begins, but has not already occurred.
November 16, 2007 at 12:11 pm
@1poet4man
“it begins, but has not already occurred.”
I say that this is a distinction without a difference. But if you see this differently, can you help me out by putting a definition on “occurred”? Would it be when we leave home? Get a job? Get buried?
@C,
I THINK I understand what you are saying but the distinction is looking retroactively at things which people did, which you and I would not have endorsed while they were occurring, or to be proactive, in that, as a society, we would be actively participating in the things.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you.
November 16, 2007 at 12:23 pm
My point is this; earlier in our history some people took it upon themselves to place varying sets of values on people’s lives, much as the young college student was doing at Buddy’s kitchen table. Even though we found this to be inexcusable on the part of the Nazis and Communists we have done so and continue to do so, using the cause of the ‘greater good’ as justification. I don’t believe this is justifiable. I think the problem we are facing with here with cloning in could be just one stop on the slippery slope towards eugenics.
November 16, 2007 at 12:39 pm
“Propostion: A human life occurs at fertilization. To destroy a fertilized embryo is to take a life.”
I think it is you who might explain “A human” and “life” as a human occurring at fertilization – and further just how is it that the destroying of a fertilized embryo is the taking of a “human life?”
November 16, 2007 at 12:41 pm
A significant number, in fact pre-1800’s a vast majority, of scientific and medical endeavors were undertaken by the “religious/spiritual” people.
Why were the “religious/spiritual” people undertaking scientic and medical endeavors? What were they hoping to find? What is different after the 1800s?
Perhaps address the substance of the implicit argument you are making in favor (or just throwing it out there without supporting it) of seeing plant life as the moral equivalent of human life. Stop eating your vegetables, for instance.
Not sure what you mean here. Please explain.
All you are doing is saying “I would love it ” which is utterly meaningless in matters of ethics and morals.
Are you saying that ethics and morals are not based on personal insights and “feelings”? If so, where do they come from. If not, please clarify.
Propostion: A human life occurs at fertilization. To destroy a fertilized embryo is to take a life.
I am not sure to what end this is going. It seems a very slippery slope indeed. If a human embryo is completely synthesized by scientists in a lab, is it a creation of God or man? When does human life “occur”? At birth? At some point along the way in pregnancy? At conception? I really don’t know. Its all a matter of definition. What is the concern then? Is it for the human being or the soul of that human being? Isn’t the body a “tent”, a temporary dwelling place for the soul, by Christian standards? What about those that don’t believe in the soul (consequently I don’t oppose Christ, the jury is still out on Christianity thought) and its eternal “life”? At what point do we find out if it is in fact murder when an embryo is destroyed. How is that research done with any clarity? Can we know without doubt when life begins? You should understand that I don’t know the answers to the questions I am posing, but because there are questions, I have doubts.
November 16, 2007 at 12:56 pm
@1Poet,
There is no other point at which a form can be determined to be a human or not human. Any functional and/or neurological point chosen as the benchmark within the womb has functional and/or neurological outside of the womb (pain, organ and organ system function, etc.). The only point in human development at which there is no equivalent state outside of the womb is fertilization. Any other marker of human life or value is either arbitrary or amorphous.
As is reflected in an undefined present tense verb like “occurring”.
Peter Singer, who holds considerable sway in our society, would say that the beautiful child in your lap in not a true person and bears no innate value. What if anything makes him wrong? Because you feel differently? Because you have put a lot of work into the child? Those are nothing but subjective issues within your experience and have no legislative or ajudicary bearing, and certainly no one should feel obligated to listen to your perspective if Dr. Singer is right.
If fertilization is not the definition of humanity, then any other point is perspectival: language, breathing, eating, when the being becomes a drain on society, these are all points which have been argued. All of them are in the eye of the beholder. There is nothing at all arbitrary about a sperm crossing cortex of an ovum.
November 16, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Christian, I get your point and agree…I am no fan of cloning…although I am unsure about stem cell research, and pardon my ignorance are they both the same…?
November 16, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Jason I do not understand your answer as being fully formed, perhaps when I get back later tonight I can read it with a fresh perspective.
Poetman
November 16, 2007 at 2:11 pm
@preech
“Why were the “religious/spiritual” people undertaking scientic and medical endeavors?”
They loved exploring his creation, as with Psalm 111. This is plainly clear in the writings of Coperrnicus, Gallileo, Newton, Descartes, etc. In fact Newton’s based the possibilities of his pursuits on the reality that there is a creator who establishes boundaries of the action and interaction of matter. He knew that God’s unchanging nature would result in consistently, observable natural laws, hence his four big equations that every first year physics student learns.
“Are you saying that ethics and morals are not based on personal insights and “feelings”? If so, where do they come from”
Preechaman, can I ask what you preach? Because, it really makes me sad that you would ask this at all. If you feel something, it is only yours. I have no obligation to feel it, empathize with it, or act on it. To say that ethics or morals are based on feelings makes the very concept of ethics meaningless, in that, there is no point better or worse than anything else, just different to different people. You may reply that there are things that are horrible and things that are not, but, if as you say, ethics and morals come from our feelings and experiences (which are unavoidably subjective), then we as people decide what is ethical and what is moral, and one man’s negative is another man’s positive. And there is no reason at all which you can give me that one person should buy into the feelings of another. For instance, you perhaps would criticize slavery. On what basis?
