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In one of the creepiest scenarios in Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick's new movie A.I., there is something called a Flesh Fair. In this sci-fi fantasy, human beings have developed technology so refined that they can create mechanical humans that appear almost as real as organic ones. These "mechas" are essentially a slave class: They perform chores, replace lost children, even have their body parts distributed for various uses. At Flesh Fairs, mechas are displayed and killed for amusement, their body parts sometimes traded and reused. They are humans entirely as means--not ends. And, of course, they're not truly human at all. They're robots simulating humans. But even robots, Spielberg and Kubrick seem to suggest, merit some dignity.
If robots deserve dignity, shouldn't blastocysts? In thinking about stem-cell research, the image of the Flesh Fair still resonates. In A.I. humans use pseudo-humans for sport; they chop them up, dissect them, then throw them away. When we watch the movie, we naturally recoil. But when we read essentially the same story in the newspapers--about events happening now--we manage to keep calm.
Is the analogy a stretch? Supporters of stem-cell research say blastocysts are not human beings. Or, even if they are human, they are not beings. They are no more human than, say, a clipped fingernail (which contains all the DNA information for an entire person, just as accurately as a blastocyst). Clearly, however, the fingernail comparison misses something important. A fingernail would not become a mature human being if implanted in a womb. The real question is whether this distinction amounts to a moral difference.
One criterion to distinguish a real human being--with rights and dignity--from an embryo or a fingernail might be viability. The blastocyst, while clearly the same species as the rest of us, cannot survive independent of scientific paraphernalia, a freezer, or a womb. Hence it's not a human being--and can morally be experimented on. That's a clear line--but it opens up a host of other possibilities. If "viability" independent of a mother or others is the criterion, why shouldn't the physically incapacitated or the very old be consigned to medical experimentation? Why not those in comas or on life support? If they're going to die anyway and have no ability to fend for themselves, what's the point of wasting their bodies when they could yield valuable medical insights? Yes, we could wait till they're dead--but they're far more useful to science alive.
Other criteria might be the ability to feel pain, think rationally, or be self-conscious. Since an embryo (so far as we know) can do none of these things, it's fair game. But again, these criteria make others who are similarly limited--such as those with Alzheimer's, or the paraplegic, or the insane--equal grist for the scientific mill. This is especially the case with those whose mental capacity renders them unable to give meaningful consent. Why ask at all if, like embryos, such pseudo-humans cannot say yes or no? Perhaps some people might even give their consent in advance for such work. For ethical purposes, these people could be protected from physical pain during experimentation until their death.
Supporters of stem-cell research won't go that far. Except that they already have. What, after all, makes a human being a human being? Scientists would say a human is defined by its DNA--the genetic coding that makes our species different from any others. Stem-cell research enthusiasts say we are defined by our DNA and our stage of development. They say a blastocyst is so unformed that it cannot be equated with a fetus, let alone with an adult. But it remains a fact--indeed one of the marvels of creation--that the embryo contains exactly the same amount of genetic information as you or I do. We aren't different from it in kind, only different in degree: in age, size, weight, gender, and on and on. In fact, in some sense, a blastocyst is the purest form of human being--genderless, indistinguishable to the naked eye from any other, unencumbered with the accoutrements of society and experience--and yet as unique as any human being who has ever lived or ever will. To extinguish it is surely not to extinguish something other than us. It is to extinguish us.
Consider these analogies. Federal law makes it a crime to kill or injure a bald eagle. It is also a crime to kill or injure a bald eagle's egg. We recognize that to kill one is the same as to kill the other. Similarly, I cannot remember the last time an apple farmer responded to an early frost by saying, "Never mind, we lost the fertilized blossom, but the apples will be fine." Of course, the apples won't be fine. Once the blossom is dead, the apples will never arrive. And once a blastocyst is killed, the human being coiled inexorably inside is no more. If that isn't killing, what is? And why are we more coherent when it comes to eagles than when it comes to humans?
