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
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Embryonic Stem Cell Research Again
Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) which involves the destruction of nascent human beings to harvest their stem cells seems to be enjoying great favor recently. California, although strapped for cash, has dedicated billions of dollars for ESCR. Four other states support ESCR. An ESCR bill in Congress has more than enough votes to pass but probably not enough to override a presidential veto. There are several reasons for the popularity of using embryos for research. People have been promised all sorts miraculous cures from these wonderful cells which have the capacity to become any kind of cell in the human body. Christopher Reeve might have walked again if more research had been done on ESCs. Hollywood celebrities and even Nancy Reagan are calling for ESCR. Senator Frist is accused of changing his mind on the subject although he had the unfortunate position of utilizing “leftover” embryos from in vitro fertilization for ESCR on his website for years.
I believe that the love affair with ESCR is based on a lack of education and an alarming lack of consistency.
Apparently people are not generally aware that there are two types of stem cell research: (1) embryonic where the stem cells are derived from embryos created by in vitro fertilization or cloning and (2) so-called adult stem cells (ASCs) where the cells are derived from such sources as the brain, bone marrow, muscle, skin, blood, various organs of the body, the placenta, and from umbilical cord blood. Research is being conducted in both types of stem cells.
The research results are not equal. Embryonic cells have yet to cure a single patient. They are difficult to maintain in culture, they are prone to developing genetic anomalies, and they have created teratomas (tumors) in 20% of the mice into which they have been injected. Persons with Parkinson’s disease who were injected with ESCs became more frenetic than they were before. Human trials employing ESCs are at best decades away. Creation of the embryos for this research would require billions of female eggs depending on the number of diseases that scientists might attempt to treat. That could be accomplished only by exploiting female providers and at astronomical expense in collecting them. If any therapies could be developed from ESCs they would still face the problem of rejection by patients of the “foreign” substance injected into them. Any therapies developed from ESCs would come at the cost of destroying existing human beings for the benefit of others and treating young humans as biological waste. Promises made by ESC researchers are fairy tales. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s emperor it has no clothes.
The research being conducted on ASCs is much brighter. No human life need be snuffed out to acquire them and therefore this research is not beset with ethical problems. ASC therapies have no rejection problem because the body would recognize it as its own DNA.
Unlike ESCs ASCs have had remarkable success in mitigating or even curing illnesses. They are easy to maintain in culture. They do not develop genetic defects. Adult cells were able to match the capacity of embryonic cells to live through more than 200 population doublings—a method of measuring the age of a population of cells. ASCs have ameliorated more than 80 diseases or conditions; cord blood cells, more than 40. ASCs are currently used in over 250 human clinical trials. ESC proponents claim that only embryonic cells are pluripotent, i.e., can become all types of human cells. Three years ago scientists began changing ASCs into all three types of cells the body produces. ESC researchers sniff that their research is not as advanced as ASC research only because their field is newer, but actually research on both types of cells date back to the 1950s. ESC researchers are not playing catch-up; they are falling further behind because, in spite of generous support in five states they have yet to advance to the stage of human trials.
If the most promising stem cell therapies use cells that can be harvested without harming human embryos, why are some scientists strongly promoting federal funding of ESCR? Rusty Benson has come to that conclusion that it is a matter of money. Mr. Benson states that “the press has largely ignored instances in which those promoting embryonic stem cell research—including prominent scientists and faculty members at prestigious universities and public research institutions—have personal stakes in private biotech companies that would benefit directly or indirectly from federal funding,”
Most private investors will not give a dime to ESCR because they do not believe that they will make a return on their investment. But federal money, if it can be acquired, comes without pesky conditions attached, like a demand that at least some progress be made by the researcher. It seems self-evident that limited research funds should go to such projects as that of prominent Harvard researcher, Dr. Denise Faustman, who has a promising therapy for type 1 diabetes but cannot proceed with testing for lack of funds. Yet the nation’s largest juvenile diabetes organization refuses to fund her but instead lobbies for ESCR. Why rob Producing Peter to pay Pie-in-the-Sky Paul? We can get all the benefits of stem cells without ripping apart human embryos. The case against ESCR is not just moral; it is also scientific.
Abortionists are also pushing ESCR. If embryos may not be treated as mere raw material for medicine it can be only because we recognize that they are living human beings and that they have a value greater than zero. If this notion were accepted, then it would be difficult to continue justifying abortion in which human development has passed far beyond the embryonic stage. If their humanity protects embryos from deliberate destruction, why would not fetuses, which are more human-appearing than embryos, be given the same respect?
Senator Frist and others like him are inconsistent when they acknowledge the humanity of the embryo and still acquiesce in its destruction for the benefit of others. To advocate ESCR while pretending to be pro-life is absurd. Frist is undermining the very thing he wants to prevent. He is also out of touch with developments in this field when he asserts that ESCs offer benefits unavailable from ASCs. Furthermore he is aiding and abetting the amoral scientists who want to achieve by gradual steps complete freedom to conduct experiments not just on doomed or unwanted embryos, but also on aborted infants, the still-warm deceased, the brain-dead, and clones.
In this matter adhere to moral law and consistency. Learn the difference between ESCR and ASCR. Oppose the former utterly and support the latter generously. Write your representatives in the Congress and Senate and insist that they oppose allocating any federal funds for destructive ESCR. There should be no national blessing on repugnant research involving the killing of human beings.
St. Mary's Church Pastor & Vicar
