Dr. Frankenstein's Inheritance

In Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein", Doctor Frankenstein was not initially out to make a "monster", he set out to preserve and extend life. With that I'm stepping off of the cliff again.....after the series of posts that I recently did on abortion (and why a "pro-choice" mindset is not Biblical) now I am revisiting the subject of Embryonic versus Adult Stem Cell research. Now my previous posts on the subject have pretty much stuck to highlighting the many promises of Adult Stem Cell research (and there have been many, many, many, many new adult stem cell cures since then). However, given what happened this past week, some mention of the other option (hEsc) and it's usefulness should be addressed.

We all saw the headlines last week "Obama lifts Bush ban on stem cell research" they screamed. A smiling President Obama was surrounded by smiling advocates of hEsc as he rescinded President Bush's previous federal funding ban on expanded hEsc. One supporter of an expanded funding for stem cell research that was not there was Washington Post writer Charles Krauthammer.

Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research.

I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated.

President Bush had restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001). While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, President Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn.

Another potential beneficiary of stem cell "cures" is cancer sufferer P.J. O'Rourke who had this to say (in his usual blunt style) on the subject.

President Obama went to hell not with the stroke of a pen, but with the cluck of a tongue. His executive order was an error. His statement at the executive order signing ceremony was a mortal error: "In 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."

A false choice is no choice at all--Tweedledee/Tweedledum, Chevy Suburban/GMC Yukon XL, Joe Biden/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Is there really no difference "between sound science and moral values"? Webster's Third New International Dictionary states that science is, definition one, "possession of knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding."

Let's look at the various things science has "known" in the past 3,000 years.

Lightning is the sneeze of Thor.

The periodic table consists of Earth, Wind, and Fire and a recording of "Got To Get You into My Life."

The world is flat with signs saying "Here Be Democrats" near the edges.

You can turn lead into gold without first selling your Citibank stock at a huge loss.

We're the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around us...

But, lest anyone think I'm not serious, let me quote with serious revulsion the following passages from the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)--that great compendium of all the knowledge science possessed, carefully distinguished from ignorance and misunderstanding, as of a hundred years ago:

[T]he negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthropoids.

Mentally the negro is inferior to the white.

[A]fter puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro's life and thought.

The above are quoted--not out of context--from the article titled "Negro" written by Dr. Walter Francis Willcox, chief statistician of the U.S. Census Bureau and professor of social science and statistics at Cornell. I trust I've made my point.

Now let's look at the things morality has known. The Ten Commandments are holding up pretty well. I suppose the "graven image" bit could be considered culturally insensitive. But the moralists got nine out of ten--a lot better than the scientists are doing. (And, to digress, the Obama administration should take an extra look at the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet," before going into nonkosher pork production with redistributive tax and spend policies.)

O'Rourke and Krauthammer are right, in the name of "science" mankind has done some pretty nasty things to their fellow man. The Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment, the Holocaust come to mind and much, much more and therein lies the rub. Do we allow science unfettered license to experiment on human beings (not just the embryos but the recipients of the "treatments" themselves)? Do we allow scientists to raise false hopes in the parents of sick children only to make the children sicker? Do we err on the side of safety or on the side of "promise"?

Stem cells have great promise, but it won't be realized without a lot of clinical trials and errors, and likely some tragic side effects and missteps.

Is it OK to experiment on clones or human-animal hybrids? Is it OK to experiment on people who are poor? What about on minority populations? Where do we draw the line between what we can do and what we should do?