The Stem Cell Debate is Bigger Than the Sum of its Parts
Yuval Levin, the former White House policy guy for biotechnology, and now with the Ethics and Public Policy Center (which former Senator Rick Santorum just joined), has a fine piece in today's NRO that bursts the bubble, in an entirely empirical manner, of many of the most prominent arguments advanced by those who are committed to overturning President Bush's ESCR federal funding policy. He does such a splendid job, that it clearly illustrates a sad fact about this debate I have long lamented: In this policy debate, facts simply don't matter.
Levin also argues in favor of a potential "third way" that could find a solution to our current bitter divide over biotechnology were it to be embraced by all sides. This is a bill that would fund "alternative sources" of research, intended to obtain pluripotent stem cells without embryo destruction. Last year, the plan enjoyed overwhelming support in both Houses of Congress, but failed at the last minute on a procedural vote in the House. Levin writes:"But advocates of looser funding rules will not take 'yes' for an answer. Rather than jump at the chance to promote a common-ground way forward on stem cells, they have chosen to ignore the emerging alternatives, and insist that embryo-destructive research must be funded...They would prefer a political rallying point over a scientific way forward."
Levin is right, but there is a reason for this intransigence. The ESCR/cloning debate is about much more than the state of the science, the potential for cures, and indeed, the ethics of biotechnology. These are important matters, of course. But beneath the imbroglio is a more fundamental issue: Which value system will predominate in society? Will our policies and endeavors be founded in the intrinsic value of all human life? Or, will we pursue a "quality of life" ethic, that leads to the instrumentalization of the most vulnerable human lives?
I believe this is why an issue of proper funding levels and requirements is stoking up so much emotion. There is more money available for ESCR with federal, state, and private sources than can currently be spent! It is Bush's assertion of a moral principle, expressed through his policy, that embryos have intrinsic moral worth and should not be treated as harvestable crops, which is the actual cause of all the fuss.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:33 AM
16 Comments
16 Comments:
You are right that there are fundamental issues underlying the stem cell debate, but you seem to be shy about saying what they are.
It's legal abortion that is the real polarizing issue. To say "embryos have intrinsic moral worth" is to be implicitly anti-choice, and to rank the existence of a brainless clump of cells higher than a woman's right to control her own body.
For some reason this issue is usually dodged around here rather than confronted head on. I don't know why, you're not fooling anyone capable of connecting A to B. I suppose it's consistent with the Discovery Institute's general mission of developing palatable covers for the agenda of the extreme right (see "Intelligent Design").
So, let me ask you right out, do you favor a ban on all abortion based on the "intrinsic moral worth" of embryos?
Actually, mtraven, abortion is irrelevant. Factually, it is completely irrelevant.
Why is abortion legal? Because the law refuses to force a woman to do with her body that which she does not wish to do if she has an unwanted pregnancy, e.g. gestate and give birth. But in the ESCR and cloning debates, no woman is being forced to do anything with their bodies. So, we get to the intrinsic worth of nascent human life without the issue of a woman's autonomy.
So, your accusation of a "cover" is all wet.
I don't deny that the politics of abortion get involved. Quite often is is from folk like you that want to use the stem cell debate to protect abortion rights. But pro lifers do it too. I think the issue should be decided without regard to any impact it might or might not have on abortion.
I have repeatedly stated in many forums, and to pro choicers and pro lifers alike, that I will not take a public position on abortion, other than dilation and extraction, which I consider infanticide. I am not involved in the issue. I work with pro choice and pro life advocates on the issues in which I engage. I am sometimes a bridge between both camps. The way I do that is to stay out of abortion. Besides, once that door is opened, that is all anyone wants to talk about.
"There is more money available for ESCR with federal, state, and private sources than can currently be spent!"
That sounds right since NIH ESCR funding goes unspent for lack of applicants, but it really sounds counterintuitive.
I'd love you to be a pro-life advocate, but I can see why and agree with you as to why you stay out of it... it sucks up all the oxygen and you have a harder time with half of the audience because of the anti-abortion label-probably mostly from abortion itself. If reporters know you or your group are concerned about abortion, the next day you read that your group which is concerned about 6 or 7 key issues, is labeled "anti-abortion" whether you said a word about it or not, and a lot of readers write you off without reading another word. Pro-lifers still have to go out and do battle on these other issues, but it helps if you can keep abortion out of it on all the other "life issues."
