Bioethics

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May 11, 2009

The Evil of Inflicting Life on Unwanted Children

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics
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Anne LamottAnne Lamott, a so-called “progressive” Christian, wrote an article in the LA Times concerning a response she gave to a question about abortion during a panel discussion in Washington about social justice.  She is staunchly pro-choice, and even had an abortion herself.  Listen to what he has to say about abortion:

I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion — one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) — but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

…

I am so confused about why we are still having to argue with patriarchal sentimentality about teeny weenie so-called babies — some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to send away for — when real, live, already born women, many of them desperately poor, get such short shrift from the current administration.

…

But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a crucial part of that: It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

Let me make a few observations in the way of evaluation.  In the first paragraph she made a moral distinction between the born and the unborn, and asserted that the choice of the born trumps the right to life of the unborn.  Why?  Why doesn’t the existence of the unborn life trump her right to choose?  The baby’s location?  But since when does where you are determine what you are, or what rights you are entitled to?  Maybe Lamott can explain to us how it is that being in a womb robs a human being of his/her rights.  Are there any other places humans reside in which they cease being the subject of basic rights?  How about Washington?

Based on her comments in the second paragraph, she seems to be arguing that the born have the right to decide the fate of the unborn because of differences in size.  Why?  How is size morally relevant?  Since when does your size determine one’s moral worth, and who is the subject of rights and who is not?  Does an adult female have the right to decide the fate of a 5 year old human being because she is bigger than her?  Of course not!  So why can an adult female decide the fate of a one month old human being?  Is it because it sooo small?  Well, then, exactly how big does one have to be before they are protected from being killed with impunity?  What is the exact size?  And what is it about that size that magically transforms the unborn into a morally significant subject of rights?

Lamott’s last paragraph is the most confusing.  While she says each human life is sacred (including the unborn’s), she argues that the right to an abortion is a crucial part of the fight for that sacredness.  What?!  We protect the sacredness of each human life by protecting a woman’s right to rob a tiny human being of his life?  If words mean anything at all her position is nonsensical.

Lamott’s most outrageous statement, however, is when she says we “must not inflict life on children who will be resented.”  Inflict life?  Since when is life something to be avoided?  She acts as though it is a disease.  And what’s so bad that life would not be worth living?  Having someone resent you?  There’s no doubt that being resented by anyone—yet alone your mother—would be a horrible experience, but since when do we kill people so they won’t experience potential emotional pain?  Should we kill our unborn children because someone other than the mother might resent them someday?  And how is it that something as immoral as resentment makes it a “moral necessity” that we kill unwanted children?  It seems to me that one immoral act is being used to justify another, all in the name of morality.  Such is the moral confusion of our generation, and it is being done in the name of Christianity.  God help her!

 

May 8, 2009

Peter Singer, bestiality, and infanticide

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics
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Peter SingerMarvin Olasky interviewed Princeton philosopher of bioethics, Peter Singer.  The New Yorker has called him the most influential philosopher alive.  Influence means that one’s ideas have a way of shaping other people’s ideas.  So what are Singer’s ideas you ask?  When asked about the morality of necrophilia (having sexual relations with a corpse) Singer said, “There’s no moral problem with that.”  What about bestiality?  Is it morally acceptable to have sex with animals so long as they seem willing to do so?  Singer’s answer: “I would ask, ‘What’s holding you back from a more fulfilling relationship?’ (but) it’s not wrong inherently in a moral sense.”  Translation: I must say that you’d have to be pretty desperate, but your business is your business.

When asked if it was morally acceptable for parents to conceive and give birth to a child specifically to kill him, take his organs and transplant them into their ill older children Singer answered, “It’s difficult to warm to parents who can take such a detached view, (but) they’re not doing something really wrong in itself.”  When asked if there was anything wrong with a society in which children are bred for spare parts on a massive scale he said “No.”  I have to wonder why it’s hard to warm to such parents if there is nothing wrong with their choice to treat the unborn as human junk-yards.  If their choice to harvest their children for their body parts has no more moral significance than brushing their hair, he should have no problem warming up to them.

He also affirms that it is ethically permissible to kill 1-year-olds with physical or mental disabilities, although ideally the question of infanticide would be “raised as soon as possible after birth.”  What’s so scary is that this guy is a bioethicist!  You would think a bioethicist would value human life and have some ethics.  Not Singer.  And he’s not alone.  There are other philosophers occupying liberal bioethics chairs in liberal universities that advance similar idea.

If this guy is the most influential philosopher alive, we’ve got serious problems coming our way!  What starts in the academy will end up as the common view on the street within 20 or so years.  If we don’t do our job as the church today, to combat such moral nonsense with an arsenal of good theology and good reason, we will lose the future generation.

