Stoking the Furnaces: "It's People!"

An expressed lynch pin in the pro-life argument is that every human life is of absolute value.  An often unexpressed, but necessary component to the pro-choice argument is that some human lives are less valuable than others.  This value differentiation is sometimes put in terms of actual value and sometimes is expressed in philosophies that refuse to label some human life with terms like "human" or "person."  But no matter the form of expression the conclusion is the same - some human lives are worth less than others.

The pro-life position must hold to a principle that creates the only maintainable guard-rails for this argument: every human life is of inestimable worth.  If any human life is estimable then you can, and many do, put a dollar amount on a human being and treat it accordingly.  It has been argued over and over that without this principle in place, all kinds of incredible and bloody things become possible.  Often the pro-lifer is mocked as an alarmist, tugging emotions to make their case.  But the case is based on a simple, if often vilified, principle that keeps weak humans from becoming the targets of powerful humans.

Right now, the pro-choice position has sway in large parts of the Western world, and so it should not surprise us that some places of health and healing have gone so far as to use the remains of miscarried and aborted babies to stoke the furnaces.  It should break our hearts, but it should not surprise us.

From the article in the UK Telegraph:

At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

The programme, which will air tonight, found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains....

One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’

Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013.

What was at one time considered a ludicrous warning (that severe and gruesome things will happen to people and with their remains if the pro-choice movement has their way) has become reality.  It has never been a slippery-slope argument to say that the pro-choice position will lead to things like involuntary euthanasia (already happening in parts of Europe), or now the desecration of infant bodies without the consent of their parents.  It has always been a logical extension of the principles and values at the heart of the pro-choice movement.

On a related note, doesn't anyone ever read Jonathan Swift's, "A Modest Proposal" in school anymore?

Just In Case It Wasn't Clear, "Pro-Life" Means...

I saw this link posted to Facebook in a couple of places, so I followed it to see what the authors meant by 'pro-life' and hear what they had to say.  I clicked the link expecting to find an article on the old moral category confusion of abortion and capital punishment.  What I found was far less thoughtful.

Apparently the pro-life movement is a lie.  Their reasoning is curious in that they list absolutely no pro-life organizations and deliberately confuse what it means to be pro-life.  I would like to respond in three ways: first, I will accept their implicit premise and show them to be wrong, and second, I will deny their transparent attempt to redefine 'pro-life'.  And finally I want to deny a shocking association they make.

In the short post, the two Rabbis complain that if a person is to be truly pro-life, they will engage with the poor, hungry, and the needy.  They list a handful of organizations that appear to work with inner city youth, trying to better their circumstances.  The not-so-subtle jab is that people who traditionally call themselves pro-life don't do this, and they would only be genuinely pro-life if they did.

In short, they have no idea what they are talking about.  The inner cities of our nation and the world are filled with conservative 'pro-lifers' who do a lot of difficult and thankless work with the hardest cases imaginable.  To list them would be an embarrassment to the post's authors.  So, why didn't they know about these pro-lifers (who are conservative in their politics, and in many cases, Christian)?  It has been my observation that the deeper into Progressive/Liberal circles people are, the less informed they are about the non-Progressive world.  It is a strong tendency in the political and social left to act as if they are the only ones worth reading, listening to, and paying attention to.  As a result, they unwittingly but inevitably become low-information commentators on culture.  (This dynamic can be true of every social tribe, but in our current milieu it is especially true of them.)

Secondly, their implicit premise is that ‘pro-life’ is defined as something like, “those who help the needy and poor, especially the young.”  I do not see anything in their post that even hints at helping the weakest and most vulnerable among us - the unborn.  But this is a time-worn trick - overcome your interlocutor by misrepresenting and redefining her position in such a way that you can easily knock it down.  It is called the Straw Man Fallacy and is one of the most juvenile tricks in the book. The pro-life position begins with defending life in the womb, and anyone even remotely aware of the philosophical, cultural, and scientific debates over abortion would understand this to be the rightful and commonsensical understanding of the term.  To utterly ignore it is just silly.

And finally, they assert that pro-lifers ought to support Planned Parenthood.  If their assertion includes the belief that pro-lifers ought to support an organization that performs 300,000 abortions a year, then they have committed one of the most transparent contradictions possible.  If they are unaware that Planned Parenthood performs that many abortions a year, then they might need to either do their homework or simply observe the facts and change their minds.