Some may say that nature itself allows many blastocysts to die. What else are miscarriages? It is true that such tragedies happen all the time. But just because earthquakes happen doesn't mean massacres are justified. And our intuitive moral response to a woman who has had a miscarriage is not the same as our response to a woman who has had a haircut or even to a woman who has lost a limb. One might conceivably justify allowing extra blastocysts to be created and lost as collateral damage in an artificial insemination (although, the more I think about this, the less defensible it seems). But to turn around and use those extra blastocysts for experimentation is a completely separate step. It is to treat human life purely instrumentally. I know of no better description of evil.
Such evil cannot be morally counterbalanced by any good that medical breakthroughs might bring. This is especially true when it's possible to cultivate stem cells from other sources. Perhaps those sources are not as fecund as embryos--but that means we are confronted not by a trade-off between any research into stem cells and preserving human life, but between better, faster stem-cell research and human life. Under those conditions, it's not that close a call. After all, are we currently beset by the problem of scientific breakthroughs that aren't fast enough? Surely the opposite is true (or at least also true): We are beset by scientific breakthroughs that are occurring far faster than we have the moral language or the experience to deal with. Is a slight deceleration in that research too high a price to pay for removing even the chance that we may be taking human life?
I'm not dismissing the real pain of those dying of terminal illnesses who might conceivably be saved by this research--or the pain of their families. We should indeed do all we can to end and abate any and all disease. I write as someone with a deeply vested interest in such research. But life should be measured not by how long it is lived but by how it is lived. If my life were extended one day at the expense of one other human's life itself, it would be an evil beyond measure. Some things cannot be simply bargained or rationalized away. And one of those things is surely life itself.
An Andrew ping.
"Truth is not always easy, but it is beautifully simple. Andrew writes beautifully on this. . .doubt that his reasoned clarity will resonate with NR's Liberal editorial staff or 'New Republic's' readers. . .
its only a possibility that a blastocyst will become a human being,,,
the nuts have taken over the assylum
we protect bald eagle eggs because they will become ( ahem ) bald eagles
seems blastocysts are more endangered than other species "WE" support
PETA would never allow such experiments on peter rabbit
GOD help us
vsm
If my life were extended one day at the expense of one other human's life itself, it would be an evil beyond measure
Bravo!
I was going round and round about this 'stem cell' issue (sorry, I'm kinda 'scientifically minded'). He just helped me make my mind up about the intrinsic wrongness of it even if it leads to good things. What an incredible article and he gets the part about AI right--it's a good movie.
Morally speaking I guess you could say we are at Donner Pass. There is a point at which survival isn't everything. I like Andrews take on this. Thanks for the article.
regards
So how is war different. Take the Hiroshima bomb,,alot of gi's had extended life because of the taking of lives. Those people bombed were women and kids, noncombatants and as innocent as a blastocyte.
"War is Hell"
--William T. Sherman
If my life were extended one day at the expense of one other human's life itself, it would be an evil beyond measure.
What an incredible article and he gets the part about AI right--it's a good movie.
I wish my life could be extended by three hours so that I could get back the time I wasted watching AI.
I wish my life could be extended by three hours so that I could get back the time I wasted watching AI
LOL!!!!
I really liked that movie. My mom left when I was 13, so a lot of the issues made sense to me. I thought in an odd way, it got to the core of what 'human life' (and love) means. It made me cry like a wee girl and I'm a bit of a 'hard-case'...
Bravo!!! Well said, I hope that I can remember the Bald Eagle argument the next time that I argue against the evil of abortion.
A lot of us don't think the Hiroshima bomb was moral.
Yeah and the main thing said after was that it saved our gi's. You know altzheimers is hell as is parkinsonism. I have real trouble with thinking that a path which is there and might be useful would be blocked. Especially with these frozen embryos which are never going to be implanted. I don't know but watching people suffer really changes my thoughts about this case.
>> There is a point at which survival isn't everything<<
And the notion that this "research" is a potential panacaea, that it will grant man's age-old dream of immortality, of being freed from travails of the flesh, is a wild exaggeration.
Especially with these frozen embryos which are never going to be implanted.
