But YoooAA AAAna, Theya Wicked Smoal!
Finally, the Boston Globe takes on the preposterous Massachusetts law that essentially makes it illegal to "destroy" an embryo. Like laws in several other states (including Pennsylvania, another potential stem cell leader), the Massachusetts law requires that researchers who do not want to see themselves in jail at the hands of some overzealous pro-life DA to secure the permission of [that] DA (or a judge) to do stem cell research involving embryonic stuff. But Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel has a solution:Michael J. Sandel, professor of government at Harvard, is not part of that inquiry, but he is a member of President Bush's Council on Bioethics. In a telephone interview last week, Sandel -- stressing that he was speaking only for himself -- sketched the outlines of a thoughtful position that the Legislature should review. He favors regulations that allow research not only on blastocysts left over from in-vitro fertilization but also those created for the express purposes of research. That makes sense as long as the Legislature follows another of his recommendations: the establishment of a state review board to track the ethics of biotechnology.[thanks Art Caplan]
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Hmmm, I got the first part of the title (Your Honor, pronounced Yooo Honah) but smoa? (small?)
- by Linda on Jan 23, 2005 at 2:29 PM | link
My how fast we are moving down the line, while pretending in the popular media that we are not. It was only 2001 that most biotechnologists and bioethicists argued that all they needed for ESC research was leftover embryos from IVF that were going to be tossed out anyway so we might as well get some good out of them. Indeed, the "tossed out anyway" point was used as an effective political bludgeon to gain support from people otherwise queasy (oh, oh, the wisdom of repugnance!) about destroying human organisms for research. But now, we see that the "destroyed anyway" line is no longer operative (if it was ever actually considered a serious line of limitation)--except in public advocacy where it remains a staple to continue to assuage a leery public.
Don't y'all think it is time to be candid with the American people? These issues are crucial to our ethical and moral future. When are bioethicists and biotechnologists going to admit that they fully desire and intend to make human embryos solely for research, both via SCNT cloning and fertilization. And, when will biotechnologists come clean that they will not be forever content to limit their research to the Petri dish?
- by Wesley J. Smith on Jan 23, 2005 at 11:08 PM | link
Oh, and one more point: Kind of destroys the notion of the Council as a stacked deck, doesn't it? WJS
- by Wesley J. Smith on Jan 23, 2005 at 11:28 PM | link
I will come clean: I don't have any problem with the idea that we should admit that these little things, whatever they are, are linked inherently to human creation as a moral enterprise. Destroying them should be understood as a morally important act. We don't have to pretend that it is awful or abhorent to destroy embryos. But we do I think have to acknowledge that a new level of control over creation merits an honest appraisal of the meaning of an embryo. But we're not going to be led into that new future by the impotent Council of the President, or its third-hand proposal that we "avoid the issue entirely" with a fancy name game. Power over creation is power over creation. Having said that, I'm absolutely willing to come clean (if I was ever dirty) and say that I absolutely favor thoughtful progress in science that utilizes human embryos, sort-of-embryos, part-human embryos, somatic cell nuclear transfer-derived embryos, and embryos from freezers whether beyond their fresh date or not. I favor it. And I have yet to encounter a vacillating proponent of stem cell research. What I do see regularly, however, is confused manuevering on the part of the neoconservatives among us, who seem to view bioethics as a kind of dogmatic war of words aimed at accomplishing prefigured ends. Beautiful prose isn't enough, though. Bright conservatives everywhere see that there is morally sophisticated argumentation on both sides, and that while there are a few notable exceptions on both sides of the stem cell debate, there is also a whole lot of intelligent discourse. The task is to get both advocates and detractors of stem cell research into the same debate - rather than for both sides to hack away in increasingly politicized form. Micheal Sandel is doing a fine job starting that effort, and it will be interesting indeed to see whether or not he makes those arguments in print and before the PCB, and whether and how his view begins to be taken seriously by President Bush's bioethics group. I have never believed that national councils in bioethics make any sense, because the US just will not allow "experts" that sort of role on moral issues - we are too big and too complex a country, with a history of "Reagan federalism" on moral issues. This thing will be fought out state by state, and maybe should be. Nor do I believe that stacked decks began with Leon Kass; the last group was just as stacked, at least in terms of the politics of its members. I don't think it matters very much what the PCB does, frankly, although I do hold the strong view that the development of an utterly neocon literature in bioethics - a byproduct of the Kass group - doesn't serve bioethics as a whole. There is a huge literature in bioethics that isn't particularly politicized, and nobody is served by the creation of an entirely new literature read only by its proponents, when those proponents could easily change the world of bioethics from the middle of
- by Glenn McGee on Jan 23, 2005 at 11:52 PM | link
[sorry it cut me off] ... the debate. But whatever happens with the stem cell debate and the development of a second-term bioethics in the Bush administration, bioethics on the whole continues to develop as the most important part of a technological revolution that simply necessitates the development of new ways of thinking and talking. And it is a huge honor to be part of that, even if it means fighting out questions about the destruction of embryos with DAs in small counties in Massachusetts. Thus ends the sermon. :-)
- by Glenn McGee on Jan 23, 2005 at 11:53 PM | link
Sounds like we are on the same page on where the debate should go, Glenn. And I wish us luck in getting the straight debate we desire, which I fear will be no easy task. Biotech proponents are having too much success with the disengenuous argument about leftover embryos. Still, there's no time to start like the present. You are often quoted in the popular press, on Larry King, on talk radio, etc. What say you have at it at the next opportunity?
WJS
- by Wesley J. Smith on Jan 24, 2005 at 12:34 AM | link