Superman at NICE? — By PETER BARNES
SUMMARY: …but you can determine the status of the unborn child, and apply biblical principles to the issue. To begin with, let me assume the status of the unborn child as distinct from the mother, and equally as precious, alive, and created by God in His own image (Ps.139: 13-16; Luke 1: 41, 44). ——————————————————————————–
A FEW years back “stem cells” was just a vague biological term to most of us, but today the issue of stem cell research has landed itself on the front page of newspapers, and is being debated in parliament. If the Bible speaks on everything, what does it say about stem cell research? Someone said to me the other day: “You cannot look up stem cell research in the concordance”. No, you cannot, but you can determine the status of the unborn child, and apply biblical principles to the issue. To begin with, let me assume the status of the unborn child as distinct from the mother, and equally as precious, alive, and created by God in His own image (Ps.139: 13-16; Luke 1: 41, 44). What are stem cells? Perhaps the easiest way to describe what stem cells are is to say that they are cells from which other cells can stem. They can change into heart cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, skin cells, or whatever. Hence there is the possibility that they might be used, for example, in spinal cord injuries to regrow cells. People with diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and heart trouble may also be helped by simply growing new cells to replace the diseased ones.
Stem cells can be either: (1) Adult stem cells (taken from living humans, without harming them. These humans may actually be children); or (2) Embryonic stem cells (which entails the destruction of the embryo).
These are more easily harvested when the embryo is 5-7 days old.
There is no moral debate over adult stem cell research, but that is not the case with embryonic stem cell research.
What does the Bible have to say on this issue? We are obliged to treat all as we wish to be treated (Matthew 7:12). That is Jesus’ Golden Rule. This would entail support for the relief of suffering, but not by means of exploiting others to do so. Those who favour embryonic stem cell research have used consequentiality arguments – good will come of it. But so far no good has come from it. The only benefits thus far have come from adult stem cell research.
Michael J. Fox (with Parkinson’s disease) and (the late) Christopher Reeve (Superman, but became a quadriplegic) have both uttered heartwrenching calls for embryonic research to be allowed. Bob Carr, the Premier of New South Wales, has been quick to be photographed with disabled children, and to assert that his critics would prefer that human beings suffer rather than benefit from this research.1 The Premier was actually being cruel here, not to his critics but to the children whom he used in the photographs. He was deliberately and unreasonably raising the hopes of sufferers. The failed US presidential candidate, John Kerry, indulged in the same kind of rhetoric by vowing to help millions by lifting any restrictions on stem cell research.
The fact is that all – not some, but all – of the medical breakthroughs which have been made recently have come through the use of adult stem cells. In fact, as Joni Eareckson Tada pointed out – a quadriplegic that surely has a vested interest in these things – the use of embryonic stem cells is highly dangerous and unpredictable. So far, they have grown cancerous tumours more than anything else.2
Some of the recent successes, using adult stem cells, include: 1. Rhys Jones, the British toddler with “bubble boy” immune deficiency, was cured using his own marrow stem cells. 2. A woman in Canada who became a paraplegic after a car accident can move her toes and legs after receiving injections of her own immune-system cells into her severed spinal cord (June 2001). 3. A number of legally blind people have had their corneas reconstructed with corneal stem cells, and can now see more clearly (July 2001). 4. There have been some successes with diabetes also. In the United States, fifteen people with serious Type 1 (juvenile)
diabetes received adult pancreatic islet cell transplants, and in June 2001 it was reported that nine still need no insulin injections.
Thus far there have been no successes with embryonic stem cell research. There has been much misinformation on this.
It is difficult to see how the Golden Rule is being obeyed when little human beings are treated like rats in a laboratory.
Before a US Senate hearing on 5 March 2002 Christopher Reeve attributed promising research into spinal cord repair to embryonic stem cell research when in fact the research was done with adult stem cells.
In 2004 the United Kingdom allowed the use of cloned human embryos in research, as did South Korea and Japan.4
In April 2004 Dr Robert Jansen, who had just obtained Australia’s first licence to extract stem cells from excess IVF embryos, declared: “The potential of stem-cell research is boundless”.5
It is difficult to see how the Golden Rule is being obeyed when little human beings are treated like rats in a laboratory.
We are not to do evil that good may come (Rom. 3:8).
Those who favour embryonic stem cell research argue that the death of the embryo is worth it, in order to achieve possible benefits for others. Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman but who was paralysed after an equestrian accident in 1995, has declared that “No obstacle should stand in the way of responsible investigation … It is our responsibility to do everything possible to protect the quality of life of the present and future generations”.6
The same kind of philosophy could be applied to unborn children at any stage in the womb or indeed to people who are sick or infirm or aged. People can be used as means to an end. Sin is a complicated thing. T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral is about doing the right deed for the wrong reason. Richard Baxter warned: “To intend well in doing ill is no rarity”.7 There is a whole mixture of motives out there in this debate, but we can cut through them all by emphasising this principle that Christians are to seek what is good by good means.
