Embryo's fate: Stakes are high in debates

		Making Sense  Out of Bioethics  Fr. Tad  Pacholczyk

The debate over embryonic stem cell research continues to escalate in our country, and remains a topic of significant public interest.

Because of this growing public interest, I am often invited to participate in public debates on stem cell research and cloning. My sparring partners are usually other scientists, politicians, or public policy experts. The debates are typically held at universities or colleges, and audiences generally have the opportunity to ask questions afterwards.

Having participated in a number of these debates over the past few years, I've been surprised by how often certain arguments are trotted out with great solemnity, as if they were obviously right and true, even though a casual observer can quickly recognize their notable flaws.

Related items this week: • Praying for life: At Planned Parenthood clinics' doorsteps • Forty Days for Life • Bishop's column -- October: Month of Rosary and respect for all life   (en Español) • Bishop Morlino --     Respect Life Month: The spirit of power, love • Pro-life events • Editorial -- Mother's womb: Help make it safe for all babies • Letter -- Support bill to protect women from coerced abortions

Obvious inadequacies

Recently I had the opportunity to debate a stem cell researcher at a gathering of physicians at the New York Academy of Medicine. Our discussion was cordial and civil, even though we clearly disagreed with each other.

Not infrequently, such discussions tend to take the form of a dispute over the relative merits of the two major categories of stem cells: adult vs. embryonic (adult stem cell research does not require the destruction of young human embryos while embryonic stem cell research generally does). I did my best to avoid letting our discussion slip into a polemic about what might work best, about efficiency, even though this was one of the key arguments used by my opponent.

He stressed how embryonic stem cells appear to have certain desirable characteristics, and may one day be able to work better than adult stem cells. If cures end up being derived from embryonic stem cells in the future, then, in effect, it must be ethical to do such research, and to destroy human embryos.

This argument in one form or another has been put forward widely by the media, and has won over many Hollywood personalities, patient advocacy groups, and Washington politicians.

A comparison

In responding to this argument during our debate, I recounted a little story from when I traveled to the Philippines to give a lecture about stem cells. It was my first time in that country, and I was struck by the contrasts I saw. On the one hand, segments of the Philippine society were doing very well. On the other, I witnessed startling poverty.

One day, as we drove along a boulevard lined with people living in hovels made out of cardboard boxes, I noticed a boy, a street child, rummaging through piles of trash for food. His clothes were dirty, and he seemed quite frail. It looked like he did this on a daily basis to survive.

As I watched him, the rhetorical thought flashed through my mind, patterned on the language of embryonic stem cell advocates: " . . . he's so small, so insignificant: what if a cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes could be developed to benefit all of suffering mankind, by promoting scientific research that depended on killing just a single little boy like him, who, after all, is living no better than an animal? He's probably just going to die anyway in his difficult circumstances . . ."

Ethics come first

After sharing this Philippine experience with my audience at the debate, I asked them a question: "Could a scientific research program like that ever be ethical?" The obvious answer to that question reminds us how ethics must always come before efficiency. Taking the lives of young humans (whether as little boys or little embryos) cannot be pronounced ethical simply because it might result in huge benefits to older, more powerful, or more wealthy humans.

The fact remains that objective moral limits constrain all areas of human endeavor, including the practice of the biological sciences. Whenever the siren-call of healing and progress is blaring in our ears, we are obliged to be particularly attentive to those absolute moral boundaries.

Mother Nature vs. human will

A second argument that comes up quite often in debates about the embryo is the so-called argument from wastage. The starting point for this argument is the medical observation that most pregnancies don't survive and are flushed from a woman's body. One well-known embryology textbook summarizes it this way: "The total loss of conceptuses from fertilization to birth is believed to be considerable, perhaps even as high as 50 percent to nearly 80 percent."

The fact that most embryos don't survive is then taken and used as a justification for destroying embryos to get stem cells. As another opponent of mine once put it during a debate at Southern Methodist University in Texas, "If Mother Nature destroys so many embryos naturally, why shouldn't we be able to as well? Why get all worked up about using frozen embryos in research, when so many early embryos die naturally from miscarriages?"

But the difference between a natural miscarriage and the intentional destruction of embryos is precisely the difference between the unfortunate case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome vs. the unconscionable case of smothering an infant with a pillow.

What Mother Nature does and what I freely choose to do as an acting person are two separate realities, not to be confused. To put it dramatically, the fact that Mother Nature sends tsunamis that claim the lives of thousands of victims doesn't somehow make it okay for me to shoot a machine gun into a crowded stadium and claim thousands of victims of my own.

The embryo debates are sure to intensify in the future, and we need to insist on careful and rationally supported arguments from all parties in the debate. Where vulnerable and defenseless human life is concerned, the stakes are much too high to allow specious and imprecise arguments to carry the day.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pa.

Celibacy: Radically new concept in Christianity

		A Culture of Life  Professor  Janet E. Smith

One of the chief features of Christ's self identity was that of a celibate bridegroom - clearly a kind of oxymoron and a concept not easy to grasp.

John Paul II speaks of Christ's commendation of celibacy as a "turning point" in Christianity. It was radically new.

Not only does Christ speak of celibacy in a way that would be scandalous to Jews, who understood marriage to be an obligation to the Jewish people to expand their tribe, St. Paul also gives lessons on celibacy, questions likely arising from the fact that Christ and his disciples were celibates and that more and more Christians were embracing a life of celibacy.

Embracing celibacy

Moreover they spoke of celibacy in challenging terms; Christ himself spoke of celibates as both eunuchs and angels, designations difficult to grasp in their own right but even more perplexing when used to describe an already perplexing phenomenon.

The passage most cited to support the vocation to celibacy is that wherein Christ stated "There are eunuchs born that way from their mother's womb, there are eunuchs made so by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can" (Mt. 19: 12).

I suspect not too many people are happy to be likened to eunuchs. We must, of course, understand what Christ meant by "eunuch" for there is good reason to believe that he did not mean what the word means in its most technical sense - the term "eunuch" generally means one who has been castrated, an individual who is a neuter or sexless in a sense.

Struggles are natural

Too many people tend to think of celibacy as such a state; one suspects that some think that when a man puts on a priestly collar or a woman "takes the veil" that all sexual desires disappear or become easily suppressed.

For celibates to struggle with sexual desires is sometimes understood as sign of some kind of moral turpitude or perversity - even by the celibate himself or herself - rather than something that is as natural to human beings as feeling hunger or fatigue; it is a product of being an embodied creature.

These feelings will arise quite spontaneously; as with all feelings it is important to deal with them morally. We must not forget that our sexuality is a positive feature of being a human creature. To deny one's sexuality is to deny something inherent in humanity.

Retain sexuality

Even psychologists have recognized the value of the sublimation of desires - that is, the moving of desires to a different level. The energy that comes from masculinity and femininity is profound - it makes us "other-directed."

At the risk of oversimplification, we might see that male celibates might well be powerfully engaged in activities that protect many goods and provide for the needy and that female celibates might well be tenderly engaged in activities that nurture the talents of others.

That celibates retain their masculinity and femininity should be abundantly obvious; there are countless examples of manly male celibates, from Joseph and Christ to our own John Paul II, and there are countless examples of the most feminine of females celibates - from Mary through Theresa of the Little Flower to Theresa Benedicta of the Cross. It is impossible to think of any of these as sexless; rather they are particularly clear manifestations of masculinity and femininity.

Prof. Janet E. Smith teaches at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. This column is licensed from J. Smith and is syndicated by www.OneMoreSoul.com