You can read the rest of the interview at Townhall.

 

April 27, 2009

Kathy Ireland on Abortion

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics
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irelandFormer supermodel, Kathy Ireland, is a pro-life Christian.  She was recently interviewed by Fox News and gives a great defense of the pro-life position.

 

March 15, 2009

Obama Revokes Executive Order for Funding ESCR Alternatives

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics, Stem Cell Research
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In my previous post I discussed President Obama’s recent Executive Order to expand the number of embryonic stem cell lines eligible for federal funding.  It turns out that’s not all the president did.  Part of the Executive Order entailed revoking President Bush’s Executive Order 13435 (issued June 20, 2007), which made it a priority to fund research into alternative methods of obtaining pluripotent stem cells-methods that do not involve the destruction of embryos.  That policy was largely responsible for the iPS breakthrough that revolutionized the field of stem cell research.

Why would Obama revoke that Executive Order?  The most promising areas of stem cell research have been those that do not involve the destruction of embryos (adult stem cells, cord stem cells, iPS).  Why would he pull funding for the most promising areas of stem cell research, and direct those funds into the least promising area of research: ESCR?

This is ironic in light of Obama’s own stated support for “groundbreaking work to convert ordinary human cells into ones that resemble embryonic stem cells.”  It is also baffling given his own admission that to-date, ESCR has not produced therapeutic benefits.  Contrast this to research using alternative sources of stem cells, which have yielded more than 70 treatments.  It doesn’t make any sense to put all of one’s eggs in a basket that is both medically unproductive and ethically suspect, when there are other baskets that are both medically productive and ethical.  It seems Obama is being driven by an ideology that is more concerned with promoting research involving the destruction of human embryos, than he is with funding research that is yielding actual therapeutic benefits for sick Americans.  So much for putting science ahead of ideology.  If he was interested in science, he would put his money on ethical alternatives to ESCR such as iPS.

 

March 12, 2009

Expanded Federal Funding for ESCR

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics, Stem Cell Research
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On Monday March 9, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise by issuing an Executive Order to expand the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).  While the move was expected, it is baffling given the fact that recent advances in the stem cell research field have made ESCR technologically passé.  Just over a year ago scientists were able to come up with a morally benign method of obtaining the biological equivalent of ESCs, called Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS).  iPS cells have the advantage over ESCs in that they do not require the destruction of human embryos or cloning to obtain them, the process of creating them is simple and less expensive, they do not face the problem of somatic rejection when used therapeutically, and they promise a limitless supply of pluripotent stem cells (stem cells that can become any of the body’s 220 cells) for scientific research.  Given the recent technological advances in pluripotent stem cell research, deciding to invest additional money in ESCR makes as much sense as deciding to invest money to make better cassette tapes.  Obama’s Executive Order is out-of-date, and unnecessary.

On the positive side, Obama did not try to hype the potential of embryonic stem cells as have many other politicians.  He candidly admitted that “at this moment, the full promise of stem cell research remains unknown, and it should not be overstated.  But scientists believe these tiny cells may have the potential to help us understand, and possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions. … [I]f we pursue this research, maybe one day – maybe not in our lifetime, or even in our children’s lifetime – but maybe one day, others like him [Christopher Reeve] might [be cured via embryonic stem cell therapies].”

On the negative side, however, I find Obama’s reasoning to be malformed.  According to Obama,

[I]n recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering.

The dichotomy between science and morality is not a false one.  The two can conflict at times.  We can debate whether the two conflict in the case of embryonic stem cell research, but it will not do to just declare by fiat that there is no conflict.

Interestingly enough, Obama goes on to speak of his own religious moral values, and how they have affected his decision to expand the funding of ESCR.  What I would like to know is why it’s ok for Obama to make policy based on his religious values, but it was wrong for Bush to do the same?  This is a double-standard.  The fact of the matter is that in principle, there is nothing wrong with drawing on one’s religiously-informed moral values to make public policy.  Policies are based on moral considerations, and our understanding of what’s right and wrong is most often informed by our religious convictions.  In this case, however, we have two men with conflicting moral values.  Bush valued all human life – including embryonic life – whereas Obama only values post-natal life.  Bush valued all human life equally, and thus believed it would be immoral to kill one life to save another.  Obama doesn’t value all life equally, and thus thinks it a moral imperative to kill one life to save another.  Each man has a different ideology, and thus a different policy.  So enough with the talk about Bush choosing “ideology over science.”  He chose morality over science.  Obama, on the other hand, is choosing science over morality (although I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way).