In any event, the pro-life movement is alive and well, no matter what her detractors say.

Asserting My Religious View On Abortion

Because the issue of life in the womb is so clear-cut for me, I am intrigued by thoughtful defenses of abortion rights.  More often than not abortion supporters rely on emotion and, frankly, out-shouting their opponents, so I am drawn to ideas that could possibly be a thought-out defense for taking a baby's life.  The Huffington Post blogger, Rabbi Aaron Alexander, wrote such a post to such a person like me.  It is from one person serious about their faith to another person serious about their faith who disagrees with him on the issue of life and abortion.

In opening, he makes a point about connecting religious belief with potential danger and coercion.  He recognizes my right to hold a religiously informed point of view then notes, "But, like all things religious, it is also potentially dangerous."  So, I assume, he is talking about his point of view.

Then, addressing the pro-life position, he says, "So this is the part I don't understand. Your definition of when life begins is not based on scientific fact. It is your religiously held belief. But it isn't mine....My religious tradition -- which prioritizes life above all else -- generally assumes that potential life doesn't become its own living entity until 40 days into the pregnancy."

What a curious set of things to string together.  Is he interested in the scientific evidence?  I'm not sure.  As far as I can tell all the actual scientific evidence that can be mustered in this debate tells us that the fertilized embryo is a human being.  The debate about whether or not it can be killed is not a scientific question, but one of value and meaning ('is it a wanted child?' 'will the mother be psychologically harmed if the child is carried to term?' 'when is it right to take the life of an innocent human being?' etc.).

Then our two views are pitted against each other with no clear arbiter.  They just are.  We simply hold two different opinions.  Great.

And then the inevitable happens.  He closes by saying,

You may disagree with my religion's definition. That I understand and respect. But here's the rub: when you attempt to legislate what my community (or any community) can and can't do based on your faith's definition, you don't just simply disagree with me. You are saying, to be blunt, that your religion is correct and mine is incorrect -- coercively. That takes a considerable amount of hubris that isn't worthy of either of our faiths, or our great country's principles, for that matter.

I do disagree, and I do respect his right to hold an opinion and defend it.  But I don't have any qualms about arguing for the rightness or accuracy of one position over another.  And, as it turns out, neither does he.  By asserting a position different from mine, and thereby either explicitly or implicitly hoping that I will hold his view instead of mine, he has violated his own standard.

But that's OK.  In fact, it is only right and natural that he does.  This is what we were given minds and rational capacities for - to aim at the truth of the matter.  I am glad I ran across his article - it has given me another opportunity to hear the 'other side's' argument and make sure my position is up-to-snuff.

And, surprisingly, I have no urge to be coercive or dangerous now.

Slippery Slopein' All The Way Down...

Don't let anyone tell you the "slippery slope" argument is invalid.  Especially when you are arguing that vice leads to more vice, or moral corruption leads to more moral corruption, the argument that, "It can only get worse," is not only valid, it is historically verifiable.

The latest case is of a Planned Parenthood representative before the Florida Legislature arguing for the right for them to perform "post birth abortions."  The hearing was about determining laws and regulations overseeing a situation in which a child is born alive when the mother intended to abort.  It happens more often than the pro-choice lobby would admit, so it is reasonable to figure out what is legally allowable in those situations.

But Planned Parenthood is now openly arguing for the right to kill a living baby out of the womb in a Doctor's office.

There are dozens of things wrong with this, but to begin with notice that the belief that abortion is an unlimited right (the position of Planned Parenthood) leads, naturally and logically, to infanticide.  There is no biological or ontological difference between a baby in the womb or outside of it.  So, if an institution's position is that the baby can be killed in the womb, there is no logical roadblock to the belief that it can be killed outside of the womb.

The rejoinder that the child was "intended to be aborted" is of no use here.  To begin with, intending murder does not morally allow us to finish the job if it is botched.  Secondly, what about a mother who comes in late in pregnancy, actually gives birth before the procedure (or gives birth before entering the abortion clinic), and then desires to have a "post-birth abortion"? There is no difference, and both are morally heinous.

What can be done?  Beyond whatever political involvement people can have, support and pray for organizations doing great good like Life Network.

