Thinking Christian

1. Mike Haubrich, FCD wrote:

   March 9, 2009 at 9:28 pm   Link

   Tom, the embryonic stem cells that are slated for study are those that are no longer viable for IVF. How do they have any sort of priority over research that can lead to saving people’s lives or making them better? These ESC’s would otherwise be disposed of. Is that somehow better?
2. Paul wrote:

   March 9, 2009 at 9:45 pm   Link

   Tom, I don’t think that anyone is claiming that science determines what our values are. What they are saying is that the application of our values, in regards to any specific issue, must proceed from a clear understanding of what the objective facts on the ground are, which science can help determine. If one understood an incorrect fact, one’s policy on an issue could very well be misguided.

   For instance, in order for one to decide whether we should limit carbon emissions, one would need to have accurate scientific opinion about the role that human carbon emissions played toward global warming. Science is not going to determine whether we should try to save the planet in the face of presumed global warming, but whether that global warming is occurring and whether human activity causes it; it’s up to us, once science presumably tells us that global warming occurs and we help cause it, to figure out what we should do about it in accordance with our values, whatever they may be.

   I also don’t get where you think the debate has been framed as science vs. anti-science. Who is clamoring for anti-science?
3. Can Society Make Ethical Decisions Without Science? wrote:

   March 9, 2009 at 11:07 pm   Link

   [...] Gilson asks the questions at Thinking Christian that make it seem like he hasn’t looked all that closely into what is done to prepare [...]
4. Tom Gilson wrote:

   March 10, 2009 at 6:54 am   Link

   These embryos were created for another purpose, yes. This other process is done with the knowledge that there will be surplus parts left over. So why not use the surplus parts?

   Why does it disturb us to see human hair warehoused at Auschwitz? The Nazis were going to to use it to make useful things. The women were dying anyway, what did they need that hair for? It was surplus.

   I don’t remember now if it was an old commercial or a comedy routine, but it had a line in it, “Parts is parts.” But treating human bodies as parts, as commodities, when there is no permission sought or received (there’s an exception in the case of organ donors), rankles the soul no matter how the parts were manufactured brought to life in the first place.

   Paul, my post was partly in reference to statements elsewhere that those of us who oppose ESCR are “anti-science,” and not letting science guide policy. With respect to having done the science to guide our decisions, I refer you to Josef Mengele and nuclear warhead testing—both of them great examples of science we decided wasn’t worth the knowledge we might have gained.
5. Ask the leadership coach » ESCR: Poor Policy Thinking - Thinking Christian wrote:

   March 10, 2009 at 11:07 am   Link

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6. Kendalf wrote:

   March 10, 2009 at 12:14 pm   Link

   @Mike Haubrich
   The argument that this research will be done mainly on “leftover” embryos is misleading, intended specifically to make ESCR seem more palatable to those who would otherwise oppose the use of unborn human life for research. The numbers simply don’t add up. I’ve written an entry addressing this argument and explaining why I believe that continuing with ESCR will inevitably lead to the creation of new embryos specifically for research and medical treatment.
   The Slippery Slope of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

   Edit: Paul wrote: “If one understood an incorrect fact, one’s policy on an issue could very well be misguided.”

   And that is my point exactly. I believe that President Obama’s policy is misguided because it is based on incorrect facts: those facts being the numbers of “leftover” embryos available for research and also the potential effectiveness of using embryonic stem cell for human treatments versus the actual effectiveness of adult stem cells, in addition to the very promising research on iPSCs reprogrammed from skin cells.
7. SteveK wrote:

   March 10, 2009 at 1:03 pm   Link

   Known truths…
   a) There are certain things you shouldn’t do even when you are able to do them.
   b) Knowledge that cannot be obtained virtuously, should not be obtained.
8. Mike Haubrich, FCD wrote:

   March 11, 2009 at 10:59 pm   Link

   Let’s go back to the nuclear issue, then and really muddy the issue. I perhaps owe my own existence to the fact that Harry Truman made the horrific decision to end the war swiftly in Japan by dropping two atomic bombs. My father was stationed in San Diego, in the Navy at the time awaiting assignment to a ship that would have taken him to war in the Pacific and perhaps as Naval support to an invasion of Japan. I honestly mourn the dead in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Because the war ended swiftly, many lives were saved over the long run. So, how do we weight that ethically?

