Cardinal Commits Metaphor Slaughter
TheHow does it show respect to treat human lives as mere crops for harvesting?Leaving the embryonic citizens in their little freezer rods means that they will continue to degenerate, day by day, in what amounts (on the Cardinal's terms) to a protracted abortion. So that isn't in any sense saving them - to save them we'll need to make sure that they are removed from the freezer and used in...
government-funded researchers would reach in and destroy these young lives before that can happen...
The fixation on destroying embryos has diverted resources away from more promising therapies, and therefore ill serves suffering patients as well as embryonic human beings.
The hypocrisy in play in the debate about the ethics of stem cell research is truly incredible, and getting worse by the minute.
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What makes the Catholic position on embryonic stem-cell research "hypocritical"? I don't say I agree with the RCC's stance on the issue, but neither do I find it to be inconsistent with its stated principles.
Are you saying that the Catholic Church should be advocating the "adoption" of leftover embryos in fertility clinics--and that if it doesn't, then it's hypocritical? Why? If I oppose the war in Iraq but am not out on the streets protesting, am I a hypocrite?
Also, if the Church did advocate these "adoptions," wouldn't you be saying that they're in cahoots with the Bush administration and their wacky snowflake RFP?
The idea that any Cardinal could "direct" people to do things--and that this would make it so--is silly, and nowhere more so than in the US.
Sillier still is the idea that he should ask his "staff"--nuns, do you mean?!--to be the adopters.
I generally agree with many, maybe most, of your conclusions, but on this one, you're getting almost as ad hominem as those you want to criticize. What gives?
- by on May 24, 2005 at 4:27 PM | link
Good comments, Anon.
The logic of the editor is colored by his/her emotion and an obvious political agenda.
Perhaps that is the reason behind the lack of reasoning that somehow calls on the Cardinal to support fertilization ("IVF") of embryos, when I believe he/she means to suggest implantation of those already fertilized.
I never cease to be amazed at the lack of basic ethical thinking on this issue. "First, do no harm" is an ancient, well studied ethic to guide all of us, but is especially useful in the discussion of human beings who are in stasis, especially with its corollary, "Do not do evil to do good."
The Cardinal did not cause the embryos to be in such a life-threatening situation. Those who dug the hole that they are in are the ones who are responsible for restitution or correction of the threat to their lives.
It is not "hypocritical" to work to pass laws against domestic violence rather than becoming a policeman or social worker. It is not "hypocritical" to argue against animal cruelty and protective legislation and regulations rather than opening an animal shelter.
As for the rest of us who are not drawn to becoming adoptive parents of these children, it is better to "let them die" than to cause them to die by our deliberate and intentional actions. Especially when those actions cannot offer any reasonable expectation of benefit to the subjects themselves.
- by Beverly on May 25, 2005 at 12:01 AM | link
"First, do no harm"?
How about someone explaining to me exactly how you can justify refusing to address our current situation, with 6.5 billion humans on the planet and counting, with the toll the tremendous product of (human) population x consumption x inefficiency (the good old I=PAT equation) is taking on nonhuman life, let alone the severe problems we humans will face over the coming decades, while speaking piously about the value of HUMAN (and only human) life?
And, will someone please explain to me, with all we know from medical/biological science in the early years of the Twenty-first century, how we can continue to pretend that we are somehow justified in placing ultimate value on "human" life when it's LIFE on the planet, LIFE in balance within the biosphere, that we should be concerned about?
Thank you very much. I've been waiting at least 30 years to have these things explained to me.
Ronnie Z. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
M.D. 1974 University of Florida College of Medicine
Ph.D. 1994 University of Florida Department of Philosophy
- by Ronnie Hawkins on May 25, 2005 at 6:26 PM | link
Ronnie, that's an impressive list of academic accomplishments. They go very far to explaining your confusion about things that most children know.
But, to play the academic's game: Why should we pretend that it's life (or, as you would have it, "LIFE") on the planet or life "in balance"(!) within the biosphere that we should be concerned about? What reason do we have for being concerned about those things? It isn't any more self-evident than the idea that human life has value.
And: what on earth does that have to do with the subject of discussion?
- by Thomas on May 26, 2005 at 2:02 AM | link