Raven, I don't know much about the Discovery Institute, but your implication that Wesley is involved in some right wing cover up has me doubled over. Wesley Smith extreme right winger? Holy Second Hand Smokes!
Wesley is a Naderite. When he was a kid he wanted to grow up to be Ralph Nader. He's written books with Nader and he's still friends with Nader. It would take a lot of prayer and fasting, and years in re-education camps to make a right winger out of someone like that.
I can sympathize with the desire to avoid the topic of abortion, as it does lead to endless variations on the same arguments, and there are other things that need to be discussed. But it's hard to see how you can avoid it if you take a line that embryos have "an inherent moral value" That puts you right in the middle of it.
As for abortion being legal -- it is for now, but I'm sure you know that there is a concerted effort to change that. Your position supports those efforts.
The Discovery Institute is mostly known for its promotion of the pseudo-scientific theory of Intelligent Design, which is a transparent attempt to introduce religion into the public schools, or as they put it "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions". It is funded in large part by Howard Ahmanson, who has ties to some of the most extreme elements of the religious right.
In this case at least, the Institute seems to function as a semi-respectable cover for the far right. I don't know or really care about Wesley's credentials as a Naderite; these days he is running with the right wing.
"To say 'embryos have intrinsic moral worth' is to be implicitly anti-choice, and to rank the existence of a brainless clump of cells higher than a woman's right to control her own body."
"Brainless"?
Mtraven, are you one of those "enlightened" folks who believes the Personhood Fairy waves her magic wand next to an embryo, and [poof!] the brain and nervous system magically appear?
Raven,
I agree it's hard to avoid the implications. I think the activists on the other life issues can leave it to the listener to make his or her conclusions on abortion, because, as you say, it's hard to talk about those other things that need to be discussed.
I guess we can call people right wingers and etc and say they are trying to impose their religion on others to discredit them. But whatever they are trying to do, it can't compare to the ramrod straight jacket imposition of the alternative by political correctness! You have to wonder how confident people and a movement are about their own beliefs when they resort to that kind of militancy and intolerance.
bmmg39: an embryo is brainless at first and eventually grows a brain and nervous system. This is not magic, it's biology. "Personhood" is a partially arbitrary social construct. Opinions differ between and within cultures as to what is required for personhood, but I would think that a minimally functioning nervous system would be a requirement.
don nelson: I don't know what sort of "militancy and intolerance" you are referring to. However, nothing on the politically-correct left compares in scariness with the goals of Christian Reconstructionism, which seeks to impose a theocratic rule that is antithetical to the values America was founded on. The Discovery Institute, despite its facade of semi-reasonableness, has close ties with this movement through its funders.
mtraven: I know the people at the DI. They are not theocrats. They don't seek to impose religous rule on America. They are very intelligent and reasonable people who happen to disagree with you. Indeed, some aren't even religious.
If you have a problem with their advocacy, criticize what they say and write--just like you do here. They have thick skin. But please, can the paranoid hysteria.
I didn't say that DI were theocrats; I said they had close ties to theocrats, and advocate soft forms of some of the hard-line positions of theocrats. I haven't heard anything to contradict that. Whether it is relevant to what goes on here is for your readers to decide.
"An embryo is brainless at first and eventually grows a brain and nervous system. This is not magic, it's biology."
Unless you believe in spontaneous generation, which doesn't actually exist, you must accept the fact that everything needed for the brain and nervous system to develop was located in the original cell. An embryo's brain is undeveloped the same way a five-year-old boy doesn't yet show hair on his arms. But neither the brain nor the hair is "added;" all is there right from the beginning and only development is to take place.
"Opinions differ between and within cultures as to what is required for personhood, but I would think that a minimally functioning nervous system would be a requirement."
--except that it isn't true, according to countless science textbooks and encyclopedia entries.
Everything needed for your brain and nervous system was present in the few milliseconds after the Big Bang, when the entire universe was a few miles across and so hot that atoms couldn't exist. So what?
You are just wrong, brain and hair are not present in the zygote, what is present is instructions for making brain and hair, in the form of DNA, together with the mechanisms for processing those instructions into development.