   Josef Mengele was clearly violating ethics by taking prisoners and likely his methodology suffered because of his predispositions towards foregone conclusions on the information that he was trying to prove.

   But when it comes to the embryos used for hESC research we have another issue. A human embryo cannot develop into a human until it is implanted in the uterus. By some definitions it is not a person until it has implanted. By other religious definitions, a fetus is not a person until it is viable outside of the womb. So, there is no hard agreement as to when an embryo is a person.

   I don’t ever say that science should be the arbiter of morals, but I am trying to say that without a full understanding of the process using the tools of science any ethical decisions are faulty.

   Let’s see what may happen if the fertilized embryo is given personhood in North Dakota. What happens, then in the case of an ectopic pregnancy? The implantation in the fallopian tubes means that carrying to term, or not ending the pregnancy will kill the mother. There’s no doubt or question on it. The pregnancy must be ended or both the mother and the baby will die. But in performing the procedure, is the doctor a murderer?

   When a society tries to make these sorts of absolutes based on a moral determination that does not take into account genuine mitigating factors, then society is doing as much moral harm to its members. These sorts of things get ironed out in debates on morals and ethics.

   Obama said that such considerations should be discussed. Bush had made a sneaky half-way measure by allowing funding for research on existing lines, sort of a Pontius Pilate underhanded decision.

   But comparing stem cell researchers to Josef Mengele is as underhanded as blaming Darwin for the Nazis. The ethical decisions are far more complex than taking twins and performing surgeries without anesthesia. It is not so clear what the status of a frozen embryo should be. It is also not a slippery slope.

   The use of Adult Stem Cells for research, remember, could never have been possible without the knowledge gained by hESC research. Using the argument of your hair analogy, should we also discard that knowledge?
9. SteveK wrote:

   March 12, 2009 at 3:24 pm   Link

   Something I didn’t know regarding the Obama decision (from the Weekly Standard).

   The mainstream media–still obsessed with discrediting all things “Bush”–focused gleefully on the expected rescission of the restriction that under Bush limited federal funding to embryonic stem cell lines in existence on August 9, 2001. But opening up all existing and future embryonic stem cell lines to federal funding is not all that Obama did. While he made no mention of it in his widely covered East Room speech, a quiet press release issued on Monday stated that in addition to the above change, “Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007, which supplements the August 9, 2001, statement on human embryonic stem cell research, is revoked.”

   That opaque notice tells us absolutely nothing. But a little research makes clear why the administration was so terse: The 2007 executive order required the government to make a point of funding what are known as “alternative methods” for obtaining pluripotent stem cells. These are procedures that don’t require the destruction of embryos to derive these powerful cells, which are theoretically able to become any tissue in the body. It is this capacity that scientists say makes embryonic stem cells so valuable.

   =======

   What makes Obama’s stealth action so maddening is that he claimed to support “groundbreaking work to convert ordinary human cells into ones that resemble embryonic stem cells” in his stem-cell speech. But what he did was eradicate the very executive order that guaranteed that such science would be federally funded–an order that as far as I know nobody was lobbying to revoke.
10. Kendalf wrote:

    March 12, 2009 at 9:01 pm   Link

    Mike Haubrich wrote: “So, there is no hard agreement as to when an embryo is a person.”

    I would agree. So since there is uncertainty, how can we go forward with an action that will most certainly mean the destruction of the embryo?

    For example, a demolition crew has rigged a building with explosives. However, the crew is uncertain that everyone is out of the building. Would it be right for the foreman to say, “Well, one guy told me that everyone is out, but someone else said that there are still people in the building, but we have a schedule to keep so let’s set off the explosives anyway…”?

