okieinexile
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All kinds of evil
By Bobby Neal Winters
In the book of 1 Timothy chapter six, Paul says, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness."
I was reminded of this while reading the editorial of the June 2004 issue of Scientific American that came in the mail this week. The title of that editorial is "Stem Cells: A Way Forward" and deals with the subject of embryonic stem cell research. What the article says in telegraphic terms is that scientists in the US are laboring under restrictions their counterparts in other countries are not, consequently, we in the US are in danger of other countries getting ahead of us in this area, and therefore we are in danger of losing billions in revenue. This danger could be eliminated, the article goes on to say, if the US adopted a set of ethical standards that would allow US scientists to go ahead and do what they believe they must in order to pursue their research in a more evenly yoked manner.
I am disturbed by this article on more than one account, but chiefly because the editors ignore completely the most damning objection to embryonic stem cell research, which is that an embryo is a human being. In essence, what the editorial states is that we could make a lot of money if we were allowed to do unfettered experiments on human beings.
I won't deny that. Cancer researchers have not been allowed to induce cancer in human subjects in order to study cancer therapies in a controlled way and have had to rely on experiments done on mice. I have no doubt these constraints have retarded research efforts by years, yet there is not an outcry from scientist for the constraints to be removed for a variety of reasons. We can more easily recognize specimens of homo sapiens beyond a certain developmental stage. Very few of had the opportunity to view a human while it is still within the womb, and admittedly it is difficult to discern species membership from just a few cells.
However, let us not forget there were scientists who, not all that long ago or all that far away, performed experiments on those they considered untermenschen. Indeed, there were those within our own country who allowed syphilis to go untreated among some black, illiterate sharecroppers just in order to learn. It is somehow easier to dehumanize those who are in someway different than one's self. The African Americans who were subjects of the Tuskegee Experiment were of a different skin color than most of the scientists studying them, those who were studied by the Nazis in the concentration camp were of a different ethnic heritage, and those who the embryonic stem cell researchers wish to study are from a different developmental stage.
The editorial is a companion to a scientific article in the same issue by Robert Lanza and Nadia Rosenthal entitled "The Stem Cell Challenge." This details many of technical issues that are confronted in embryonic stem cell research. In a sidebar to this article, Christine Soares in an echo of the editorial details the political obstacles to progress. She tells the story of Douglas A. Melton, a scientist whose two children have type-1 diabetes, a disease for which stem cell research promises hope. Melton has created 17 new embryonic stem cell lines and used private funds to do so, thereby doing an end-run around government regulations.
This raises the question that some have asked me when I voice my opposition to using embryos for research, "What if one of your children could be helped by this? Wouldn't you want to be able to use an embryo then?"
The answer to this is much simpler than those who ask the question seem do realize. Indeed yes, but the full answer is perhaps more than my interrogators bargain for. To save the life of one of my children, I would have no problem with the dismembering of adults. Indeed, if one of my children needed a heart, I wouldn't mind pulling it beating from someone's chest.
These are not abstract questions. I have friends who have type-1 diabetes. I know people who have Parkinson's disease. Stem cell research promises cures for these diseases, and experimentation on embryos promises those cures will come sooner.
The question is not the depth of emotion but rather the value of human life. One human should not, without its consent, be destroyed for the use of another.
The editorial is honest enough to put the real face on what is behind the push for embryonic stem cell research, and that face is on a green, rectangular piece of paper. There is money to be made here because no one wants to die. However, let us not lose sight of the fact that eventually we all will die regardless of the crimes science commits in service of trying to delay that inevitable end.
Let us not kid ourselves that whatever treatments the embryonic stem cell researchers produce will be cheap. The editorial itself betrays the fact that folks of ordinary means will not be able to afford such treatments without government aid. There are already more cures available at this point than our government can pay for. It does not take much imagination to see there will be a point beyond which the government will not—or cannot—pay. Those who turn a blind eye to the destruction of life because they believe the government will buy them immortality may be rewarded by seeing the lives of their wealthy neighbors extended, while they are allowed to die. Such are the fruits of the love of money.
