stem cell research must be stopped
The U. S. Congress is currently taking up the question of funding the inhumane practice of destroying embryonic babies in order to acquire stem cells. It is important to have a clearly defined position complete with documentation when making contact with members of Congress, the media and others. No man or woman in public life should be allowed to skirt the question of when a human being begins, regardless of that person’s professed “pro-life” or alternative position. The following is provided for your use in the battle ahead. It is lengthy, but it is necessary; defense of life demands the best we can provide.
classic deceptions currently propagated as “facts”
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: “For some, an embryo is a fully realized human life. But the view here is that a microscopic ball of cells a week or two old is not. In addition, under the new set of rules, researchers can use only stem cells taken from embryos that were going to be discarded anyway, such as those left over after women complete treatment at in vitro fertilization clinics. None of these cells would become fetuses or children anyway. Not even all pro-lifers believe there is no difference between an embryo suspended in liquid nitrogen that will never be implanted inside a womb and what they consider an unborn child who is already in the womb.”
(Reading: “Embryo Research is Life-Affirming,” Chicago Sun-Times, 8/28/00)
INTERNATIONAL BIOETHICIST AND U.N. CONSULTANT DARRYL MACER: Proponent of abortion, eugenics and more, Macer was recently interviewed by The Lancet and when asked “Do you believe in capital punishment, said “No, one person has no right to kill a human, except perhaps if it will directly save innocent lives at that time.”
(Reading: Darryl Macer, quoted in The Lancet, 9/2/00, p. 866, available by subscription only; background information on Macer’s various positions can be found at Eubios Ethics Institute)
SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER: Senator Arlen Specter, commenting on Senate hearings: “My hope is that we might move legislation to lift the ban at a very early stage. Many people have the idea that using human embryos destroys lives. We have to disabuse them of this notion.”
(Reading: “Congress Urged to Make Stem Cell Research Easier,” Reuters, 1/12/99)
BIOETHICIST R. M. HARE: “The potential of a human embryo for developing into a person does not confer on it any right to protection. For it has no brain at all. Consequently, that which would stand to benefit by the development of this potential does not yet exist….”
(Reading: R. M. Hare, “Essays on bioethics,” Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 85)
personhood: the facts
TOPIC #1: Should all living human embryos be legally protected as the living persons they are from conception/fertilization, or should we, the American public, allow them to be destroyed for the sake of alleged “cures” for other persons or for obtaining pure scientific knowledge?
POPE JOHN PAUL II: “The legal norm in particular is called to define the juridical status of the embryo as a subject of rights, recognizing it as a biologically irrefutable fact which in itself calls for values that neither the moral nor the juridical order can ignore.
“For the same reason, I consider it my duty once again to assert these inviolable rights of the human being from his conception on behalf of all the embryos which are often subjected to freezing (cryopreservation), in many cases becoming an object of sheer experimentation or, worse, destined to programmed destruction backed by law.
“Likewise, I confirm that it is gravely illicit, because of the dignity of the human person and of his having been called to life, to use methods of procreation which the Instruction ‘Donum vitae’ has defined as unacceptable to moral doctrine.
“The illicitness of these interventions on the origin of life and on human embryos has already been stated (cf. ‘Donum Vitae,’ I, 5; I1), but it is necessary that the principles on which the same moral reflection is based be taken up at the legal level.
“I therefore appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons.
“I also call on all jurists to work so that States and international institutions will legally recognize the natural rights of the very origin of human life and will likewise defend the inalienable rights which these thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos have intrinsically acquired from the moment of fertilization.
“Government leaders themselves cannot shrirk this duty, if the value of democracy, which is rooted in recognizing the inviolable rights of every human individual, is to be safeguarded at its very origins.”