Margaret Sanger Speaks From The Grave

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a eugenicist. While the public face of Planned Parenthood has softened over the last couple of generations, the purpose of the founding was to reduce the number of births among the poor and minorities. And, it seems, though Sanger is long dead, she is getting her way.

According to statistics released by the city of New York, nearly 40% of all pregnancies in the city end in abortion. If that isn’t enough of a bloodbath for you, the rate among black women is nearly 60%. The abortion agenda is doing what slavery never could – it is creating our own self-imposed holocaust by beginning with minority and poor children.

The study goes on to show:

The breakdown by ethnicity is, perhaps, even more startling. Almost 60% of all pregnancy outcomes in NYC for African-American mothers were abortions; among Hispanics, 41.3%. Asians and whites had relatively low percentages of abortion outcomes (22.7% and 20.4%, respectively).

And we should keep in mind that there are organizations making money hand-over-fist because of these kinds of stats.

No matter how unpopular the message seems to be in public, churches need to continue to stand for the dignity and personhood of the unborn and support efforts to stem the tide of abortion in our nation and world. This isn’t a political matter tied to R’s and D’s, it is fundamentally a moral matter tied to the health of the family and the human soul.

Who’s Afraid of Discourse?

If you have not heard of it, the Manhattan Declaration is an ecumenical public document stating the basic, historical Christian position on the sanctity of life, marriage and civil responsibility. The whole statement can be found here, and is worth your time if you are interested in these things. The document is argued well, has a reasonable tone, simply puts forth a brave and clear Christian position on a few of the more controversial issues in our culture today, and calls for civil discourse. So, naturally, it has its enemies.

Enter the cultural left.

Apple has banned the Manhattan Declaration iPhone app from their App Store. Here are some of their reasons:

Apple is telling us that the apps' content is considered "likely to expose a group to harm" and "to be objectionable and potentially harmful to others."

More and more, the cultural class that claims tolerance as its greatest virtue shows itself to be the most intolerant of all. It is not just that the bulk of the cultural left is favorable to both abortion and gay marriage, it is that they have lost all ability to discuss them with reason and civility. Instead of arguing against the details of the Declaration, its detractors want to censor it and call it bad names.

The Declaration itself, on the other hand, is a tremendous example of the Christian mind and conviction in the public square. Instead of resorting to name calling or censorship, the Christian thinks out-loud. The Christian has faith in the truth and in the practice of God-given reason.

In addition, the Declaration is a great example of Christian action in the public square. If the Christian truly believes that truth is a freeing and beautiful thing, the act of standing for the truth is an act of compassion for their neighbor. It is a weak and sickly “love” indeed that placates people with false and destructive hope.

I encourage you to engage with the Declaration, and if you feel able, sign it.

The Letters Are Far From Losers

Mary Eberstadt
The Loser Letters

This book is a catch. The device Eberstadt uses is similar to the Screwtape Letters in that she uses a string of letters from one point of view to argue for the opposing point of view. The speaker in the book is a young atheist convert writing to the big New Atheists (always in a capitalized “You”) about where they have gone wrong. The tone is that of a smart but young adult who is serious about her desire for the atheists to be right about their ethics and naturalism. The point is an apologetic for where they go wrong in their arguments over and over.

One of the things I found surprising about the book is the storyline that unfolds through the letters. Who is this young lady known as A. F. Christian (A Former Christian)? How did her conversion from Christianity to atheism happen? What kinds of insights might she have for the New Atheists? And most importantly, what is happening to her now?

This is a popular-level book, so don’t expect any footnotes or jargon. But that does not keep Eberstadt from making some serious arguments and accusations and doing it well. I think this is a great way into the world of the current apologetic resulting from the New Atheists, and might even be a good breather from the more technical works.

"I would want to be the first to put a pillow over its head"

Virginia Ironside is a British columnist of apparently some note who has hit the international scene recently by asserting on BBC that she would rather suffocate a suffering child than allow it to live. In the context of a conversation about whether abortion can be a kindness, she likened an embryo to “a couple of cells” and valued them as nothing compared to long-term suffering.




