What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
|
|
by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Killing Fields Revisited
Twenty-one months ago I wrote an article entitled “New Killing Fields” which concerned cloning human beings for the purpose of destroying them for their stem cells. There have been many new developments since then, at least with adult stem cells, but the debate continues about the need for human cloning to produce the stem cells necessary for regenerative medicine, to make organs useful for others, or to use as raw material for medical experiments. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are produced by taking the genetic material from some living human cell and uniting it with an egg whose nucleus has been removed and then through electrical shock inducing it to live as a new embryo, which would be a twin of the person cloned since it would have his identical DNA. Adult stem cells (ASCs) are derived from cord blood, bone marrow, and many other parts of the body.
Proponents of ESCs argue that they are more adaptable to turning into different kinds of tissue and offer more promise for research in regenerative medicine than ASCs. Actually research in ASCs is light years ahead of research in ESCs. An explosion of studies of ASCs has established that they can be converted into any kind of tissue.
Clones are just as human as the rest of the population and should have the same rights. A ninety year old man in a condominium is the continuation of the same person who started life as an embryo. So-called therapeutic cloning which means killing the clone and harvesting its stem cells is scarcely therapeutic for the clone. It is dangerous to define what is human life according to our needs and wants instead of respecting the reality that is there. In the past blacks have been defined as subhuman and so they could be bought and sold like livestock and worked like draught animals. American Indians were viewed as subhuman and almost exterminated. Blacks were used as guinea pigs in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study for which our government issued an apology. Jews were considered as less than human by Nazis and half of them were executed in death camps. If the reality of human nature can be redefined for someone’s convenience, then you are also subject to being defined as deserving of elimination. Once you validate a redefinition of humanity you cannot then count on the principle that demands respect for all human life. A watchdog that you have shot cannot protect you when you need him.
Apart from the immorality of exploiting human beings for the benefit of others use of ESCs in a widespread program of regenerative medicine is totally impractical. Suppose that 100 million people need regenerative therapy for such conditions as diabetes, Parkinson’s, heart disease, cancers, etc. In the case of the cloned sheep Dolly there was one live birth out of 277 cloned embryos. Assume that researchers could produce a successful embryo out of 100 attempts. That would mean that women of child bearing age would have to contribute 10 billion eggs. If the women demanded $1,000 per egg the costs would be astronomical. Add to this the cost of culturing the stem cells and nudging them to form specific kinds of tissue tailor-made for each patient this approach is a non-starter commercially. Realizing the problem the supporters of ESC research suggest several alternatives. (1) Induce stem cells to produce eggs. If this could be done there is no guarantee that they would not have genetic defects. (2) Create animal-human hybrids. In addition to the repulsiveness of this notion the hybrid would contain non-human DNA and could lead to rejection and disease. (3) Take ovaries from late term aborted females. This macabre solution to the egg dearth would put a premium on third trimester abortions of females. Furthermore every animal that has so far been cloned has genetic and physical defects. There is no reason to believe that the same would not be true for human clones.
Currently there are zero clinical treatments derived from ESCs. Zero, zip, zilch, nic, rien, nichts, niente, nihil, nada. No human being’s health has been improved by ESCs. There have been very few successes in animal models. They have produced to great fanfare cells that “resemble” lung cells, but nothing that can function as lung cells. They have made some patients worse. ESCs injected into Parkinson’s patients made them more frenetic than before. ESCs injected into the skull of a Chinese man developed into bone, hair, and skin rather than brain cells. Cultures are difficult to establish and maintain. There is difficulty in attaining pure cultures. There still remains the problem of immune rejection. ESCs have a high potential for tumor formation and tissue destruction. They are subject to genomic instability. Alan Trounson, Australian ESC expert, is of the opinion that cloning is now unnecessary because there are at least three or four alternatives that are more attractive already.
By contrast the future of ASCs is very bright. There are so many exciting studies underway and reported that there is not enough space to list them here. ASCs are able to generate virtually all adult tissues. They can multiply indefinitely and thus provide numbers sufficient for clinical treatment. They are a proven success in laboratory culture, in animal models of disease, and in current clinical treatments. They have a unique ability to “home in” on damaged areas. They are not conducive to tumor formation. There are no problems with transplant rejection because they possess the patient’s own DNA. Adult stem cells may become a defense against terror attacks with weapons that cause radiation. Transplantation of one’s own non-irradiated stem cells is as close to a cure for radiation sickness as we have. If we collected and stored our own stem cells this would defend against many of the consequences of exposure to radiation. ASCs may not have to be isolated, cultured, and reinjected into a patient. Stem cells injected with growth factors have already participated in repair of heart and stroke damage. ASCs have cured diabetes in mice; ameliorated Parkinson’s patients, as opposed to the deterioration brought by ESCs; and have removed the need for heart transplants in five Brazilian heart patients.
It is stupid to pursue a path that is outrageously expensive, shows little promise, and is ethically repugnant. So why pursue it? There may be a scientific hubris which maintains that things that can be done should be. There might be a desire to control evolution by manipulating human nature. Perhaps people want designer babies. Abortionists may object to anything that gives an embryo a status greater than zero because that may suggest that a fetus has value greater than zero. And they would be right.
Without actually doing the research it is not possible to know whether ESCs will have any benefit. But if ASCs can do better anything that ESCs might be capable of with less danger and expense and without ethical challenge, why would we want to find out? Currently Australia, Norway, Taiwan, Germany and perhaps soon Canada outlaw all human cloning. It is time for our nation to follow suit. Ask your Senators to support the Brownback-Landrieu bill to outlaw all human cloning.
(Printed November, 2003)
