Stem Cell Research
Posted by Arwen Mosher in News on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 2:03 PM
If you’re paying attention to the political scene, you might have caught the recent comment by Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden implying that his political opponents are hypocrites for supporting the rights of disabled children, but not supporting “stem cell research.”
As many commenters have pointed out, one of the most frustrating things about Biden’s comment is that he makes no distinction among types of stem-cell research. This is a common problem in the media, and I’ve met a surprising number of people who know few of the facts about the different kinds of stem-cell research and what they entail.
As pro-lifers, we should know.
There are two types of stem cell research: research done with adult stem cells, and research done with embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cell research involves obtaining stem cells in ways that do not destroy a human life; therefore it is not morally objectionable. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, are obtained by the destruction of human embryos.
We know that an embryo is a unique human life, and therefore its deliberate destruction for any purpose can never be morally allowable. Thus, the Catholic Church officially opposes embryonic stem cell research.
(Here is the Vatican’s official document on the topic. Here is the USCCB’s page of information about the issue.)
The good news is that so far, adult stem cell research has yielded a number of medically useful treatments, and embryonic stem cell research has yielded exactly… none. (See this chart for details.) Proponents of embryonic stem cell research argue that this is only because adult stem cell research has a large head start on embryonic stem cell research, and that scientists only need more time - and plenty of embryos - in order to catch up. As people who recognize the human rights of those tiny embryos, we can pray, and vote, so that they never get a chance.
More promising news for those of us who oppose embryonic stem cell research is that within the past year, some scientists have managed to reprogram adult stem cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (or iPS cells), which may have the potential to act in ways that previous research showed only embryonic stem cells could act. The new advancements with iPS cells have gotten little publicity in the US, but if they turn out to live up to their potential, they might eliminate the “need” for embryonic stem cells altogether. Which can only be good for the embryos.
No matter what, though, the pro-life position is that embryonic stem cell research, in spite of the number of celebrities who come out in favor of it, is never morally licit. On the other hand, we fully support adult stem cell research. We should emphasize in conversations that adult stem cell research is not only the kind that is ethically unobjectionable, but is also the only kind of stem cell research that has proven thus far to be actually useful.
It’s important to be educated as much as possible about this issue. It’s even more important to continue to pray for the tiny, innocent lives that are at stake.
Links for this article:
Vatican website
USCCB website
Stem Cell Research Cures
Stem Cell Research Facts
The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics
And if you live in Michigan, where an important proposal concerning embryonic stem cell research is up for a vote in November:
Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation (MiCAUSE)
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