A handful of things strike me as a result of this video. Is it really out of the realm of reason to argue against current forms of abortion and euthanasia using the slippery slope argument? The destruction of a child in the womb is one form of murder, and we may feel a step disconnected from the morality of it because the child is still in the womb, but infanticide is another. And while the public debate up until recently has typically been in terms of “health of the mother” or “back-alley” abortions, the public debate is now creeping into the territory of simple infanticide for the sake of convenience. The slope seems to have been slippery, indeed.

To my knowledge only two types of cultures consider infanticide not murder: the utterly barbaric and backward and the overly cushy. We are the second: a culture inextricably linked to our creature comforts and convenience and thus we seem to be developing a particular distaste for an undefined (but clearly abhorred!) sense of “suffering.” The ubiquitous question asks itself, “Who gets to define ‘suffering’?” What kinds of people are so selfish as to impose their sense of “suffering” on another and chose life or death for them?

According to studies done in the last decade, about 90% of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. I guarantee you that if you talk with a family who has a Down syndrome child, they will be appalled. Down syndrome can be a relatively minor handicap. So what about other “minor” forms of handicaps? Where do we draw the lines and who gets to draw them?

The more I work this issue through, the more it seems to me that the only reasonable and solid ground for personhood is at conception. Anyplace else is fairly if not utterly arbitrary, and opens the door to having conversations about how old a child can be for us to legally kill it. The personhood of anyone is not correlative to the value we place upon it, or the potential suffering we expect for it. Your personhood is not a sliding scale with another’s hand on the dial.

The Christian knows that suffering, in all its forms, is not the gauge for the value of any human life. There is no denying suffering, and no Christian should downplay real pains and consequences, but no Christian should measure the value of any life based on “suffering.”

Embryo Destructive vs. Actually Creative Research

Recently, a court ruling put a stop to the Obama administration’s work to pour tax dollars into embryo-destructive stem cell research. It was the right ruling for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that it is actually illegal to do what the Obama team tried to do.

But the best reasons are highlighted in Matt Bowman’s opinion in USA Today, “Pointless Research.” He notes that since to congressional ruling in 1995,

science itself has ended the debate. Adult stem cells actually help people, and a new technique creating "induced pluripotent stem cells" (IPSCs) gives every benefit of embryonic cells and more, without destroying embryos. Stem cell pioneer James Thomson told The New York Times that IPSCs spell the "end" of the embryonic stem cell field. Meanwhile, embryonic-destructive research has yielded little beyond tumors, wild promises and the demand for more taxpayer dollars.

So why are certain parts of the scientific and political world still pushing for hundreds of millions to fund research that has been a dead end and promises to be that way for a while (especially when there is useful research being done without the embryos)?

That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer. And I am honestly looking for one. It is outright intellectual dishonesty? Group-think? Political power-plays in the halls of hallowed science?

Another Outbreak of Adult Stem Cells

I have argued in this blog for a while now that when it comes to the debate surrounding embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research, the adult cells have the embryonic cells beat on every count. Then comes this headline published several places, but here in the LA Times, “Adult Stem Cell Studies Ahead of Embryonic Research.” The article goes on to mention (and link to) a few of the many clinical successes already known as a result of ASC treatments. As for ESC research it continues to show “promise” and is being worked on in certain spinal cord applications. The long and the short of it (for now), is that ASC research is a success and ESC research is still a promise.

The next consideration is that ESC research destroys embryos – they cannot survive the process of having the stem cells removed. So, depending on your view of the personhood of the embryo, ESC research is tantamount to a form of abortion. Hence, it seems that ASC research has both the scientific and ethical edge.

Another consideration is that ESCs have a potentially wider range of application than ASCs. They might be able to do more for more people, so the research (necessarily including the creation and destruction of embryos) is justified based on the potential good it can do. If we find a way for one embryo to be used in the treatment of, say, 100 patients with 100 different conditions, is it worth the destruction of possibly tens of thousands of embryos in the process?

I don’t agree with that kind of fairly crass utilitarian thinking, and am inclined to be on the side of ASC research that harms none, actually accomplishes real-world treatments, and continues to develop as a multipotent form of medical treatment.

Global Warming and a Planetary One-Child Policy

Much has been made of this piece of journalistic tripe over the last couple of days, so I thought I would go ahead and read it. Mercifully, it is short. The basic claim is the same uber-radical claim made by progressives over the past several decades – the real problem with humans is humans. There are just too many of us, and we are slowing killing the planet and each other (and those are ranked in the right ontological order for them). In her frighteningly titled “The real inconvenient truth,” Diane Francis reports:

The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.