Why don't we have 'embryo farms'? Or fetus farms like in 'The Matrix' to power machines with bio-electricity? Heck, those people would've never amounted to anything anyway...
I don't know but watching people suffer really changes my thoughts about this case.
Sure, but why don't we just 'put them to sleep' if they're not having enough fun anymore?
Is avoiding suffering really such a noble goal that others should be sacrificed to it?
It's a really hard issue, but I'm think I agree with Mr. Sullivan.
No one admires Sullivan more than I, and he has written an effective advocacy piece. I think however that it is a bit disingenuously tendentious.
First Sullivan starts off with ersatz humans that look and act just like humans, and notes that we feel uncomfortable that they are viewed as solely for means rather than ends. Having softened us up for something (that we should have solicitude for the not quite human?), he then moves on to blastocysts, and notes that while they can't survive on their own, neither can certain old and sick people, ignoring as he writes this their sentience. Apparently realizing the omission, although not admitting it, he then moves on the humans with mental problems, observing that we don't off them either. Yes, that is true, but ignores the distinction that even those individuals have considerably more sentience than blastocysts. If the individuals were truly vegetables, with no hope of being anything else, guess what, we do kill those people, and I for one don't have a problem with that.
Sullivan then moves onto the potentiality argument, and notes that we protect bald eagle eggs. But isn't the reason that we protect bald eagle eggs because we want more bald eagles, as opposed to the eggs being the moral equivalent of bald eagles?
Finally, perhaps wisely, Sullivan never gets into the heavy lifting of just how ethically problematical it is to be freezing all these blastocysts if they are the same as people. And of course, they can never be discarded, even though I am under the impression they are discarded now, without much hue and cry. And if freezing but not discarding is OK, we enter a twilight zone, where millions and some day billions of blastcysts will remain forever entombed in the world of ice, destined to be stored for eons of time, in a fate which parallels that of nuclear waste from nuclear power plants. They deserve the protection of a human life, but that protection ends up being an eternal life sentence of non-sentience. It is all madness.
Here it is. Sorry to subject you to a rapid two punch. After reflection, I have come down for both for gay marriage and stem cell research, which makes me 1 for 2 with Sullivan, and 0 for 2 with you. Will I be out with the third strike?
He should know. He made it so.
And if freezing but not discarding is OK, we enter a twilight zone, where millions and some day billions of blastcysts will remain forever entombed in the world of ice, destined to be stored for eons of time, in a fate which parallels that of nuclear waste from nuclear power plants. They deserve the protection of a human life, but that protection ends up being an eternal life sentence of non-sentience. It is all madness.
That's all true. I'm having a difficult time with this issue.
As far as 'solicitude for the non-human', we do that all the time--look at the lengths we are going and the money spent to preserve the physical document of the Constitution.
I think 'solicitude for the non-human' is an unavaidable human foible and in some cases, kind of a noble thing.
He should know. He made it so.
Quite true. That was kinda my point too.
You come down wrong Torie but hey you've been wrong before. Your take on frozen embryos is so far off the mark, it indicates you have not given much thought at all to the subject. There are millions of childless couples and tens of thousands of viable frozen embryo's. You getting the picture here Torie? There are many more couples that want babies than there are frozen embyo's. The insistence of people on using embryonic stem cells is nothing but political since the evidence to date is that adult stem cells do not evidence the problems of rejection and runaway cell growth.
Sullivan never gets into the heavy lifting of just how ethically problematical it is to be freezing all these blastocysts if they are the same as people.
Think about it: Those blastocysts only exist due to the good intention of avoiding suffering--avoiding the suffering of NOT having a child.
I'm not sure that a society can continue to exist once avoiding suffering is its holy grail and only goal.
We have become quite willing to sell our souls to avoid any and all suffering...
I must admit to a prejudice I have. As much as I dislike abortion, the younger the fetus/baby, the less of a problem I have with it. Thus, the worst type of abortion is the partial birth, and the "least bad" would be the termination of a blastocene.
Having said that, I think Andrew makes some excellent points in this article, which cause me rethink my position. Not that I will change my mind neccessarily, but he is damn convincing.