(Reading: Pope John Paul II, “To the Symposium on ‘Evangelium Vitae’ and Law,” 5/24/96, L’Osservatore Romano)
PONTIFICAL ACADEMY FOR LIFE: “From a biological standpoint, the formation and the development of the human embryo appears as a continuous, coordinated and gradual process from the time of fertilization, at which time a new human organism is constituted, endowed with the intrinsic capacity to develop by himself into a human adult. The most recent contributions of the biomedical sciences offer further valuable empirical evidence for substantiating the individuality and developmental continuity of the embryo. To speak of a pre-embryo thus is an incorrect interpretation of the biological data. … The ethical exigency of respect and care for the life and integrity of the embryo, demanded by the presence of [a] human being, is motivated by a unitary conception of man (‘Corpore et anima unus’) whose personal dignity must be recognized from the beginning of his physical existence.”
(Reading: Concluding document of the Third Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, 2/14-16/97)
MAURIZIO P. FAGGIONI, O.F.M.: “The manipulation of human embryos as well as the aberrant legislation permitting it are part of the distorted mentality which presides over many practices of artificial reproduction, in particular, in vitro fertilization. Such procedures, by violating the unbreakable connection between the expression of the incarnate love of the spouses and the transmission of life, obscure the profound meaning of human reproduction. Therefore it is not licit to produce embryos in vitro and even less to intentionally produce a surplus, thus making necessary their cryopreservation. This seems to be the only reasonable response to the question of the freezing of embryos and it is in this sense that the Holy Father has appealed to scientists. However, the unnatural way in which these embryos have been conceived and the unnatural conditions in which they currently exist cannot allow us to forget that these are created human beings, living gifts of the Divine Goodness, created in the image of the Son of God himself…
“In the case of frozen embryos we have a powerful example of the inextricable labyrinths into which scientific knowledge imprisons itself when it is placed at the service of individual interests rather than the authentic good of humanity, at the service of desire only and not reason. Faced with the gravity of these questions, questions of life and death, Christians sense more than ever the mission entrusted to them by the Lord to proclaim the Gospel of Life, and so they are-committed, together with all persons of good will, to respond with solutions to the emerging problems which, if necessary, will be daring, but which will always respect the value of the human person and his inherent rights, above all when it is a question of the rights of the weakest and the least.”
(Reading: “The Question of Frozen Embryos,” Maurizio P. Faggioni, O.F.M., L’Osservatore Romano, 8/21/96)
PROFESSOR DIANNE IRVING: When asked about stem cell research requiring the human embryonic child’s death, Ian Willmut, the scientist who “created Dolly,” told a reporter “At this stage the human embryo is very small, so small you cannot see it with your eye. It has no nervous system. It is not aware or conscious.” To which Professor Irving responds: “First we cannot see viruses, bacteria or radiation with the naked eye either, but that does not mean that therefore there are no viruses, bacteria or radiation there! Second, we see here Willmut’s erroneous definition of a human ‘person’ ONLY in terms of certain kinds of currently expressed actions or functions, rather than in terms of the nature already possessed, or kind of thing something is.
“This erroneous and academically indefensible definition of ‘person’ has ruled the bioethics agenda for too long now without rebuttal, and Willmut is obviously merely parroting their deconstructions. It is sad that such brilliant scientists cannot bring themselves to know or admit publicly the objective scientific facts involved in these issues. Surely the public trust in science and research is constantly being eroded by such nonsense, since if scientists will lie about this particular kind of research, what else will they lie about in order to get their grants and Nobel prizes?
“To be logically consistent – which any rational ‘person’ such as Willmut would want to be, right? – then he would also have to argue that even ADULT human beings with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, the emotionally disturbed, drug addicts, alcoholics, and even the short-term comatose – indeed even all of us while we were sleeping – would NOT be human ‘persons’ according to his absurd bioethics definition, and therefore all of those adult human beings could also be used in destructive experimental research as well….
“A human being is always simultaneously a human person, regardless if it is currently expressing certain functions or if the mature physical organs are already perfectly formed (indeed, the brain is not completely developed until a human being is in his early 20s) ‘Personhood’ can be demonstrated at fertilization using objective empirical evidence as the starting point for argumentation (e.g., the production of specifically human proteins and enzymes immediately at fertilization, etc – we empirically observe that carrot or frog proteins and enzymes are NOT PRODUCED – ever). No argument for delayed personhood can defend itself empirically or academically …”
(Reading: Excerpts From Professor Irving’s “Gobblyguk” series, #36, 8/30/00; the complete series of commentaries, which is ongoing, may be published at some point. Watch Communique for future excerpts.)
scientific fraud: the reality
TOPIC #2: Why is scientific fraud allowed to persist when the scientific facts are well known?