A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.

Whether Francis knows exactly what that entails, you ought to know. China’s one-child policy is in practice a recipe for three things: millions of state-sponsored and enforced abortions, a severely declining female birth rate, and hundreds of thousands of abandoned malformed and disabled children. In other words, a state-enforced one-child policy means in actuality that girls and “unwanted” children are aborted and abandoned at unusual rates. But, it seems, none of this is a problem for Francis. And as is typical, we humans need to take a cue from our intelligent plant and animal ancestors.

The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate…. Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it.

On one level the only appropriate response to this is a good chuckle and casual dismissal. On another level, Francis is allegedly one of “the only rational animals” but apparently needs a quick lesson in reason. Francis is wrong on every assumption – she assumes the entire planet’s human population is growing at an unsustainable rate, she assumes China’s policy is environmentally driven and successful, she assumes it is a good thing to have this kind of “planetary law,” and she assumes the moral high-ground belongs to population control advocates.

It is flatly false that the planet’s population is growing out of control. The smart (and outside the inner circle of politically correct scientific coercion) view is that most of the world is in a demographic winter. Only certain segments of the world’s population are growing. Most of them are deeply religious groups and countries in the developing world. So, as argued before, population control like this on a planetary level is de facto eugenics.

China doesn’t care one whit about the environment. They force families to have only one child because their command and control economy can’t keep up. It’s an old story, really. When Stalin’s Five Year Plans couldn’t feed his entire population, he decided the best thing to do was stick with the Plan and slaughter tens of millions of peasants. Francis might be on-board.

Without going too long, it is simply not true that the population control advocates have the moral high-ground. First of all, the radical predictions over the last 50 years have failed to come true. Obama currently has a Science Czar who predicted in the 60s and 70s that the East Coast would be unlivable and the Mid-West would be an arid dust bowl – all by 1985. And we still listen to these people? Secondly, the plans advocated by population control advocates are, pure and simple, an effort to eliminate “other people.” Eugenics is eugenics is eugenics.

By the way, Diane Francis has two kids.

Christian Living When The Going Gets Tough

Chuck Colson, Robert George and Timothy George have authored and released a Christian manifesto of sorts, The Manhattan Declaration. It is a call for serious Christian living in our current cultural climate – almost a call for civil disobedience. It identifies several areas where they think core beliefs are being compromised by the culture at large, and the general tone of the document can be summed up in this arresting final thought:

We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.

About 150 Christian leaders from all three major orthodox confessions signed the document upon its release last Friday. I am considering signing it myself, so it is sitting on my desk for digestion. But in the mean time, I ran across this article in the NYT and thought it deserved some comment.

Apart from the expectedly typical progressive smarminess just beneath the surface, the article cites a law professor at George Washington University, Lupu.

Ira C. Lupu, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, said it was “fear-mongering” to suggest that religious institutions would be forced to do any of those things [pay taxes or support social schemes against their conscience]. He said they are protected by the First Amendment, and by conscience clauses that allow medical professionals and hospitals to opt out of performing certain procedures, and religious exemptions written into same-sex marriage bills.

The stance that religious speech is automatically protected by the First Amendment is naïve to the extreme given the current climate of other western democracies. First Amendment or not, pastors and conscientious objectors are in and out of prison for violating their nation’s current politically correct fads all the time. (And if that’s not provocative enough for you, I decided last week that hate crime laws are, by logical extension, necessarily hate speech and hate thought laws.)

Lupu added that the real tension comes into play when religious organizations “provide social services to the public.” And he is right. Catholic adoption agencies on the east coast have had to shut their doors because they refuse to adopt to homosexual couples. A camp in New Jersey lost its non-profit status when it refused to perform a gay marriage. The notion of “social services” can and will be defined so broadly as to include anything – I guarantee it. My church runs an active food pantry in conjunction with a handful of non-religious social organizations. We support a couple of local elementary schools throughout the year. Do we count as a target for political intolerance?

I typically don’t react to Christian manifestos with much lasting interest, but this one is a real consideration for me, and I fully expect it to have real consequences for those who sign and support it.

