Persons and Politics:

Why Stem Cells Matter

Craig Payne

Craig Payne teaches at a community college in southeastern Iowa.

Probably embryonic stem cell research is not high on most people’s “priority issue” lists. For many, if they think about it at all, this controversy lurks somewhere down in the murky currents of “religious” topics or “moral” problems. Therefore, they do not see the possibility of any clear-cut resolution to the controversy.

On the other hand, many do see the possibility of “silver-bullet” advances in medical practice should the research be continued. The widow of the late Christopher Reeve, for example, toured the country with the John Kerry presidential campaign, promoting stem cell research. There are numerous other high-profile celebrities, such as Michael J. Fox, who are also pushing for the research to continue.

Given the current state of the science involved, these people are raising false hopes for rapid and miraculous recoveries in many who are sick. Still, the hopes are there. For example, on election day 2004, the voters of California passed a referendum, Proposition 71, budgeting three billion dollars for further stem cell research in their state. This funding would not have passed without the prospect of major returns on the voters’ investment.

To further muddy the waters, Senator Kerry during the campaign made repeated references to President Bush’s “ban” on stem-cell research. Even people who were sympathetic to Bush had some trouble understanding his rationale for the “ban.” Why is this an important issue? Why do stem cells matter? How did politics get involved in scientific research of this nature anyway?

Stem Cell Research Banned?

Perhaps a good place to begin addressing these questions lies in clearing up some misconceptions, whether deliberately spread or not, about President Bush’s position on stem cell research. Stem cell research basically tries to generate lines of healthy cells from “stem” cells so that these newly generated cells can then be transplanted back into humans, in order to restore the function of damaged or diseased tissues. If this research were to turn out successfully, these “generated” cells might someday be able to repair brain damage, nerve damage, Alzheimer’s, damaged hearts and other organs, and so on.

Despite what John Kerry said, President Bush has not issued a “ban” on this research. For example, stem cells can be gotten from adults, and research into adult stem cells has not been banned. Embryonic stem cell lines generated before August 2001 can continue—that research has not been banned, either. In fact, the “ban” only affects researchers receiving federal money, not privately funded researchers, and it only affects newly generated embryonic stem cell lines.

Why only embryonic stem cell lines? Why is the harvesting of stem cells from embryos an issue? Simply, the harvesting of stem cells from an embryo destroys the embryo, and so the argument over the use of embryonic stem cells swirls around the question of the personal status of human embryos—the same bottom-line question that continues to make abortion a controversy.

What Is a Human?

Here’s the question: Should we deliberately produce human embryos with the intention of destroying them to harvest their cells? Should we destroy human embryos for our own medical benefit? For that matter, what is the status of embryos? Are human embryos humans?

This is why the issue is crucial to some people, myself included. It touches on our ideas of what it means to be human. Do we have the right to destroy some humans for the medical benefit of others?

“Wait just a minute,” you might be thinking.

You’re changing the question. You begin by asking if we have the right to destroy embryos for the medical benefit of others, and then switch to destroying “humans” for medical benefit. No one really knows for sure when human life begins, so you can’t call a human embryo a human.

But if you are thinking this, consider an analogy: Let’s suppose you and I were out hunting together. We see movement in the trees, but we can’t make out exactly what’s causing the movement. It might be what we’re hunting, or it might not. It might even be another human.

What would you think of me if I shot into the trees? Would you object? And what would you think of me if I explained, “Well, it’s okay to kill it, whatever it is. After all, we’re not really sure if it’s a human, right?”

Wouldn’t you want to give it the benefit of the doubt? In other words, if you don’t really know whether or not it’s a human being, you don’t kill it until you decide for sure. If people are really being honest when they say, “We don’t know exactly when human life begins,” would not simple decency compel them to protect human embryos, on the principle that it would be better to err on the side of caution?

Some people attempt to sidestep this principle by making a distinction between a human embryo and a human “person.” They refer to unborn children as merely “potential persons.” A “person,” according to this view, is a human that is rational, self-conscious, self-moving, and so on. So embryos might be “human,” but they are not human “beings.” They’re not “persons.”

However, if we adopt this view, further horrifying questions open out before us: Is it all right to eliminate the non-rational (those with advanced Alzheimer’s, for example)? How about the unconscious or those in comas? After all, they are also not rational, not self-conscious, not self-moving. If we define “personhood” by some human function or another, what happens to those who no longer possess that function?

“Don’t exaggerate,” you might respond.

No one will seriously propose killing off Alzheimer’s patients or the mentally handicapped or those in comas, just because they are pro-choice in abortion or stem cell research.

Well, all I can say is that you’re about thirty years out of date. These proposals have already been seriously discussed and advocated by various public philosophers (such as Peter Singer, for instance). Some European countries which already have laws permitting voluntary euthanasia are now beginning to discuss non-voluntary, physician-ordered euthanasia. This is not a “slippery slope” we’re talking about; it’s more like stepping off a moral cliff.

Defining Human Beings

So how should we define human beings, if not by their functional abilities? My answer is simple: We define humans by their genetic code and by their ability to develop into mature examples of genetic humans. By this definition, you’d be a human. So would I. So would a person in a coma. So would an embryo, or even a fertilized human egg.

At this point this argument occasionally arises: “An acorn isn’t an oak tree, and an egg isn’t a human.” This assertion is true, so far as it goes—the problem is that it’s irrelevant. No one is claiming that a human egg is a human being (or that an acorn is an oak tree, for that matter). However, when the acorn sprouts, it is an oak tree, at the earliest stage of the tree’s development. Likewise with the human egg, which does not begin developing until it is fertilized. At that point it is a developing human, with its own human genetic code and human potentials, at the earliest stage of humanity.

This isn’t a “religious” definition. It is a definition based on genetics—and its advantage is that it protects the boundaries of what is and what is not a human, what can be safely “harvested” and what cannot.

On the other hand, even though this common-sense definition of “human-ness” does not directly draw from religious principles, it has its corollary in the biblical wisdom of Zechariah: “Do not despise this small beginning, for the eyes of the Lord rejoice to see the work begin” (4:10, The Living Bible). Every oak begins its life as a sprouted acorn; every human begins his or her life as an embryo. Are we warranted to end those “small beginnings” just for the potential benefit to other humans?

A great deal more could be said, and needs to be said, on this topic of stem cell research. But the basic principle remains. No matter the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research, as writer Russell Saltzman puts it,

It is not right for big, strong human beings to benefit themselves by preying upon weak, little human beings.

That’s why stem cell research is a “political” issue as well as moral. And that’s why it’s important.     *

“In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness.” --James Madison