PROFESSOR DIANNE IRVING: Commenting on the 9/8/00 news report that stem cell researchers skirt federal regulations (“Stem-Cell Researchers Skirt Regs“), scientist/ethicist/philosopher Dianne Irving writes, “Just when are legislative measures going to be addressed to private research here, and enforced? Just when are these journalists, politicians, Congressmen, advocacy groups and scientists going to be held legally responsible for this blatant scientific fraud? Why aren’t these scientists and any other ‘experts’ required to take a legally binding oath to tell the obective truth before Congress and any other legislative bodies and courts, like other experts are required to do? Why has public policy been allowed to be based on such scientific fraud for so long? There has been absolutely no accountability required or demanded all along. Why not, I wonder? This scientific fraud can be applied to many other seemingly unrelated public health care experiments, and thus eventually applied to all of us – around the globe. The implied erroneous bioethics definition of ‘person’ is likewise totally academically indefensible, and already has been applied to all of us. Time to stop reducing this issue to just ‘politics,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘scribbling in crayon.’ We deserve better. Will the real scientists please stand up? Wake up and smell the coffee, America!”
(Reading: Professor Irving’s position papers on the correct science, and the conclusion on personhood that necessarily follows from it [that personhood begins whenever the human being begins – regardless of the process used] are located on the American Bioethics Advisory Commission site)
GEORGE WEIGEL: Responding to such fraudulent claims about the non-personhood of the human embryo, author/writer/lecturer George Weigel, wrote “Nothing that is human was ever anything other than human. Nothing that is not human will ever become human. Logic 101 gets us that far. But those logical truths are confirmed by biology and genetics, which make it perfectly clear that from the moment of conception, a distinctive, human identity is formed …. That personhood is a status ‘we confer’ was the argument made in the 1920s by German legal scholar Karl Binding and eminent German psychiatrist Alfred Hoche to promote the notion that the state had an obligation to rid itself of those whose lives were ‘unworthy of life’ – the radically handicapped, for instance. The notion of ‘life unworthy of life’ helped set the cultural ground for the holocaust. “
(Reading: “Stem Cells and the Logic of the Nazis,” 9/3/00, LA Times)
GEORGE F. WILL: Commenting on the “Stenberg v. Carhart” decision, Will accurately observed: “…Scant scrutiny was required given the logic the court locked itself into 27 years ago when, in ‘Roe v. Wade,’ the court, with breathtaking disregard of elemental embryology, described a fetus as ‘potential life.” (George F. Will, “An Act of Judicial Infamy,” Washington Post, 6/29/00)
EMBRYOS NOT NECESSARY: The Lancet comments: “calling [embryos] pre-embryos is sophistry” and “In just a few days a moral issue that ought to trouble even those with no religious beliefs has been taken over by scientists, by politicians and by money. The irony is that by the time the matter is resolved it may no longer be relevant. If stem cells do turn out to be a significant source of therapeutic agents they could come not from human embryos but from alternatives such as reprogrammed adult cells.”
(Reading: “Overexcitement on Embryo Stem Cells,” The Lancet, 8/26/00, p. 693)
action
ACTION: Communicate to each individual, either elected, seeking election or in the media, the actual facts in this matter. The position that is most consistent is that the research, regardless of the source of funding, must be banned. The reason: no person should be intentionally killed for the sake of another.
reflection for prayer
Conscience is not an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil. Rather there is profoundly imprinted upon it a principle of obedience vis-a-vis the objective norm which establishes and conditions the correspondence of its decisions with the commands and prohibitions which are the basis of human behavior.