 

November 18, 2008

Humans are Formed, not Constructed

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics
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Pro-life apologist extraordinaire, Scott Klusendorf, has written an excellent post today on the topic of why so many Americans have a hard time grasping the humanity and moral quality of human embryos.  In brief, it is because they see human beings as things that are constructed rather than formed.  To quote Klusendorf:

Most people think an embryo is constructed piece by piece rather than something that develops from within. Consider a car, for example. When does the car come to be? Some might say it’s when the body is welded to the frame, giving the appearance of a vehicle. Others insist there can be no car until the engine and transmission are installed, thus enabling the car to move. Others still point to the addition of wheels, without which a vehicle cannot make functional contact with the road.

But no one argues the car is there from the very beginning, as, for example, when the first two metal plates are welded together. After all, those same metal plates can be used to construct some other object like a boat or plane. Only gradually does the assemblage of random parts result in the construction of a car.

…[M]ost Americans see the fetus exactly the same way-as something that’s constructed part by part. It’s precisely this understanding…that renders pro-life arguments absurd to so many people. As they see it, embryos are no more human beings in early stages of their construction than metal plates are cars in the early stages of theirs.

…

[T]he construction analogy is deeply flawed. Embryos aren’t constructed piece by piece from the outside; they develop themselves from within. That is to say, they do something no constructed thing could ever do: They direct their own internal growth and maturation-and this entails continuity of being. Unlike cars, developing embryos have no outside builder. They’re all there just as soon as growth begins from within. In short, living organisms define and form themselves.

Unlike cars, then, human embryos are human from the onset of development, not at the terminus of development (or any other point along the way).  In fact, if they weren’t human at the beginning, they could not develop themselves in a human fashion throughout the process.  I think this distinction between construction and development is a powerful and important point to incorporate into our pro-life apologetic.

 

November 12, 2008

Abortion: The True Nature of the Debate

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics
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Many argue for abortion on the grounds that no one knows when life begins.  Unfortunately this is patently false.  We do know when life begins (even if we didn’t, this is good grounds for outlawing abortion, not permitting it).  Embryologists are clear in their affirmation that a new human being comes into being at fertilization.  That’s why informed pro-abortion apologists do not argue for abortion in this way.  Instead, they argue that pre-born human beings are not of equal worth to those of us on this side of the womb, because they are developmentally inferior to us (the emphasis is usually placed on their psychological inferiority).  The real debate over abortion, then, is whether we should consider unborn human beings to be of equal moral worth to human beings who have been born.  The renowned bioethicist and legal scholar, Robert George, conveyed this beautifully in a recent article of his:

When we debate questions of abortion, assisted reproductive technologies, human embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, we are not really disagreeing about whether human embryos are human beings. The scientific evidence is simply too overwhelming for there to be any real debate on this point. What is at issue in these debates is the question of whether we ought to respect and defend human beings in the earliest stages of their lives. In other words, the question is not about scientific facts; it is about the nature of human dignity and the equality of human beings.

On one side are those who believe that human beings have dignity and rights by virtue of their humanity. They believe that all human beings, irrespective not only of race, ethnicity, and sex, but also irrespective of age, size, and stage of development, are equal in fundamental worth and dignity. The right to life is a human right – therefore all human beings, from the point at which they come into being (conception) to the point at which they cease to be (death), possess it.

On the other side are those who believe that those human beings who have worth and dignity have them in virtue of having achieved a certain level of development. They deny that all human beings have worth and dignity and hold that a distinction should be drawn between those human beings who have achieved the status of “personhood” and those (such as embryos, fetuses, and, according to some, infants and severely retarded or demented individuals) whose status is that of human non-persons.

 

November 6, 2008

Important Election Results

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics, Euthanasia, Politics, Same-sex Marriage, Stem Cell Research
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Election results did not favor the pro-life cause, but they did favor the traditional marriage cause.  Here is a brief survey of the most important issues:

Abortion

California’s Prop 4 sought to require parental notification prior to a minor receiving an abortion.  It was defeated (52% to 48%).

Colorado’s Colorado Definition of Person Initiative of 2008 (aka Amendment 48) sought to define all human beings from the moment of fertilization as “persons.”  It was defeated (73% to 27%).

Obama was elected President of the United States.  If he does what he says he will do given the chance, he will repeal virtually every restriction on abortion (including partial birth abortion), will repeal the ban on using federal tax dollars to fund abortion, will repeal the ban on funding abortions outside the U.S., and will nominate liberal justices to the Supreme Court (ensuring that Roe v Wade will not be overturned for at least another 20-30 years).  This is probably the greatest setback to the pro-life cause since the Supreme Court re-affirmed Roe in 1992 (Planned Parenthood v Casey).  Not only does he stand

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Michigan passed a constitutional amendment authorizing the use of “leftover” embryos for stem cell research by a margin of 53% to 47%.

