By Michael Kinsley The Washington Post
Friday, July 7, 2006; A17
The issue of stem cell research -- which is back before the Senate --
is often described as a moral dilemma, but it simply is not. Or at
least it is not the moral dilemma often used in media shorthand: the
rights of the unborn vs. the needs of people suffering from diseases
that embryonic stem cells might cure. As one of those people myself (I
have Parkinson's), I am not an objective analyst of what the U.S.
government's continuing near-ban on stem cell research is costing our
society and the world. Naturally, I think it's costing too much. No
other potential therapy -- including adult stem cells -- is nearly as
promising for my ailment and others. Evaluate that as you wish.
Against this, you have the fact that embryonic stem cells are extracted
from human embryos, killing the latter in the process. If you believe
that embryos a few days after conception have the same human rights as
you or me, killing innocent embryos is obviously intolerable. But do
opponents of stem cell research really believe that? Stem cell research
tests that belief, and sharpens the basic right-to-life question, in a
way abortion never has.
Here's why. Stem cells used in medical research generally come from
fertility clinics, which produce more embryos than they can use. This
isn't an accident -- it is essential to their mission of helping people
have babies. Often these are "test tube babies": the product of an egg
fertilized in the lab and then implanted in a womb to develop until
birth. Controversy about test-tube babies has all but disappeared.
Vague science-fiction alarms have been crushed by the practical
evidence, and potential political backlash, of grateful, happy parents.
In any particular case, fertility clinics try to produce more embryos
than they intend to implant. Then -- like the Yale admissions office
(only more accurately) -- they pick and choose among the candidates,
looking for qualities that make for a better human being. If you don't
get into Yale, you have the choice of attending a different college. If
the fertility clinic rejects you, you get flushed away -- or maybe
frozen until the day you can be discarded without controversy.
And fate isn't much kinder to the embryos that make this first cut.
Usually several of them are implanted in the hope that one will
survive. Or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will
not survive. And fertility doctors do their ruthless best to make these
hopes come true.
In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility
clinics are death camps -- with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics.
No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly
think otherwise.
And, by the way, when it comes to respecting the human dignity of
microscopic embryos, nature -- or God -- is as cavalier as the most
godless fertility clinic. The casual creation and destruction of
embryos in normal human reproduction is one reason some people,
including me, find it hard to make the necessary leap of faith to
believe that an embryo and, say, Nelson Mandela are equal in the eyes
of God.
Proponents of stem cell research like to emphasize that it doesn't cost
the life of a single embryo. The embryos killed to extract their stem
cells were doomed already. But this argument gives too much ground, and
misses the point. If embryos are human beings, it's not okay to kill
them for their stem cells just because you were going to kill them, or
knowingly let them die, anyway. The better point -- the killer point,
if you'll pardon the expression -- is that if embryos are human beings,
the routine practices of fertility clinics are far worse -- both in
numbers and in criminal intent -- than stem cell research. And yet, no
one objects, or objects very loudly. President Bush actually praised
the work of fertility clinics in his first speech announcing
restrictions on stem cells.
Even strong believers in abortion rights (I'm one) ought to acknowledge
and respect the moral sincerity of many right-to-lifers. I cannot
share, or even fathom, their conviction that a microscopic dot -- as
oblivious as a rock, more primitive than a worm -- has the same human
rights as anyone reading this article. I don't have their problem with
the question of when human life begins. (When did "human" life begin
during evolution? Obviously, there is no magic point. But that doesn't
prevent us from claiming humanity for ourselves and denying it to the
embryo-like entities we evolved from.) Nevertheless, abortion opponents
deserve respect for more than just their right to hold and express an
opinion we disagree with. Excluding, of course, the small minority who
believe that their righteousness puts them above the law, sincere
right-to-lifers deserve respect as that rarity in modern American
politics: a strong interest group defending the interest of someone
other than themselves.
Or so I always thought -- until the arrival of stem cells. Moral
sincerity is not impressive if it depends on willful ignorance and
indifference to logic. Not every opponent of stem cell research
deserves to have his or her debater's license taken away. There are a
few, no doubt, who are as horrified by fertility clinics as they are by
stem cell research, and a subset of this subset may even be doing
something about it. But these people, if they exist, are not a
political force strong enough to stop a juggernaut of medical progress
that so many other people are desperate to encourage. The vast majority
of people who oppose stem cell research either haven't thought it
through, or have thought it through and don't care.