By Bobby Neal Winters
In the book of 1 Timothy chapter six, Paul says, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness."
I was reminded of this while reading the editorial of the June 2004 issue of Scientific American that came in the mail this week. The title of that editorial is "Stem Cells: A Way Forward" and deals with the subject of embryonic stem cell research. What the article says in telegraphic terms is that scientists in the US are laboring under restrictions their counterparts in other countries are not, consequently, we in the US are in danger of other countries getting ahead of us in this area, and therefore we are in danger of losing billions in revenue. This danger could be eliminated, the article goes on to say, if the US adopted a set of ethical standards that would allow US scientists to go ahead and do what they believe they must in order to pursue their research in a more evenly yoked manner.
I am disturbed by this article on more than one account, but chiefly because the editors ignore completely the most damning objection to embryonic stem cell research, which is that an embryo is a human being. In essence, what the editorial states is that we could make a lot of money if we were allowed to do unfettered experiments on human beings.
I won't deny that. Cancer researchers have not been allowed to induce cancer in human subjects in order to study cancer therapies in a controlled way and have had to rely on experiments done on mice. I have no doubt these constraints have retarded research efforts by years, yet there is not an outcry from scientist for the constraints to be removed for a variety of reasons. We can more easily recognize specimens of homo sapiens beyond a certain developmental stage. Very few of had the opportunity to view a human while it is still within the womb, and admittedly it is difficult to discern species membership from just a few cells.
However, let us not forget there were scientists who, not all that long ago or all that far away, performed experiments on those they considered untermenschen. Indeed, there were those within our own country who allowed syphilis to go untreated among some black, illiterate sharecroppers just in order to learn. It is somehow easier to dehumanize those who are in someway different than one's self. The African Americans who were subjects of the Tuskegee Experiment were of a different skin color than most of the scientists studying them, those who were studied by the Nazis in the concentration camp were of a different ethnic heritage, and those who the embryonic stem cell researchers wish to study are from a different developmental stage.
The editorial is a companion to a scientific article in the same issue by Robert Lanza and Nadia Rosenthal entitled "The Stem Cell Challenge." This details many of technical issues that are confronted in embryonic stem cell research. In a sidebar to this article, Christine Soares in an echo of the editorial details the political obstacles to progress. She tells the story of Douglas A. Melton, a scientist whose two children have type-1 diabetes, a disease for which stem cell research promises hope. Melton has created 17 new embryonic stem cell lines and used private funds to do so, thereby doing an end-run around government regulations.
This raises the question that some have asked me when I voice my opposition to using embryos for research, "What if one of your children could be helped by this? Wouldn't you want to be able to use an embryo then?"
The answer to this is much simpler than those who ask the question seem do realize. Indeed yes, but the full answer is perhaps more than my interrogators bargain for. To save the life of one of my children, I would have no problem with the dismembering of adults. Indeed, if one of my children needed a heart, I wouldn't mind pulling it beating from someone's chest.
These are not abstract questions. I have friends who have type-1 diabetes. I know people who have Parkinson's disease. Stem cell research promises cures for these diseases, and experimentation on embryos promises those cures will come sooner.
The question is not the depth of emotion but rather the value of human life. One human should not, without its consent, be destroyed for the use of another.
The editorial is honest enough to put the real face on what is behind the push for embryonic stem cell research, and that face is on a green, rectangular piece of paper. There is money to be made here because no one wants to die. However, let us not lose sight of the fact that eventually we all will die regardless of the crimes science commits in service of trying to delay that inevitable end.
Let us not kid ourselves that whatever treatments the embryonic stem cell researchers produce will be cheap. The editorial itself betrays the fact that folks of ordinary means will not be able to afford such treatments without government aid. There are already more cures available at this point than our government can pay for. It does not take much imagination to see there will be a point beyond which the government will not—or cannot—pay. Those who turn a blind eye to the destruction of life because they believe the government will buy them immortality may be rewarded by seeing the lives of their wealthy neighbors extended, while they are allowed to die. Such are the fruits of the love of money.