The idea that the whole organism is present in the zygote (or sperm) is an obsolete theory of development that hasn't been taken seriously since the development of the microscope.
As to your second point, I have no idea what you mean. Are you saying that personhood is an objective concept, or that rationality is not required for personhood? Your argument by quoting vague authority does not impress, give some specifics. To start, here's the wikipedia entry on Person, which defines it as "a self-conscious or rational being. Generally capable of reasoning, being self-conscious, and having a identity that persists through time."
"Everything needed for your brain and nervous system was present in the few milliseconds after the Big Bang, when the entire universe was a few miles across and so hot that atoms couldn't exist. So what?"
You are confusing the "beginning of life" with the "beginning of a human being's life. Things -- namely, a sperm cell from my father and an ovum from my mother -- needed to be combined in order to make me. Once that happened, though, I had everything I needed.
"You are just wrong, brain and hair are not present in the zygote, what is present is instructions for making brain and hair, in the form of DNA, together with the mechanisms for processing those instructions into development."
Ah, this looks like the "blueprint" analogy I've had so much fun refuting over the years. I've seen the embryo (or fetus) described as a "blueprint" or a "recipe." These would be valid if the blueprint developed on its own into a completed house and the recipe for Vegetarian Cabbage Soup actually turned into vegetarian cabbage soup. But they don't.
"The idea that the whole organism is present in the zygote (or sperm) is an obsolete theory of development that hasn't been taken seriously since the development of the microscope."
Again, if they're not there in the zygote stage (I never argued that they're all "in the sperm"), then you need to demonstrate when and how they are added.
"As to your second point, I have no idea what you mean. Are you saying that personhood is an objective concept, or that rationality is not required for personhood? Your argument by quoting vague authority does not impress, give some specifics. To start, here's the wikipedia entry on Person, which defines it as "a self-conscious or rational being. Generally capable of reasoning, being self-conscious, and having a identity that persists through time."
Oh? The WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA defines "embryo" as "an animal or plant in an early stage of its development." No mention of "potential" or "instructions" at all.
So you are saying there is no brain or hair in a sperm or egg, but somehow as soon as conception happens they are there? That sounds pretty magical to me.
Your arguments about development are frankly ridiculous. It's very clear and uncontroversial how organisms develop. A zygote does not have a brain in it. Brains are made out of neurons. Zygotes divide into multiple cells, these cells differentiate into different types of tissue, including neurons.
What is more controversial is what we consider a person in terms of having rights. That is not something that can be dictated by science, though science can inform the decision.
"So you are saying there is no brain or hair in a sperm or egg, but somehow as soon as conception happens they are there? That sounds pretty magical to me."
Not magical at all...it's scientific. Two entities are combined during fertilization. No such combination or addition takes place after that point; only cell division occurs.
"Your arguments about development are frankly ridiculous. It's very clear and uncontroversial how organisms develop. A zygote does not have a brain in it. Brains are made out of neurons. Zygotes divide into multiple cells, these cells differentiate into different types of tissue, including neurons."
Mtraven, it will behoove you to take a logic class. If nothing is added after the moment of fertilization, save for nutrition -- which we all still require for survival -- then that means the components for the brain and spinal column and arms and legs are there right from the onset.
"What is more controversial is what we consider a person in terms of having rights. That is not something that can be dictated by science, though science can inform the decision."
The government decides who has rights, and hasn't always done a fabulous job of it (Native Americans, slavery, the denial of women's suffrage). Once we accept the scientific fact that human embryos are human beings -- despite the evidence on this thread that it's beyond the grasp of some people -- then we can begin talking of confering rights.
Yes, "the components for the brain and spinal column and arms and legs are there right from the onset", but so what? The brain and legs THEMSELVES are not there yet.
This is becoming a profoundly stupid argument, so I will politely bow out from continuing it any further.
"Yes, 'the components for the brain and spinal column and arms and legs are there right from the onset,' but so what? The brain and legs THEMSELVES are not there yet."
The components are there; therefore nothing need be added. Again, it's like arguing that a six-year-old boy isn't a human being yet because he doesn't have facial hair yet. Of course he "has" it; it just hasn't developed yet. But it isn't added; it's there already in an undeveloped way. And so it is with the embryo.
"This is becoming a profoundly stupid argument, so I will politely bow out from continuing it any further."
Uh-huh...
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