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Shadow Government
Life begins
by John A. Jackson
President Bush's recent announcement of a federal policy for funding stem cell research should focus, not settle, the debate on the issue, although ending debate was clearly the President's intent.
Bush's decision, as I understand it, is that funds should only go to research using already existing lines of cells. Bush said there are 60 such lines; the Wall Street Journal says it can only find 19, and the National Institutes of Health puts the number at 30 or so. Scientific opinion is unclear as to how severe a restriction the new policy will be on desirable medical research, but the consensus is there will be some restriction.
Human beings will die so that embryos will not be created and then destroyed.
The basis for Bush's policy is the belief that embryos embody fully human life. Research using the existing 60 or 30 or 19 cell lines derives from embryos that already have been destroyed; no more embryos would be sacrificed. Or at least they would not be sacrificed in this country, using federal funds.
Although Bush's policy does not satisfy Catholic objections to stem cell research, it was apparently suggested by Pope John Paul II, who while meeting with the President seemed to make such a distinction.
But does it make sense? If using human embryos in medical research is taking human life, why should any line be drawn between past and future killings? Murder is murder. Profiting from murder is never moral.
Bush's compromise, therefore, is no compromise at all. It would only make sense if we had just now discovered that the embryo was fully human. Although that may be true in the case of the President, moral authorities on every side of the question long ago came to their differing conclusions.
Since no one actually knows when human life begins, let me suggest a starting point different from conception, which both President and Pope apparently agree on as the beginning.
To my mind, a collection of cells can only be considered a human being if it could somehow become an independently living person.
Many, many embryos are created and lost naturally. No one to date acts toward these entities as if they were human beings. They are not baptized or mourned; they are not named. In many cases, not even the mothers know they existed.
Similarly, the excess embryos created for in vitro fertilization have no possibility whatsoever of becoming human beings, unless they are implanted in a woman's uterus.
That implanting for me is an essential part of the cells' progress toward human life; if it does not take place, there is no way the cells can be considered human.
This definition of when life begins would reopen the full range of possibilities for medical research. The risks and opportunities would not be limited to those who own the present 60 or fewer cell lines.
A friend proposes the ancient standard that human life begins when the child is presented to and accepted by the parents' clan. I would not go that far.
But I would insist that undeniably human lives -- my wife's, for example -- not be lost through an undue fondness for cellular tissue that no one in practice thinks of as a human being.
President Bush has taken a welcome and obviously deeply considered step in this important discussion. In no way, however, should his step be the last.
John A. Jackson may be reached at TomShadwell@cs.com. ER