He is a credit to the conservative cause, despite what some may see as his flaws.
We have become quite willing to sell our souls to avoid any and all suffering...
Life without suffering is trivial and meaningless. Granted, we should try to reduce suffering, but within limits, and those limits should be set by moral principles.
Your post is a bit too Delphic for me to comprehend. Is your point to the effect that the existence of blastocysts represents the unfortunate detritus of the over-fixation of people to reproduce, or am I totalling missing it?
Well, your case is better, considerably better, if all of the blastocysts will be implanted into someone's womb in short order if only they are allowed to live, and none are discarded. At that point, I think it would be reasonable to require demonstrable and considerable medical research need before allowing for their use. I appreciate that that would not be sufficient for you in any event.
the existence of blastocysts represents the unfortunate detritus of the over-fixation of people to reproduce, or am I totalling missing it?
Actually, the blastocysts are the detritus of a lot of yuppie baby-boomer females wanting a career and then a kid later in life.
My point was more along the lines of: just 'cuz you want a kid and can't have one doesn't mean you have the right to inflict a moral dilemma on the rest of us to alleiviate your suffering...
Granted, we should try to reduce suffering, but within limits, and those limits should be set by moral principles.
Yeah, it's weird, it almost seems that if we valued the virtues of suffering again, there would be less suffering caused by misguided attempts at reducing suffering!
A similar paradox became apparent during the Gulf War. Officers have a duty to minimize casualties among their own forces while defeating the enemy. However, when friendly casualties sink to too low a number, compared to enemy casualties, the moral justification of killing the enemy -- that both sides are equally taking their chances -- disappears, or at least becomes a lot less satisfying. And this situation got worse in Kosovo, where many civilians were killed because NATO tried to keep its casualties at zero.
There are just as many live and healthy babies who need parents.
I must admit to a prejudice I have. As much as I dislike abortion, the younger the fetus/baby, the less of a problem I have with it. Thus, the worst type of abortion is the partial birth, and the "least bad" would be the termination of a blastocene.
This is quite normal thinking given the visual image of a 'baby' vs an electron microscope view of a fertilized human egg. That is why Andrew Sullivan's image of an eagle's egg is so brilliant. We all can see the 'eagle' that will be born out of that egg.
The sales job that using 'unwanted, going to be thrown away anyway' embryos is for the greater good is really a con job.
I appreciate that that would not be sufficient for you in any event.>
But that doesn't make me a bad guy, right?
I hope President Bush reads this.
I don't think what we do to foreigners in war is ever a good model for what we should do here.
No, there aren't, which is why people pay large money to lawyers and "facilitators" for healthy babies.
bump
I wish Mr. Sullivan would do a similar analysis of the ever bankrupt types of medical ethics that can justify almost anything...
Right, I just wish I had been lucky enough to have you as my grand daddy. Mine alas departed prior to having had much time to spoil me. Clarity has been nice to me too lately (even though he called me a "liberal"), after verbally lacerating me over a period of time, particularly after I tentatively opined in a brief and truncated way on a certain lawsuit. Arator and I exchanged cordial pleasantries, albeit I did observe that he was, "nuts in the head." I declare it to be the era of good feeling, where the lion lies down with the lamb.
aNDREW'S DEEP WISDOM IS SHOWING ... To extinguish it is surely not to extinguish something other than us. It is to extinguish us.
If I were to offer sixty years ago the removal of oocytes in order to fertilize them with sperm then implant the results in a woman's womb, how many would have said in opposition, "But that is a slippery slope, experiemneting with conception. It could lead to a general cheapening of human conception and human life."
Today we see business seeking to purchase human oocytes, in order to fertilize them and grow the conceptuses into usable embryos, human embryos, in order to harvest useful products upon killing the human embryos. I'm sickened by the slide into evil so easy accepted, but I'm also astonished at how accurate the protestations were at the start of the in vitro fert odyssey.