Assisted Suicide

The voters in Washington passed Washington Initiative 1000, a bill legalizing assisted suicide.  It passed with a 59% to 41% margin.  Washington is now the second state to pass such a law (Oregon is the other).

Same-Sex Marriage

Voters in California, Arizona and Florida approved constitutional amendments defining marriage only as the union of a man and woman.

California’s Prop 8 passed 52% to 48%
Arizona’s Prop 102 passed 56% to 44%
Florida’s Amendment 2 passed 62% to 38%

California’s win was particularly important, because the state Supreme Court had just forced same-sex marriage on the state by judicial fiat earlier this year.  California is the first state to rescind the right to same-sex marriage once it has been created by a judiciary.

 

October 27, 2008

Abortion Restrictions Reduce Abortions

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics
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If anyone doubts this, see this piece in Public Discourse from The Witherspoon Institute (Princeton).

Some pro-lifers are arguing that the US Supreme Court is highly unlikely to overturn Roe, and thus we need to quit basing our vote largely on a candidate’s position on abortion.  Even if I agreed with this assessment of the future of Roe (I don’t), it does not follow that a politician’s position on abortion is irrelevant.  As the article makes clear, pro-life politicians who have passed laws restricting abortion are largely responsible for the declining abortion rates in this country.  Does anyone think pro-abortion politicians would have passed such restrictions?  Does anyone think that if pro-abortion politicians dominate public offices, they will not seek to undo those restrictions, and hence increase the number of abortions?  You betcha!

We have a choice between Obama and McCain for president.  Even if I granted that McCain will not appoint strict constructionists to the bench (as some say), or that those he appointed would not overturn Roe because of stare decisis, the fact remains that there would be fewer legal abortions under a McCain presidency than under an Obama presidency.  Each candidates’ position on abortion is relevant!  Obama has vowed to sign the Freedom of Choice Act if he becomes president. What would that do? It would repeal every restriction on abortion in every state in the union, including partial birth abortion.  He would also repeal the Hyde amendment which prevents the government from spending tax dollars to fund elective abortions.  A vote for Obama, then, is not equal to a vote for McCain.  The fact of the matter is that a vote for Obama will result in more dead babies than a vote for McCain, wholly apart from the future fate of Roe.

 

October 20, 2008

All-or-Nothing for South Dakota Right to Life

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics
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Two years ago I reported on the outcome of South Dakota’s attempt to ban all abortions that were not necessary to save the life of the mother.  The initiative was narrowly defeated (56% no; 44% yes).  Polls indicated that a majority of voters would have supported the initiative if it included an exception for rape and incest as well.  I wrote back then, that while I agreed with the initiative as written, tactically and practically speaking, SD would have been better off to include the exceptions for rape and incest. 

Why?  Is it because I believe children conceived by rape and incest do not deserve the protection of the law?  No.  They do.  It’s because to date, we have not been able to persuade a majority of our fellow citizens that the circumstances surrounding conception make no moral difference to the question of abortion.  But many people, including those in South Dakota, recognize that abortion should be outlawed in all other circumstances.  So why not write an initiative that outlaws the abortions that a majority of people agree should be outlawed, and then work on outlawing the rest later?  Considering the fact that less than 1% of abortions are due to rape or incest (for 2006, only 0.004% of abortions in SD were due to rape/incest), such a bill would save 99% of babies currently being aborted. 

It just so happens that SD has an initiative on the November ballot similar to the 2006 version, but adding exceptions for rape and incest.  In a perfect world I would not support such a bill, but in an imperfect world I would-and I think all pro-lifers should.  But not all pro-life groups see it this way.  South Dakota Right to Life does not support the initiative because of the rape/incest exceptions.  For them, it’s all-or-nothing.  Since this bill does not go for a complete ban on abortion, they do not support it. 

I think this approach is wrong-headed.  It makes a statement, but does not effect change.  An incremental approach to outlawing abortion is better than an all-or-nothing approach, because an incremental approach has the effect of preventing a lot of abortions, whereas the all-or-nothing approach has proven to prevent none!  If we are truly pro-life, we should support any bill that has the effect of saving babies.  It is morally indefensible to vote against a bill that would save 99% of aborted babies from abortion, just because less than 1% will not be protected by the bill. 

While I do not doubt the sincerity of those who oppose incremental legislation like the one SD is proposing, I do doubt their wisdom.  They seem more interested in making a moral statement than they do with making a moral difference in our world.  This is morally irresponsible.  Being pro-life is not a position.  It is a goal, and to get to that goal we have to chip away at the culture of death bit-by-bit, just like William Wilberforce did to slavery in England.  We should not be opposed to steps that are taken in the right direction, just because they do not take us to the destination we see as ideal.

