Stem-cell research, or "How I learned to use the veetoe," by G.W. Bush
Okay, I'm a bit behind. But I wanted to throw this out there, because proponents of the stem-cell research bill that Bush vetoed have been pissing me off for a while.
First of all, this administration, as abysmally un-scientific as it has been, has not actually forbidden stem-cell research: just federal funding of it. The federal government shouldn't be funding scientific research as a rule, for the very obvious reason that federal funding is inherently political. The military needs to continually improve it's weapons and counter-measures, and since we learned how to make synthetic diseases, the neutralization of such diseases is presumably part of that package. But apart from the rather narrow process of military procurement, and general governmental procurement, I can't justify federal research grants or any other such funding. State universities can do that, or municipalities, as their constitutions and charters allow. Inherently profitable enterprises are invariably undertaken without any governmental assistance (I should note that not all necessary enterprises are inherently profitable, at least not at the outset), as long as the government stays out of the way. There's more than enough money in American medicine -- that is, more than enough sick folk or relatives of sick folk whose wealth matches their desperation. So vetoing a bill to extend research funding is not really a bad thing.
Bush should still be impeached, by the way.
Anyway, that's the first thing that's been irritating me about the bill's proponents. The main thing, though, is the kind of arguments they use in support of stem cell research funding by the federal government: essentially, that the ends justify the means. As one might guess from my stated views on abortion, I don't consider that embryos have the absolute right to exist, and I'd call on those who think they do to implant the things into their own damn uteruses. But rather than arguing that, these short-sighted fools say the status of the embryo doesn't matter, because the research can help so many other persons. If you don't go to the trouble of showing why the embryo's destruction is not a civil rights issue, then saying that the benefits outweigh that destruction isn't much different from saying that the individual can be sacrificed for the needs of the more numerous individuals in a specific group -- which is, after all, the root of all evil.
So Presidents should veto more research funding, and Congress shouldn't try to set scientific or economic agendas. And stem-cell research is not immoral -- so Kennedy et al. should hammer that point, rather than assuming that it is acceptable to advance the sacrifice of certain individuals for the benefit of others.
First of all, this administration, as abysmally un-scientific as it has been, has not actually forbidden stem-cell research: just federal funding of it. The federal government shouldn't be funding scientific research as a rule, for the very obvious reason that federal funding is inherently political. The military needs to continually improve it's weapons and counter-measures, and since we learned how to make synthetic diseases, the neutralization of such diseases is presumably part of that package. But apart from the rather narrow process of military procurement, and general governmental procurement, I can't justify federal research grants or any other such funding. State universities can do that, or municipalities, as their constitutions and charters allow. Inherently profitable enterprises are invariably undertaken without any governmental assistance (I should note that not all necessary enterprises are inherently profitable, at least not at the outset), as long as the government stays out of the way. There's more than enough money in American medicine -- that is, more than enough sick folk or relatives of sick folk whose wealth matches their desperation. So vetoing a bill to extend research funding is not really a bad thing.
Bush should still be impeached, by the way.
Anyway, that's the first thing that's been irritating me about the bill's proponents. The main thing, though, is the kind of arguments they use in support of stem cell research funding by the federal government: essentially, that the ends justify the means. As one might guess from my stated views on abortion, I don't consider that embryos have the absolute right to exist, and I'd call on those who think they do to implant the things into their own damn uteruses. But rather than arguing that, these short-sighted fools say the status of the embryo doesn't matter, because the research can help so many other persons. If you don't go to the trouble of showing why the embryo's destruction is not a civil rights issue, then saying that the benefits outweigh that destruction isn't much different from saying that the individual can be sacrificed for the needs of the more numerous individuals in a specific group -- which is, after all, the root of all evil.
So Presidents should veto more research funding, and Congress shouldn't try to set scientific or economic agendas. And stem-cell research is not immoral -- so Kennedy et al. should hammer that point, rather than assuming that it is acceptable to advance the sacrifice of certain individuals for the benefit of others.
posted by heavynettle at 23:28
4 Comments:
Oregon's own right-wing poster child, Senator Gordon Smith, wrote a tortured op-ed piece in favor of federally fundng stem-cell research in which he explained why embryos are not human because a fertilized cell has to be inside a woman in order for it to be invested with a soul. He didn't offer any citations to back up his claim, which I personally found whackier than St. Boniface's confessions, but it made for an interesting read.
But, after I finished shaking my head, I have to agree that the underlying objection to abortion and use of fetuses for medical research does have a valid concern about the slippery slope toward the devaluation, or commodification, of human life. If the anti-abortion crowd were more consistent about THAT, their arguments might not seem so torturously convoluted.
Embryos and fetuses are inherently different, so the arguments against prohibiting either stem cell research and abortion are also different. They kind of stem from the same general idea: an individual has the right only to such life, liberty and property that it may maintain without initiating force or fraud to deprieve another individual of life, liberty, or property. Note that this does not rule out the use of persuasion or invocation of sympathy to get somebody else to expend life, liberty, or property for the individual in question.
The problem with fetuses is that only one individual in the entire world can give its resources to sustain the life of a fetus, and nobody has the authority to compel that person to do so. Because pregnancy is not necessarily the result of choice makes it difficult to say even that the mother is responsible for that fetus on the basis of ownership by conscious action. That's why abortion should not be prohibited.
Neither the first nor second aspects of the fetus, above, apply to embryos: with the right machinery, anyone can maintain an embryo for a long time; and embryos are created by conscious action, so there is some implication of responsibility for that life. But I'm uncomfortable ranging far from the notion that the one maintaining the apparatus has the right to decide to turn it off or empty it out.
There is a slippery slope, perhaps, but not under current technology. Words like devaluation and commodification are a bit slippery themselves (don't we commodify ourselves by working for the MAN?). It is reasonable foreseeable that the entire process of gestation can be taken out of the human body, and produce a viable human being, or one that can exist only within the apparatus that grew them -- but that acquires consciousness and more recognizable humanity than a cytoblast has. Or that an organic shell for the growth of a human organ might be created that looks a lot like a person. It's easy to say that we have an interest in funding, if necessary, the sustanence and rearing of born children, but I wouldn't know where to draw the line in those more complex cases of a fully artificially-initiated human life.
There is guidance in this issue from lab animals, which currently have no rights. If you argue that a lab animal that just happens to be genetically human has rights, is that not a slippery slope about banning the destruction or devaluation of all life? What differentiates a bundle of cells grown in a lab from a rat or a human? When does a human embryo or artificially gestated fetus cease to be a lab culture and becomes instead a human?
That's the slipperiest slope of all. Under current technology, humanity is a matter of development: if you're born of a human, even if fertilized in vitro rather than in vivo, you have rights. But genetic and physiological distinctions can muddy that up. Genetic humans can produce embryos that are not genetically human: through mutation or other damage that would usually lead to spontaneous miscarraige of the embryo. If that embryo is carried to term through technological assitance, is the offspring then human? Is a genetically-human shell cultured in a lab without the development of a brain or other organs a human?
That's the only real interesting aspect of this debate, because as far as I'm concerned, embryos and fetuses are entities that must obey the general idea I articulated above: nobody has the authority to compel an individual to expend the specific kind of effort necessary to sustain their lives. We could go through quite a lot of beer debating the as-yet technologically infeasible conundrums of the coming decades. Now is not really the time to legislate on them.
Wow. This brave new world makes my head hurt.
Dude, looks like you hit the beer too soon.
(By the way: thanks for correcting my spelling on embryo. . . .)
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