Abortion and Public Funding

There is a great deal of debate right now, as a subset of the health care debate, about whether abortion is or ought to be covered by a taxpayer funded program. Over and over, reports and studies show us that the current plans do cover abortion, but the moral debate obviously is not over. Salon’s Broadsheet posted the “10 Reasons Abortion Must Be Covered.” It begins:

Abortion should be covered by health insurance. We say this, we sense this, we assume this. We insist that abortion is simply a medical procedure -- and that it, therefore, merits coverage.

Calling abortion “simply a medical procedure” is like saying murder is “just another way to use a knife.” Medical procedure or not, it is the ethics of the issue which matter in this case, and outside of some polling concerns and worries about a “slippery slope,” the post is not that interested in raising the central ethical question. Among the 10 reasons, Lynn Harris lists these.

1. Abortion is legal medical care.

2. Abortion is common, mainstream medical care.

Both of these considerations only beg the question. It is true that in most cases in most states, abortion is legal, but again, that side-steps the fundamental ethical issues. By this reasoning we might be able to say that because euthanasia is legal in Switzerland (it is, and it is a growing business), the government has a duty to financially provide for doctor assisted suicide. The legality or illegality of any act does not settle the moral question.

5. Covering abortion makes abortion safer.

This is a standard chestnut pulled out at every opportunity. As more real statistical work is done, the more the claims of the tens of thousands of deaths by back-alley abortions becomes an urban legend. It just has not been proven (it has been asserted abundantly!) that legality makes for safety where there was none before.

7. Excluding abortion from coverage sends us down a slippery "moral" slope.

Here the author is worried that if we begin to look at these provisions through the eyes of a particular moral view, then we will be down a path of removing all kinds of other legal protections as a result of that view. That may or may not be the case, but if there is at least one immoral act we can exclude from taxpayer funding, I don’t think this is a compelling reason not to try.

If this happened in a clinic...

Man arrested in death of his unborn child.

My only question is, Why?

Still Stuck on Killing Embryos

I think in most junior high yearbook classes they call this “reporting”:

President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order and memo Monday in an East Room ceremony that will end a divisive policy decision by his predecessor, while sending a clear signal that science - not political ideology - will guide his administration.

I shouldn’t be, but I continue to be shocked at the deliberate work of obfuscation and perpetrated ignorance when it comes to the main stream media and political liberals when it comes to this topic. Over and over again, the facts of scientific data have contradicted the actual usefulness of embryonic stem cell research. But the propaganda continues. Every time you read of the topic in the ignorant media, it reads like messianic hope:

Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can morph into any cell of the body. Scientists hope to harness them so they can create replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases - such as new insulin-producing cells for diabetics, cells that could help those with Parkinson's disease or maybe even Alzheimer's, or new nerve connections to restore movement after spinal injury.

For years now, scientist have hoped for those things to happen. It’s time to find another victim patsy! Unfortunately, President Bush killed Christopher Reeve before scientific hope could make him walk again. The deliberate manipulation of information and the abuse of the sick and diseased in the service of a horrid process is – well, it has become typical.

In case you are new to this debate, and apparently media types who have been covering it for a decade are, the final nail was put in this coffin months ago. The primary complaint with the incredibly effective adult stem cells is that they don’t appear to be pluripotent. A procedure was devised and repeated in which adult skin cells are chemically “reprogrammed” to behave like pluripotent stem cells, thus allowing them to be used for any and every conceivable problem in the human body.

In a nutshell, here is why embryonic stem cell research should be opposed at every turn.

First, all the science is against it. Adult stem cells and reprogrammed skin cells have been used in almost 100 documented cases of successful treatment. Embryonic stem cells: 0. Embryonic stem cells don’t turn themselves off, thus creating non-malignant tumors when used. Adult and reprogrammed stem cells don’t.

Second, all the ethical reflection is against ESR. Embryos have to be killed in order to harvest their stem cells. Embryos are humans, thus ESR is (now government sponsored) murder. Even if you don’t hold to the actual personhood of embryos, one should at least admit that allowed to grow to term, human embryos become human infants. If we aren’t killing human beings, we are killing potential human beings. And the ends don’t justify the means. The potential benefit of messianic science does not justify the destruction of human embryos.

So, I really want to know, why are we still stuck on funding ESR?