This research will not stop with “spare” embryos (Jeremiah 17:9).
Christians do not believe that fallen human nature is good, but desperately wicked and corrupt, to the point where we cannot understand it. It will not end with: “we might as well make good use of spare embryos that are going to be discarded anyway”. When a politician or a research scientist says “Trust me”, the Christian ought to be suspicious.
In Australia the state Labour governments and Prime Minister John Howard have said that there will be a ban on the creation of embryos for the purpose of harvesting their stem cells (and so killing the embryo) for research. Mr Howard has said: “It is my very strong belief that human embryos should not be created for any purpose other than IVF treatment”.8 That is fantasy and a delusion.
Professor Alan Trounson says that tissue from aborted human foetuses will be used in the culture of embryonic stem cells.9 Trounson says that such foetuses have “always been available”.10 Professor Bernie Tuch of the Prince of Wales Hospital (Sydney, NSW) also admitted in August 2002 that aborted human foetuses are already being used.11
Furthermore, Dr Robert Jansen gave evidence to the Senate enquiry. Back in 1986: “it is a fallacy to distinguish between surplus embryos and specially created embryos in terms of embryo research. Any intelligent administrator of an IVF program can, by minor changes in his ordinary clinical way of going about things, change the number of embryos that are fertilised.”12
In Australia in 2002 the ethical guidelines for IVF – as set out by the National Health and Medical Research Council – forbade the creation of more embryos than are needed, yet it was widely believed that there were 70,000 spare embryos frozen in various parts of the country.
There is a slippery slope at work here (2 Tim. 3:13).
With good reason, Paul speaks of people going “from bad to worse”. On 12 August 2002 the Sydney Morning Herald called for “clear thinking on stem cell research”. That seems to be the last thing the Herald and the media want. We are assured that there is no “slippery slope” at work here.
The reality is that embryonic stem cell research requires the death of the embryo. It will inevitably lead to therapeutic cloning because of the danger of rejection of stem cells obtained from another person. Human beings will be created and destroyed for the sake of other human beings.
In 1946-1947 Dr Leo Alexander was involved in the Nuremberg investigation into Nazi war crimes. He examined the medical experiments, and the killing of some 275,000 “defectives”, and wondered how such events could have been allowed to happen. He concluded that it started with the widespread acceptance of the attitude that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. To cite his own warning: “Corrosion begins in microscopic proportions”.13
Jesus told us to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves (Matt.10:16). That is applicable in every situation but on this issue it seems to have special application. C.S.Lewis wrote a space trilogy where the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (NICE) carried out the sterilisation of the unfit, the liquidation of “backward” races, and selective breeding to obtain a master race. Even in 1945 C. S. Lewis was writing that the horror world of NICE was not quite the fantastic absurdity that some people imagined. He lamented, “The trouble about writing satire is that the real world always anticipates you, and what were meant for exaggerations turn out to be nothing of the sort”.14
But let Joni Eareckson Tada have the last word, which is both a word of warning and of encouragement: “If we violate a human embryo today, tomorrow we will become callous about the foetus, then the infant, and then people with physical defects. A society that honours life will safeguard the rights of the disadvantaged, the weak, and the small”.15
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Footnotes: 1 Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June & 3 July 2002. 2 Joni Eareckson Tada, ‘The Threat of Biotech’ in Christianity Today, March 2003. 3 See All Life Matters, June-August, 2002, which refers to a number of such examples. 4 Sydney Morning Herald, 13 August 2004. 5 Sydney Morning Herald, 17-18 April 2004. 6 ‘Thus Spoke Superman’ in Christianity Today, 12 June 2000. 7 Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 1656 Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, abridged and reprinted 1974, p.161. 8 Southern Cross, August 2002, p.12. 9 Sydney Morning Herald, 5 August 2002. 10 Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 2002. 11 Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 2002. 12 Cited in News Weekly 13 July 2002, pp.4-5. 13 cf. Ethics and Medicine, 3:2, 1987. 14 C. S. Lewis, Letters, (Ed by W. H. Lewis), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, 1966, p.207. 15 Joni Eareckson Tada, ‘The Threat of Biotech’ in Christianity Today, March 2003.
Dr Peter Barnes the pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Revesby in Sydney and is a lecturer in Church History at the Presbyterian Theological Centre in Burwood, New South Wales.
http://www.christian-witness.org/archives/cetf2005/stemcell31.html
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