“If a human embryo is completely synthesized by scientists in a lab”
I have never heard unlimited scientific exploration posed as the positive side of the slippery slope. Can you explain how saying that putting the scientific pedal to the metal is not OK is a slippery slope.
As well, there is no such thing as a completely synthesized embryo. The the incredibly complicated number of hoops that scientists need to jump through in order to establish pluripotency or totipotency of an egg, that is, start the process of cell proliferation and blastulation, shows clearly that scientists are anything but in control of the synthesization of an embryo.
But if science can just make life, then your concerns about ethics and morals are only your concerns, your concerns have no larger meaning outside of you. If indeed your incorrect assertion that scientists were synthesizing life was correct, all that it means is that life is what we decide it is and what we make it. Life has no independent value in and of itself. It is only what we do that gives it value.
Which brings me back to the very sad question, what are you preaching? If God is at all involved, then your ideas regarding life, ethics, and morals and us being at the center of the determination of those things is meaningless. But if God is not involved, either in your preaching or reality, then any ethical and moral terms carry an unavoidable moral judgmentalism based on nothing more than my, or your, feelings. We can’t have our independence from God while still asserting that there are ideas that are bigger than us.
November 16, 2007 at 2:12 pm
I think that cloning can refer to different things, from the exact reproduction of one cell to the reproduction of an entire organism (as in Dolly the sheep).
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/cloning/whatiscloning/
I am concerned about where a line can be drawn. I have read of scenarios where one could clone a duplicate of ourselves, perhaps being genetically brain ‘dead’ and keep to alive for the future harvesting of body parts. Perhaps we could clone embryos for the same purpose – clinically not human because they have never been ‘born’. Science fiction ? Perhaps, but so was the idea of something like Dolly the sheep once.
November 16, 2007 at 2:24 pm
@1poet,
OK, slower.
The only observable objective point of human life is fertilization. At that point the egg bears all the genotypic characteristics which make it human. It matters not that the fetus is not fully developed, because many people walking around also are not fully developed. I doubt that you would suggest that people with disabilities were not human.
If the fetus cannot feel pain, the same problem exists for some people, in the form of an ongoing developmental disability,who are amongst us. Again, I doubt that you would say that they are not people.
If it is an issue of cardiac or pulmonary activity, there are, of course, hundreds of thousands of ICUs filled with people who’s most basic functions are being maintained in order that they would heal (read: allow the body to grow). I doubt that you would suggest that the ICUs should be closed down. I am not referring to those who are brain dead and on a ventilator. I am referring to the millions of people who have been on pressor drugs and a cardiac stimulator post-op to get them over the hump.
Any point, other than fertilization, which is established as the point of humanity is totally subjective, in that, any condition or stage of development of a baby has a commensurate condition outside of the womb. And if those who do not meet these subjective criteria in the womb are not people, then, legally, neither are those who are outside the womb.
Fertilization is the only point in any facet of human development which has no equivalent.
November 16, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Cool link, C!
I was actually in my last semester of school when that Scottish fella announced Dolly.
I remember sitting in my Developmental Bio class and my professor was extremely skepitical because of the number of amazingly innovative methods which had been tried but failed.
November 16, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Oh, and 1poet,
occurring?
November 16, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Christian,
Sorry for taking up so much space on your blog.
Jason,
I am no longer a preacher. Left ministry three years ago. Mainly because the questions that I have don’t have answers. If God is out there, why?…
November 16, 2007 at 4:41 pm
@Preech
“Left ministry three years ago. Mainly because the questions that I have don’t have answers. ”
I appreciate your integrity very ,very much. There are a lot of people fakin it. I am so sorry for your struggle, and, though it may not mean anything to you, I will pray for you regularily.
Christian loves us taking up so much space.
November 16, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Jason is right, Preach. Keep on talkin’! I love it.
November 16, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I am sorry to be a endless pit of questions. I am trying very hard to work through it all.
I used to think that cloning was a “sign” of the end of the world. I was saddened by the cloning of the sheep and thought its implications would lead to science continuing down a path of degregation and ushering in the return of Jesus, which was both exciting and frightening at the same time (mostly frightening!).
Now I don’t see cloning as a bad thing. It could lead, I suppose, to bad things, but in and of itself isn’t bad. I really think that my kids’ kids will look back on this debate and wonder what the big deal was (maybe even my own kids). Where is any science going to end up? For the better? For the worse? Who’s to know?
I will try to make less “caricatures” about what I have come to understand in my journey so far. I can only comment on things based on my life experiences. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts.
November 16, 2007 at 10:24 pm
I think you are right. Is cloning a bad thing? No more so than nuclear fission is a bad thing. They both provide some obvious benefits to mankind. We know the potential evil that splitting the atom may result in.
How can we say that any technology is bad in itself? What about guns? It’s so easy for so many people to look at guns and say that they are horrible things. But they are just things. It is the people who can be horrible.
I hope your children will be able to ask “What was the big deal?” But that is not likely to happen unless we ask more important questions now.
November 17, 2007 at 10:34 am
“I think you are right. Is cloning a bad thing? No more so than nuclear fission is a bad thing’
hahahah
warm or REALLY warm