But isn’t this about conscience?  Some will argue that their conscience will not allow them to vote for a bill that would explicitly allow the abortion of some babies.  I do not doubt that this is true, but I do doubt that such a person has a properly informed conscience.  After all, if one’s conscience commends them for voting no on a bill that could have saved thousands upon thousands of innocent babies from medical execution, on the basis that they stood up for the right principle, something is seriously wrong with their conscience.  Yes, they stood up for the ideal principle, but they did not advance life when they had the chance to do so.  A properly informed conscience would condemn such an act as an abandonment of the very people we say we want to save.  Allowing thousands to die when we have the chance to stop it is hardly pro-life.

 

October 14, 2008

Robert George on Obama and Abortion

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics
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Robert George has an excellent article discussing Obama’s abortion extremism.  For those of you not familiar with George, he is a top-notch legal scholar and bioethicist.  He teaches jurisprudence at Princeton University, and is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.

 

September 24, 2008

Euthanasia will not stay limited to the suffering terminally ill

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics, Euthanasia
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Euthanasia advocates begin their advocacy by assuring us suicide will only be permitted for the terminally ill who are suffering great pain.  That’s what they say.  But it’s not long after suicide is legalized that those same advocates push for expanding suicide to the non-terminally ill, and expand the definition of suffering to include emotional suffering.  We’ve seen this kind of thing in Belgium and the Netherlands.  In fact, in those two countries we’ve seen euthanasia expand from a voluntary choice, to non-voluntary, and even involuntary.  

England is pushing for Euthanasia.  Ironically, one of their leading bioethicists is being honest about what circumstances she thinks euthanasia should be legal in before “basic” euthanasia is legalized.  During a recent interview for the October 2008 edition of Life & Work-a Church of Scotland publication-Baroness Mary Warnock made the following assertions about the duty to die: “If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service.”  She is very clear that the right and duty to die is not tied to insufferable pain: “I’m absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there’s a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they’re a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die.”[1] 

Don’t buy into the “it will only be limited to the terminally ill and suffering” polemic.  It’s not true. 

 

HT: Al Mohler

[1]“A Duty to Die?” in Life and Work, October 2008; available from www.churchofscotland.org.uk.

 

August 27, 2008

Bias?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics, Stem Cell Research
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In my former post, I liked to an article by Rob Stein of the Washington Post.  While the article was well-written, and very informative, I was troubled by one line in particular.  Richard Doerflinger, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been a prominent feature in the stem cell debates.  He is critical of embryonic stem cell research, but supportive of adult stem cell research.  Here is how Stein prefaced Doerflinger’s response to the news of this breakthrough: “Even the harshest critics of embryonic stem cell research hailed the development as a major, welcome development.”  He then goes on to quote Doerflinger. 

It seems to me that Stein’s emphasis is entirely misplaced given the subject at hand.  Embryonic stem cell research was not the topic at hand, so why bring up Doerflinger’s position on that research?  How is it relevant?  

Furthermore, by prefacing Doerflinger’s quote by saying “even the harshest critics…”, it conveys the idea that Doerflinger would normally be opposed to something like this, but even he thinks it’s great.  The fact of the matter is that Doerflinger is a strong proponent of the very kind of research Stein was writing about.  A more proper and fitting preface would have been, “The strongest proponents of adult stem cell research could not have been more pleased with this breakthrough.  As Richard Doerflinger has said….”  

The fact that his comments were prefaced with a negative tone, related to a different topic, makes me think Stein might have a bias against those who oppose embryonic stem cell research–a bias so strong, that he cannot help but to express it, even in an article that celebrates the success of the very kind of research his ideological opponents have championed.  

Or maybe it was his way of trying to tie this breakthrough into the larger debate over embryonic vs. adult stem cells.  I don’t know, but either way, he seemed to poison the well before letting Doerflinger have his say, and it wasn’t fair.  After all, he never prefaced the comments of embryonic stem cell supporters with, “Even those most critical of the ultimate value of adult stem cell research hailed the breakthrough as a welcome development.”  What else are we to conclude? 

I emailed Mr. Stein these questions.  We’ll see if he responds.

 

August 27, 2008

Adult Stem Cells Repgrogrammed in vivo

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Bioethics, Stem Cell Research
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In a major breakthrough, Harvard scientists have been able to reprogram adult pancreatic stem cells into beta cells capable of producing insulin, simply by flipping three genetic switches.  That is cool enough in itself, but the real kicker is that they did this in vivo.  