Harvesting individual human life for exploitation in business has stepped beyond the gray* areas of seeking to exploit something less than a human individual --perhaps IVF started innocently enough, without realizing the embryos were individual human life, but I have doubts that the scientists cared at that stage, since fetal life was considered precious then-- to now willingly ignoring individual human life in order to exploit it.
Nonsense, You can have a live and healthy baby within six to nine monthes. Don't believe the propaganda. I have four.
I really liked that movie
Different strokes, I suppose. I've had a similar visceral reaction to some pretty lame films. I'm a proud film snob, and yet Ever After really hit home for me. Don't know why, wanted to hate it, but it just clicked.
See you in the 10th row center.
A very well written and reasoned piece.
Especially with these frozen embryos which are never going to be implanted. I don't know but watching people suffer really changes my thoughts about this case.
Ah, but the reason they will never be implanted is that the doctors who made them didn't care, and now the parents don't know they can donate them to others to give them a chance.
As to those suffering: The same type of arguments used to justify stem cell use is very similar to those used for euthanasia, or to declare the mentally handicapped as useless eaters or not meeting the criteria for personhood.
Click Herefor an example of what is being written in the Hastings center report.
You see, if you cannot see the humanity of unwanted offspring (which could, after all, easily be made into useful citizens) you also may not see the humanity of the brain damaged. Believe me, there are some including some in medicine who would kill off the retarded, the senile, and the handicapped if they were allowed to do so. They would use the words of compassion and euthanasia, but in private they may admit they merely feel the person is useless so is better off dead.
Good post. I just wrote this letter to Andrew Sullivan:
Subject: Thanks for your Stem Cell Research piece
Dear Andrew,
All your agonizing over this issue has paid off wonderfully -- your piece in the New Republic is the best pro-life article I've seen in years. It moves inexorably to the essence of the question and is 100% convincing.
I hope the President reads it.
It seems some would elevate suffering to a moral necessity. Torie, I am with you. And I have no quibbles about abortion either. And blastocytes do not inspire me to love them or their potential. The slippery slope here might be to require all of us to be fertilized as soon and as often as possible so as not to lose any valuable eggs. And I might remind some who don't think about it that the IUD prevents implantation of what may be fertilized eggs. Those who are opposed to stem cell research using blastocytes have only to refuse any treatments that emerge as a result of it. Just like you can donate your tax refund and have babies at will and as much as you like whether you are married or psychotic or poor or mean. I think this is an irreconciliable difference of opinion which has been elevated to one of those moral issues that some would inflict on others because of their self proclaimed superior morality. Just saying.
A Do Not Fund Stem Cell Research BUMP
Yes, that is true, but ignores the distinction that even those individuals have considerably more sentience than blastocysts. If the individuals were truly vegetables, with no hope of being anything else, guess what, we do kill those people, and I for one don't have a problem with that.
Your logic falls apart here in two places. One, blastocysts DO have potential of being something else - perhaps geniuses, perhaps ordinary people, but they can become living breathing people. Second, last I heard we don't actually KILL people in vegetative states, we just remove artificial life support from them. Without current technology, most of them probably would have died before any decision even had to be made.
Fair points. But the fact of the matter is that if these cells are going to be frozen indefinitely, they are going to be used for research, and your pov is not going to gain traction. If you are going to drape them with the full nobility and panoply of a human, then freezing is almost equally horrific. I personally have a continuum view of rights and the fetus, but I understand that is just my subjective opinion.
Wow...powerful stuff!
The ignorance and utter lack of charity of this posting beggars the imagination. Millions of couples are childless through absolutely no fault of their own. None. Some few are paying the price for reckless or heedless behavior, but only a small percentage. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. And as long as America is true to its national creed, the Declaration of Independence, and its defense of the principle of human equality -- black and white, born and unborn -- there cannot be among thoughtful people, even the appearance or illusion of a "moral dilemma" regarding the humanity of preborn embryos. That is precisely why there are so many frozen and awaiting adoption -- they are not fodder for destruction, or product for the smug and selfish likes of you and your ethically-challenged scientist fellow-travelers. Nor have they ever been regarded as such by the biological parents, or the medical professionals assisting those couples, who have undergone so much travail to conceive them. Again, in case you didn't get it, that's why there are as many as there are frozen and still being frozen: because nobody until the money started to talk argued that it was OK to destroy them; everybody involved in their conception knows they are human, and until very recently has treated them with the respect their humanity demands. The "destined for destruction" is a new category of preborns, defined for the occasion to create a need, and a "useful" solution to a (non-existent) wasteful, inhumane problem -- get it? You should inform yourself and think for a minute before you speak, if you can. Otherwise, kindly do everyone on this forum a favor, and shut up.