    “The implantation in the fallopian tubes means that carrying to term, or not ending the pregnancy will kill the mother. There’s no doubt or question on it. The pregnancy must be ended or both the mother and the baby will die. But in performing the procedure, is the doctor a murderer?”

    In that situation, the choice is between losing the unborn child or losing both mother and unborn child. Since there is no hope of saving the child, then it is completely justified for the doctor to do what is necessary to try to at least save the mother’s life. This doesn’t mean that a human life wasn’t lost; the child indeed dies, but in ending the pregnancy the doctor at least saves one life at the cost of one rather than letting two lives be lost.

    The use of Adult Stem Cells for research, remember, could never have been possible without the knowledge gained by hESC research. Using the argument of your hair analogy, should we also discard that knowledge?

    I think you meant the recent research on iPSCs rather than Adult Stem Cells? ASCs have been in use for nearly 50 years, while hESCs were first created only in 1998 by Thomson et al. At most, the knowledge for ASCs was derived from studies on animal stem cells.
11. Tom Gilson wrote:

    March 12, 2009 at 9:50 pm   Link

    Mike, you wrote,

    I don’t ever say that science should be the arbiter of morals, but I am trying to say that without a full understanding of the process using the tools of science any ethical decisions are faulty.

    What would ESCR tell us about personhood? How many years of research on stem cells do you suppose it would take before some journal could publish, saying, “We have proved empirically that embryos are/are not persons”? What scientific, empirical data are lacking for that determination? What is the research program underway to acquire that information, and is it part of ESCR research? If it’s a scientific question, and there’s a chance that we’re killing people, shouldn’t that determination be the first scientific research project?*

    Re ectopic pregnancies: killing in self-defense is considered justifiable by most, and therefore not morally culpable. Therefore the mother is not morally blameworthy for ending the pregancy, nor is the doctor who helps her. (Not that the baby would survive to term anyway, as I understand it.)

    But comparing stem cell researchers to Josef Mengele is as underhanded as blaming Darwin for the Nazis.

    I didn’t compare the researchers to Mengele. I do not think stem cell researchers are the kind of horrifically depraved persons that Mengele was, nor did I say that they are. I’m confident most of them (by far) are motivated by the desire to do good, and that the differences between us have to do with our understanding of just who or what it is they are experimenting on.

    I used Mengele to illustrate the fact that moral considerations can outweigh the possible gains to be made from scientific research. Granted that Mengele is an extreme case; extreme cases sometimes help make points more clear.

    It is also not a slippery slope.

    I love unsupported assertions, but only for their entertainment value.

    *Lest anyone misunderstand my intent here, let me assure you I do not think even Mike would think this could reasonably considered an empirical research question. If he proposes an answer to defend it as one, I’ll be pretty interested to see how he would try to do that. It’s not that kind of an issue. But supposing it were, wouldn’t it behoove us to start with that kind of research (whether the embryo is a person), rather than jumping over that straight into ESCR? The fact that nobody’s doing that can only mean that (a) they know it’s not a scientific question, which obviates Mike’s points from the start, or else (b) they don’t give a rip about it, which makes Mike’s moral case for ESCR vacuous.
12. SteveK wrote:

    March 13, 2009 at 7:19 pm   Link

    Charles Krauthammer isn’t at all pleased with Obama on this…and he’s not religious.

    I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science, and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn. I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research — a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.

    ====

    Is he so obtuse not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science? Yet, unlike President Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others not.

    ====

    Obama’s pretense that he will “restore science to its rightful place” and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand — this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically “scientific.”

    ====

    Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells, said “if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.” Obama clearly has not.
13. Charlie wrote:

    March 13, 2009 at 10:12 pm   Link

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1161085/Use-aborted-foetus-organs-transplants-urges-scientist.html
14. Kendalf wrote:

    March 14, 2009 at 2:32 am   Link

    I inadvertently got several of the more vocal members of one of the larger pro-ESCR groups in Facebook debating with me on this topic. Feel free to join in the discussion!

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