Last year it was shown that an adult stem cell could be reverted back to an embryonic-like state (induced pluripontent stem cells).  But this process is one that takes place in vitro.  Not only do the stem cells need to be removed from the body, but then they need to be reverted to an embryonic state, then coaxed into differentiating into the desired cell type, and finally be placed back in the body for therapeutic purposes.  The Harvard team skipped all but the third step.  They have shown that adult stem cells can be transformed into other types of cells without being removed from the body, and without having to be retovertered into embryonic form.  Not only does this make for a less invasive procedure, but it would also avoid the current problem facing embryonic and embryonic-like stem cells: tumor formation.  

While this is definitely a big breakthrough, only time will tell whether it can be safely used in humans, and how many conditions can be treated with this procedure.  One thing seems certain, however: this is just one more nail in the coffin for embryonic stem cell research.  It is becoming both impractical, and irrelevant.

 

August 25, 2008

Abortion Should be A Right Even if the Unborn are Human Beings

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Bioethics, Politics
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This is how Nancy Pelosi answered Tom Brokaw’s question about when life begins: “I would say that as an ardent practicing Catholic this is an issue that I have studied for a long time, and what I know is over the centuries the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition. And St. Augustine said three months. We don’t know. The point is it that it shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to chose.”

Does she really mean to say that if we did know when life begins (which we do), and it turns out life begins prior to the time abortions are allowed, that this should not impact a woman’s right to have an abortion?  Is Pelosi so pro-abortion, that even in when the evidence is clear that what is being aborted is a living human being, that the right to an abortion trumps the life guaranteed to that human being in the Constitution?  Talk about a radical position!

HT: Justin Taylor

 

May 30, 2008

Halfway to Euthanasia in CA?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Euthanasia
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Not good. An underhanded attempt to legalize euthanasia in CA has passed the House, and now goes to the Senate where it will probably be approved as well. The governor is likely to sign the bill.

Essentially the bill requires that doctors advise terminally ill patients with a life expectancy of one year or less, how they can be placed into a drug-induced coma and then dehydrated to death. If a physician is unwilling to advise their patient of this option, they must refer them to a physician who will. Go here for more details.

This is a half-step towards assisted suicide or euthanasia in this state.

 

May 15, 2008

How could anyone look at this photo and deny it’s time to cut the abortion limit?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics
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British journalist, Amanda Platell, wrote an article titled “How could anyone look at this photo and deny it’s time to cut the abortion limit?” She is referring to the picture of Amillia Taylor, pictured above.

Amillia was born in October 2006 at 21 weeks gestation, measuring a mere nine inches long. As you can see in the picture, for the most part Amillia looks like a newborn baby. And yet in England Amillia could have been aborted the same day this photo was taken. Current abortion law allows for babies to be aborted up to 24 weeks. Ms. Platell, who is not pro-life, is arguing that the legal limit should be reduced to 20 weeks, as proposed in a bill being considered right now by the British government. After all, she asks, how can anyone look at Amillia and argue that it is ok to kill her? Good question.

Ms. Platell argues her case in the following manner:

Each year in this country, we still legally abort 2,300 babies between 20 and 24 weeks. A foetus aborted at 20 weeks is given a lethal injection into the baby’s heart through the mother’s abdominal wall. It is then either born stillborn or dismembered and removed limb by limb. Let me repeat that. A fatal injection into the heart is given despite overwhelming evidence now even from pro-abortion campaigners like the distinguished Professor Sunny Anand of the University of Arkansas that foetuses feel pain at 18 weeks’ gestation.

…

I’ve seen Professor Anand talk, I’ve looked at his research. He’s not some raving pro-lifer with an axe to grind. He believes in abortion. He has carried out countless numbers of them during his career, yet he believes the medical evidence of foetal pain is now sufficient for a reduction in the legal limit to well below 24 weeks.

I’ve also seen in detail the high-resolution, 3D ultrasound images pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell, where a foetus is clearly smiling and yawning at 20 weeks. It’s this kind of evidence that has shifted the mood in this country about abortion. Public opinion is changing, and changing fast. It is led in part by the medical profession. … Doctors are only too well aware of the moral dilemma of being told to fight to save a premature baby in one ward of a hospital – and end the life of another down the corridor.

As a pro-lifer, I could not agree more, and yet I could not help to wonder why, given these reasons, she is only advocating for a legal reduction from 24 to 20 weeks, rather than the elimination of abortion altogether. So I asked her by submitting a comment to the comments section. I wrote:

I agree with much of what you have said, but I can’t understand why you stop at 20 weeks. What is so different about the unborn at 19 weeks, or 15 weeks, or 3 weeks that would justify abortion? Is it because they can’t survive outside the womb? Why is this significant? Several years ago Amillia Taylor couldn’t have survived either. She only survived because of advances in medical technology. Can advances in technology transform babies like her from non-valuable things that can be killed at will, to valuable persons like you and me that should be protected by the law? Can medical technology change what the unborn is?