-The Splendor of Truth, Section 60, Pope John Paul II, 1993
The U. S. Congress is currently taking up the question of funding the inhumane practice of destroying embryonic babies in order to acquire stem cells. It is important to have a clearly defined position complete with documentation when making contact with members of Congress, the media and others. No man or woman in public life should be allowed to skirt the question of when a human being begins, regardless of that person’s professed “pro-life” or alternative position. The following is provided for your use in the battle ahead. It is lengthy, but it is necessary; defense of life demands the best we can provide.
classic deceptions currently propagated as “facts”
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: “For some, an embryo is a fully realized human life. But the view here is that a microscopic ball of cells a week or two old is not. In addition, under the new set of rules, researchers can use only stem cells taken from embryos that were going to be discarded anyway, such as those left over after women complete treatment at in vitro fertilization clinics. None of these cells would become fetuses or children anyway. Not even all pro-lifers believe there is no difference between an embryo suspended in liquid nitrogen that will never be implanted inside a womb and what they consider an unborn child who is already in the womb.”
(Reading: “Embryo Research is Life-Affirming,” Chicago Sun-Times, 8/28/00)
INTERNATIONAL BIOETHICIST AND U.N. CONSULTANT DARRYL MACER: Proponent of abortion, eugenics and more, Macer was recently interviewed by The Lancet and when asked “Do you believe in capital punishment, said “No, one person has no right to kill a human, except perhaps if it will directly save innocent lives at that time.”
(Reading: Darryl Macer, quoted in The Lancet, 9/2/00, p. 866, available by subscription only; background information on Macer’s various positions can be found at Eubios Ethics Institute)
SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER: Senator Arlen Specter, commenting on Senate hearings: “My hope is that we might move legislation to lift the ban at a very early stage. Many people have the idea that using human embryos destroys lives. We have to disabuse them of this notion.”
(Reading: “Congress Urged to Make Stem Cell Research Easier,” Reuters, 1/12/99)
BIOETHICIST R. M. HARE: “The potential of a human embryo for developing into a person does not confer on it any right to protection. For it has no brain at all. Consequently, that which would stand to benefit by the development of this potential does not yet exist….”
(Reading: R. M. Hare, “Essays on bioethics,” Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 85)
personhood: the facts
TOPIC #1: Should all living human embryos be legally protected as the living persons they are from conception/fertilization, or should we, the American public, allow them to be destroyed for the sake of alleged “cures” for other persons or for obtaining pure scientific knowledge?
POPE JOHN PAUL II: “The legal norm in particular is called to define the juridical status of the embryo as a subject of rights, recognizing it as a biologically irrefutable fact which in itself calls for values that neither the moral nor the juridical order can ignore.
“For the same reason, I consider it my duty once again to assert these inviolable rights of the human being from his conception on behalf of all the embryos which are often subjected to freezing (cryopreservation), in many cases becoming an object of sheer experimentation or, worse, destined to programmed destruction backed by law.
“Likewise, I confirm that it is gravely illicit, because of the dignity of the human person and of his having been called to life, to use methods of procreation which the Instruction ‘Donum vitae’ has defined as unacceptable to moral doctrine.
“The illicitness of these interventions on the origin of life and on human embryos has already been stated (cf. ‘Donum Vitae,’ I, 5; I1), but it is necessary that the principles on which the same moral reflection is based be taken up at the legal level.
“I therefore appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons.
“I also call on all jurists to work so that States and international institutions will legally recognize the natural rights of the very origin of human life and will likewise defend the inalienable rights which these thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos have intrinsically acquired from the moment of fertilization.
“Government leaders themselves cannot shrirk this duty, if the value of democracy, which is rooted in recognizing the inviolable rights of every human individual, is to be safeguarded at its very origins.”
