July 31, 2006

Destruction or Research: Which to Choose?

If you’re looking for a vexing issue to contemplate, take a stab at stem cell research.
President Bush’s sole veto in his nearly six years in the White House, which is quite remarkable considering the pork-laden appropriations bills that his fellow Republicans have become quite fond of during their reign, successfully blocked an effort to relax some rules about how federal funds are allowed to be spent on the research of stem cells. which might cure diseases and replace damaged cells.
It’s a complex issue fraught with moral dilemmas and dichotomies. One can become easily confused by conflicting predictions about where the research can lead us.
One side will claim that what scientists really want is a “green light” to clone embryos en masse so that they can have an unlimited supply of stem cells. This concept of what some call “fetal farming” is appalling to most Americans according to polls. Our Congressional representative, David Pence, explained his opposition to the proposal by citing polls that show more than half of the country feels that stem cell research is immoral because it sacrifices a life.
Of course, that brings the debate about when life begins into play; whether these thousands of frozen embryos that exist are yet a “person” or not.
Perhaps the most vocal supporters of stem cell research are those who have family members who are suffering from diseases or disabilities for which stem cell research holds the most promise: Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, even paralysis.
“For me and millions of Americans, the debate is not about abstractions,” wrote a columnist in USA Today whose father suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Indeed, they argue, is not this development and advance in research a God-given ability?
Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of stem cell research that we’ve come across questions the consistency in the moral argument that the research destroys life. There are more than 400,000 embryos that sit unused in fertility clinics across the nation. A number of them are routinely destroyed after a certain time. Why do those who protest their use for research NOT protest their routine destruction?
How can it be more moral to throw them out when they offer hope for saving actual, not potential, human life?
Where stem cell research will evolve and whether we eventually have “fetal farms” is certainly a concern. But from this view, it does not seem reprehensible to utilize these embryos for research instead of destroying them.
MARK MILLER

Talk about this story in our forums!