And what if future medical technology allows babies to survive outside the womb at 5 weeks? Would you support lowering the abortion limit to 5 weeks? Or what if artificial wombs become a reality in the next decade as some predict? All unborn babies would be able to survive outside the mother’s womb. Would you support outlawing abortion altogether? Clearly the ability to survive outside the womb cannot be what makes abortion right or wrong.

Maybe it’s the fact that they don’t feel pain. Would the Holocaust have been any less evil if Hitler found a way to kill the Jews without them experiencing pain? No, so why is it different for the unborn? Clearly the ability to feel pain is not what makes abortion right or wrong.

Maybe the difference is that it looks less human prior to 20 weeks. But is this morally significant? Does the way one looks give them value? Are disfigured and dismembered adults less human than you and I because they don’t look like us? Besides, the unborn do look like every one of us, when we were the same age they are. Our appearance changes throughout our life, but our value remains the same. Clearly appearance is not what makes abortion right or wrong.

What makes abortion right or wrong is the kind of thing the unborn is. If it is a human being, then no justification for abortion is adequate. But if it is not a human being, then no justification is necessary. There should be no limits on abortion at all. Choice should reign supreme. After all, if the unborn is not a human being, why set a limit on when it can be killed? We don’t set limits for when people can get their teeth pulled. The only reason it makes sense to establish time limits for abortion is because we understand that the unborn is not like a tooth. It is a morally significant being like us. But if that is the case, again, no justification for abortion is adequate.

My comments were not even published, so I highly doubt I will ever receive a response from Ms. Platell, but these questions need to be answered, not just by her, but by all those like her who make similar arguments. I am glad she is fighting to save the lives of 2300 babies a year, but I hope she’ll extend her logic even further to save thousands more.

 

May 9, 2008

Ignorance About Life = Government Neutrality re: Abortion?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Politics
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When the topic of abortion comes up, invariably the question of when life begins is put forth. And invariably, someone will claim that no one knows when life begins (most often, but not always, this will be the person supporting abortion rights). And invariably, they will use this “fact” as the basis on which to argue that the decision to abort or not abort is a personal decision that government should not meddle in.

This logic has always struck me as odd. It seems to me that ignorance of when a human life begins is the best reason not to abort the unborn, and the best reason for government to step in and put a moratorium on the procedure until the question is finally and fully answered. But that is not what I want to focus on here. I want to focus on a quick tactical response to the assertion that ignorance regarding when life begins requires the government not to interfere with a woman’s choice to abort.

We might respond to this assertion by asking, “Does that mean that if it could be determined when life begins, and we discover that it begins at conception, you would agree that government should interfere in the choice of others to abort their babies?” If they say no, then it exposes their argument as a front. They think women should have the legal right to choose an abortion even if the unborn is a human being.

If they say yes, then point out to them that the question of when life begins has been settled for decades. A new, distinct human life begins at conception. Offer proof, such as quotes from standard texts on embryology. If they truly think the right to abortion free from government interference is justified on the basis of ignorance about when life begins, they should change their mind on the matter upon confirming the evidence. If they persist in their pro-abortion anti-government-involvement stance, chances are their argument was just a front for a deeply held belief/desire they have no intention of giving up. They are pro-abortion for reasons other than what they stated: emotional and preferential, rather than rational. In my own personal experience I have found that most pro-abortion advocates will maintain their belief in abortion rights, even when all of their rational arguments have been demonstrated to be fallacious or mistaken. But even with these people, at least the question serves to get to the heart of the matter, and expose their true commitments for what they are.

 

May 5, 2008

Don’t Hold Your Breath: It’s Doubtful the Supreme Court Will Outlaw Abortion

Posted by Jason Dulle under Abortion, Apologetics, Politics
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In a recent 60 minutes interview, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia shared his thoughts on abortion. In response to a question about how his Catholicism affects his judicial decisions, Scalia said:

“I’m a law-and-order guy. I mean, I confess I’m a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases. On the abortion thing for example, if indeed I were, you know, trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion. … There’s nothing there. They did not write about that.”

A little later he continued in the same vein:

“My job is to interpret the Constitution accurately. And indeed, there are anti-abortion people who think that the constitution requires a state to prohibit abortion. They say that the Equal Protection Clause requires that you treat a helpless human being that’s still in the womb the way you treat other human beings. I think that’s wrong. I think when the Constitution says that persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws, I think it clearly means walking-around persons. You don’t count pregnant women twice.”