(Reading: Pope John Paul II, “To the Symposium on ‘Evangelium Vitae’ and Law,” 5/24/96, L’Osservatore Romano)
PONTIFICAL ACADEMY FOR LIFE: “From a biological standpoint, the formation and the development of the human embryo appears as a continuous, coordinated and gradual process from the time of fertilization, at which time a new human organism is constituted, endowed with the intrinsic capacity to develop by himself into a human adult. The most recent contributions of the biomedical sciences offer further valuable empirical evidence for substantiating the individuality and developmental continuity of the embryo. To speak of a pre-embryo thus is an incorrect interpretation of the biological data. … The ethical exigency of respect and care for the life and integrity of the embryo, demanded by the presence of [a] human being, is motivated by a unitary conception of man (‘Corpore et anima unus’) whose personal dignity must be recognized from the beginning of his physical existence.”
(Reading: Concluding document of the Third Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, 2/14-16/97)
MAURIZIO P. FAGGIONI, O.F.M.: “The manipulation of human embryos as well as the aberrant legislation permitting it are part of the distorted mentality which presides over many practices of artificial reproduction, in particular, in vitro fertilization. Such procedures, by violating the unbreakable connection between the expression of the incarnate love of the spouses and the transmission of life, obscure the profound meaning of human reproduction. Therefore it is not licit to produce embryos in vitro and even less to intentionally produce a surplus, thus making necessary their cryopreservation. This seems to be the only reasonable response to the question of the freezing of embryos and it is in this sense that the Holy Father has appealed to scientists. However, the unnatural way in which these embryos have been conceived and the unnatural conditions in which they currently exist cannot allow us to forget that these are created human beings, living gifts of the Divine Goodness, created in the image of the Son of God himself…
“In the case of frozen embryos we have a powerful example of the inextricable labyrinths into which scientific knowledge imprisons itself when it is placed at the service of individual interests rather than the authentic good of humanity, at the service of desire only and not reason. Faced with the gravity of these questions, questions of life and death, Christians sense more than ever the mission entrusted to them by the Lord to proclaim the Gospel of Life, and so they are-committed, together with all persons of good will, to respond with solutions to the emerging problems which, if necessary, will be daring, but which will always respect the value of the human person and his inherent rights, above all when it is a question of the rights of the weakest and the least.”
(Reading: “The Question of Frozen Embryos,” Maurizio P. Faggioni, O.F.M., L’Osservatore Romano, 8/21/96)
PROFESSOR DIANNE IRVING: When asked about stem cell research requiring the human embryonic child’s death, Ian Willmut, the scientist who “created Dolly,” told a reporter “At this stage the human embryo is very small, so small you cannot see it with your eye. It has no nervous system. It is not aware or conscious.” To which Professor Irving responds: “First we cannot see viruses, bacteria or radiation with the naked eye either, but that does not mean that therefore there are no viruses, bacteria or radiation there! Second, we see here Willmut’s erroneous definition of a human ‘person’ ONLY in terms of certain kinds of currently expressed actions or functions, rather than in terms of the nature already possessed, or kind of thing something is.
“This erroneous and academically indefensible definition of ‘person’ has ruled the bioethics agenda for too long now without rebuttal, and Willmut is obviously merely parroting their deconstructions. It is sad that such brilliant scientists cannot bring themselves to know or admit publicly the objective scientific facts involved in these issues. Surely the public trust in science and research is constantly being eroded by such nonsense, since if scientists will lie about this particular kind of research, what else will they lie about in order to get their grants and Nobel prizes?
“To be logically consistent – which any rational ‘person’ such as Willmut would want to be, right? – then he would also have to argue that even ADULT human beings with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, the emotionally disturbed, drug addicts, alcoholics, and even the short-term comatose – indeed even all of us while we were sleeping – would NOT be human ‘persons’ according to his absurd bioethics definition, and therefore all of those adult human beings could also be used in destructive experimental research as well….
“A human being is always simultaneously a human person, regardless if it is currently expressing certain functions or if the mature physical organs are already perfectly formed (indeed, the brain is not completely developed until a human being is in his early 20s) ‘Personhood’ can be demonstrated at fertilization using objective empirical evidence as the starting point for argumentation (e.g., the production of specifically human proteins and enzymes immediately at fertilization, etc – we empirically observe that carrot or frog proteins and enzymes are NOT PRODUCED – ever). No argument for delayed personhood can defend itself empirically or academically …”
(Reading: Excerpts From Professor Irving’s “Gobblyguk” series, #36, 8/30/00; the complete series of commentaries, which is ongoing, may be published at some point. Watch Communique for future excerpts.)
scientific fraud: the reality
TOPIC #2: Why is scientific fraud allowed to persist when the scientific facts are well known?