Please read my latest post on this thread. You are clearly very smart, but sadly lacking in the essential rational element of first principles. I hope you can reason more judiciously than those you are praising here. I look forward to pursuing CAL's stem cell discussion thread. The best writing currently on this matter is in the NRO exchange. Best FRegards.
Bravo; well spoken, and well-reasoned. I admire your patience in arguing the truth here, as you always do. God bless you.
You are so right, and it was well that you wrote Sullivan. Here we have a man of intellect, grappling honestly with his mortality, and the material and spiritual consequences of the choices in life he has made. I was deeply moved by this essay, which -- unlike some comments on this thread -- shows considerable thought, philosophic reflection and moral accountability. I am always amazed by the level of anger and animus that is engendered by sincere expressions of a conscientious concern for the humanity of the least among us. It is typically so disproportionate in its meanness, I have to wonder to what it should be attributed.
These hostile respondents know absolutely nothing about the statistics of abortion, adoption, IVF or anything else relevant to this thread. Sigh. Why do we even try to awaken them to the truth?
wasted watching AI
Reply #52 did definitely refer to your intemperate and dishonest nastiness. I would suggest with such serious matters in debate, you could do a little better than that. If you are so sincere and convicted in your opinion of the preborns' utter expendibility, I assume you will be donating all of your oocytes for advancing these wonderful therapeutic developments. That way you can be certain that you have done all in your power to ensure that killing children now will benefit humanity someday, maybe, for sure. Never mind that that objective trumps the basic natural rights of mere human equality and dignity, upon which rests the foundational principle of the free republic that lets you be so stupid and selfish without state punishment.
Why do we even try to awaken them to the truth?
Well, admittedly its a tough job but somebody's got to do it and there are far more lurkers than troglodytes. :-}
Very true. To all those folks out there lurking, please think about this. ESCR is not some little policy dispute. It is not merely "the science" that might make it possible to enhance the quality of life for some of us lucky enough to already be born. The judgment of whether we as Americans respect the intrinsic humanity of the preborn, the least and weakest among us, will decide the path of our future. It will determine the kind of world our children and grandchildren live in. Will America remain a bastion of freedom, upholding as best we can the arduous obligations of liberty and human equality? Will we still be striving to be decent and just, or will our government be the Orwellian nightmare some here seem so eager to embrace? WE are the ones, through our political action, and the exercise of our citizen vocation, who decide, and who are responsible for that decision. People who conscientiously object to federal funding for the destruction of innocent human life are not Luddites, standing against the march of scientific progress. In all human action, there are necessary and inescapable ethical thresholds, limits of what is decent and just to do to each other as fellow creatures. Once truly down the path of might makes right, there is little hope of turning back. If those in power are permitted to define a class of powerless preborn citizens as subhuman and disposable, believe it -- any of those who have been persecuted throughout history, and even half-bright blue-eyed blondes, could just as easily be next. Alan Keyes said it last week, "It's the Founding principles, Mr. President."
I missed this marvelous article.
58 Posted on 03/04/2002 08:43:44 PST by Askel5
Talk about a specious analogy! We don't have to kill blastocysts; we had to kill Japs in WWII. The only question was how many. If you knew your history, you'd know that the alternative to The Bomb was a land invasion, in which our G.I.s would have been facing the entire Japanese populace.
59 Posted on 03/04/2002 09:40:30 PST by mrustow
60 Posted on 03/04/2002 11:13:00 PST by cicero's_son
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