I’m not so sure I agree with Scalia’s hyper-originalism here (I think a good case can be made that abortion is unconstitutional), but pro-life advocates need to take notice of what he said. Some pro-life supporters are not only hoping for Roe v Wade to be overturned by the Supreme Court in the near future, but they are hoping the Supreme Court will completely reverse itself, and declare that the Constitution protects the life of the unborn as well as the born. This would invalidate all democratically instituted abortion laws, just as Roe invalidated all democratically instituted anti-abortion laws. Scalia is one of the most conservative judges on the Supreme Court. If he does not think abortion is unconstitutional, there is virtually no chance the Supreme Court will ever decide as much in our lifetime, if ever. At best the Supreme Court will overturn Roe, returning the issue of abortion back to the states, and giving us the opportunity to persuade our fellow citizens to outlaw abortion in our state, in every state across the nation.

 

February 20, 2008

The Futility of Futile Care Theory

Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Euthanasia
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Futile care theory is something going on in many parts of the world, including the United States. The essence of futile care theory is that doctors have the right to cut off, or withhold wanted medical care to the cognitively impaired, based on a personal value judgment that their life is not worth preserving, because their life is not worth living.

While I find this practice unethical, those in support of futile care theory make a persuasive case that can beguile the public. Consider bioethicist Arthur Schafer. In the Winnepeg Free Press he wrote:

Inevitably, doctors are the gatekeepers for patient access to medical resources. You can’t obtain restricted medicines unless a doctor is willing to write a prescription; you can’t gain admission to hospital unless a doctor decides that you will benefit thereby. There is a scarcity of intensive care beds; so, to admit or keep patients in the ICU who cannot benefit is to rob others who could benefit. Put simply, one person’s provision is another person’s deprivation. It’s unethical to waste scarce life-saving resources.


If a patient will never again know who or where he is, as appears to be the case for Golobchuk [a Canadian man who is the subject of a legal battle because doctors want to deprive him of medical care], then to artificially prolong his breathing seems at best a waste of precious ICU resources and at worst a cruel ordeal for the patient. Doctors and nurses are not simply technicians providing marketplace services to customers. They are health-care professionals who are bound by the ethical obligation “first of all, do no harm.” When a patient has irreversibly lost self-awareness, then using medical high technology in a vain attempt to resist death is often experienced by doctors and nurses as both unprofessional and deeply demoralizing. Physician integrity includes the right, even the duty, to say “no” when treatments offer no genuine benefit to the patient.


Schafer’s argument is very utilitarian and pragmatic, and this appeals to Westerners (who are very utilitarian and pragmatic). So what is wrong with it? Wesley Smith, a lawyer and long-time advocate against euthanasia and futile care points out the flaws:


Forget for the moment the many times doctors have been wrong about people never regaining consciousness. Schafer is the one de-professionalizing medicine. A plumber can refuse to unclog a pipe, but a doctor has no right to abandon his or her patient. Moreover, Schafer wants doctors to impose their value judgments–as instructed in continuing education clases by bioethicists like Schafer–that the burden of treatment isn’t worth the benefit of continuing to live. But that isn’t a medical judgment, it is a value judgment that we have always been told resides with the patient and family. Moreover, the treatment isn’t being stopped because it doesn’t or might not work but because it does or will–and hence it is not really a “vain attempt to resist death,” but a potentially successful one. And thus it is really the patient who has been declared futile.


Schafer says that staying alive when that is what the patient wants offers no genuine benefit to the patient. He only has the right to make that claim for himself, not for Mr. Golobchuck, you, me, or anyone else. You are watching the redefining of the ultimate purpose of medicine before your very eyes. It isn’t keeping patients alive who want to live, it is treating those who can be cured and reserving the right to refuse service to those who probably won’t improve.


This is what socialized medicine–and its’ private equivalent the HMO–creates. Medical futility is health care rationing that pits one cadre of patients against others, leading to division and discord. It is the end of trust in medicine because if you are too sick or profoundly disabled, medicine wants little to do with you.


Finally, if Futile Care Theory prevails, what in the world makes anyone think that the forced removal of people from wanted treatment will stop at the ICU? People who only need feeding tubes will soon be dehydrated (if they are not lethally injected first), and care will be rationed based on other criteria. For example, as reported in my books, I once asked a futilitiarian what would come after futile care, since cutting off the dying would not save a lot of money. He immediately said restricting “marginally beneficial care.” I asked for an example. He responded, “An 80-year-old woman who wants a mammagram.”


Be afraid. Be very afraid.


Well said.

 

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