PROFESSOR DIANNE IRVING: Commenting on the 9/8/00 news report that stem cell researchers skirt federal regulations (“Stem-Cell Researchers Skirt Regs“), scientist/ethicist/philosopher Dianne Irving writes, “Just when are legislative measures going to be addressed to private research here, and enforced? Just when are these journalists, politicians, Congressmen, advocacy groups and scientists going to be held legally responsible for this blatant scientific fraud? Why aren’t these scientists and any other ‘experts’ required to take a legally binding oath to tell the obective truth before Congress and any other legislative bodies and courts, like other experts are required to do? Why has public policy been allowed to be based on such scientific fraud for so long? There has been absolutely no accountability required or demanded all along. Why not, I wonder? This scientific fraud can be applied to many other seemingly unrelated public health care experiments, and thus eventually applied to all of us – around the globe. The implied erroneous bioethics definition of ‘person’ is likewise totally academically indefensible, and already has been applied to all of us. Time to stop reducing this issue to just ‘politics,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘scribbling in crayon.’ We deserve better. Will the real scientists please stand up? Wake up and smell the coffee, America!”
(Reading: Professor Irving’s position papers on the correct science, and the conclusion on personhood that necessarily follows from it [that personhood begins whenever the human being begins – regardless of the process used] are located on the American Bioethics Advisory Commission site)
GEORGE WEIGEL: Responding to such fraudulent claims about the non-personhood of the human embryo, author/writer/lecturer George Weigel, wrote “Nothing that is human was ever anything other than human. Nothing that is not human will ever become human. Logic 101 gets us that far. But those logical truths are confirmed by biology and genetics, which make it perfectly clear that from the moment of conception, a distinctive, human identity is formed …. That personhood is a status ‘we confer’ was the argument made in the 1920s by German legal scholar Karl Binding and eminent German psychiatrist Alfred Hoche to promote the notion that the state had an obligation to rid itself of those whose lives were ‘unworthy of life’ – the radically handicapped, for instance. The notion of ‘life unworthy of life’ helped set the cultural ground for the holocaust. “
(Reading: “Stem Cells and the Logic of the Nazis,” 9/3/00, LA Times)
GEORGE F. WILL: Commenting on the “Stenberg v. Carhart” decision, Will accurately observed: “…Scant scrutiny was required given the logic the court locked itself into 27 years ago when, in ‘Roe v. Wade,’ the court, with breathtaking disregard of elemental embryology, described a fetus as ‘potential life.” (George F. Will, “An Act of Judicial Infamy,” Washington Post, 6/29/00)
EMBRYOS NOT NECESSARY: The Lancet comments: “calling [embryos] pre-embryos is sophistry” and “In just a few days a moral issue that ought to trouble even those with no religious beliefs has been taken over by scientists, by politicians and by money. The irony is that by the time the matter is resolved it may no longer be relevant. If stem cells do turn out to be a significant source of therapeutic agents they could come not from human embryos but from alternatives such as reprogrammed adult cells.”
(Reading: “Overexcitement on Embryo Stem Cells,” The Lancet, 8/26/00, p. 693)
action
ACTION: Communicate to each individual, either elected, seeking election or in the media, the actual facts in this matter. The position that is most consistent is that the research, regardless of the source of funding, must be banned. The reason: no person should be intentionally killed for the sake of another.
reflection for prayer
Conscience is not an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil. Rather there is profoundly imprinted upon it a principle of obedience vis-a-vis the objective norm which establishes and conditions the correspondence of its decisions with the commands and prohibitions which are the basis of human behavior.
-The Splendor of Truth, Section 60, Pope John Paul II, 1993