Catholic Hospitals and FOCA

In today’s social terms, the further “left” a worldview goes, the narrower it becomes. By its very nature, the more “postmodern” a philosophy becomes the more intolerant and power-happy it has to be. Because argumentation and persuasion are defacto non-factors, all that is left is propaganda and power. (But I digress slightly…)

In a world where religious and non-religious worldviews can live side-by-side, some hospitals can chose to provide abortions, and others can chose not to. In a world where the Federal government legislates the “right” to abortion and forces it on all medical providers, those who have a different philosophy of life are coerced – it is political tyranny.

President Obama famously promised to pass FOCA, a piece of legislation he helped co-sponsor in the past that will overturn all state and local roadblocks to abortion on demand. The Saint Louis Post Dispatch reports:

A proposed bill promising major changes in the U.S. abortion landscape has Roman Catholic bishops threatening to close Catholic hospitals if the Democratic Congress and White House make it law.

The Freedom of Choice Act failed to get out of subcommittee in 2004, but its sponsor is poised to refile it now that former Senate co-sponsor Barack Obama occupies the Oval Office.

A spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the legislation "is among the congressman's priorities. We expect to reintroduce it sooner rather than later."

Could the Catholic Church sell their interests in their hospitals to other providers and thus get out of a moral bind?

Speaking in Baltimore in November at the bishops' fall meeting, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, a Chicago auxiliary bishop, took up the issue of what to do with Catholic hospitals if FOCA became law. "It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions," he said. "That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil."

Though there is debate as to the language and the consequences of the current FOCA bill, the latest incarnation read like a guaranteed right.

In its last incarnation, FOCA defined abortion as a "fundamental right" that no government can "deny" or "interfere with." That language, FOCA's opponents warn, would help overturn abortion restrictions such as parental notification, laws banning certain procedures and constraints on federal funding.

The future, real-world consequences of legislation are tricky and always subject to debate. But I think the Catholic Church is on to something. If a guaranteed right protected and coerced by the government conflicts with their worldview at a very basic and fundamental level, they need to do something. And because abortion is, as Bishop Paprocki said, “evil,” their only morally acceptable option would be to withdraw completely if the consequences go the way they predict.

On a related note, why is it not coercion for abortion to be outlawed in most if not all circumstances? Because it is not coercion to legislate moral behavior. If abortion is the murder of innocent children, and I believe it is, the only morally acceptable action is to speak out and legislate against it. For example, it is not coercion or political tyranny to stop genocide or suicide bombers – it is a moral obligation to do so.

Don't Let Your Embryos Out Of Your Sight

In the dystopia, Brave New World, Huxley foresees a world where humans have been genetically modified to fit certain strata of society, and have become slaves to their own technology. In the film (and book), Gattaca, a similar society is on display in which the genetically advantaged have all the social advantages anyone needs, just by virtue of their DNA. I once tried to describe the Gattaca plot to someone who simply laughed at me and the “ridiculous” premise. That was a few years ago. My how things change.

A fertility clinic, Fertility Institutes, is making headlines along with other IVF providers for a procedure called prenatal genetic screening (PGD). A process that has actually been around for a while, it allows families to take a peek into the genetics of their pre-born children to check for genetic diseases and other traits tied to genetics. The difference now is, Fertility Institutes and others are promising and providing screening procedures for gender and cosmetic traits. This means you can choose the embryo of your choice with all the right physical features, and not just all the right genetic tendencies.

From their website:

In addition to our renown infertility and in vitro fertilization services, we are the world's largest and most successful 100% gender selection program and offer very popular egg donor and surrogacy options.

From a news piece on the Fox website:

It isn't clear that Fertility Institutes can yet deliver on its claims of trait selection. But the growth of PGD, unfettered by any state or federal regulations in the U.S., has accelerated genetic knowledge swiftly enough that pre-selecting cosmetic traits in a baby is no longer the stuff of science fiction.

But Fertility Institutes disagrees. "This is cosmetic medicine," says Jeff Steinberg, director of the clinic that is advertising gender and physical trait selection on its Web site. "Others are frightened by the criticism but we have no problems with it."

At a certain level, this is already fairly commonplace in some contexts.

Embryo screening, for example, is sometimes used to create a genetically matched "savior sibling" — a younger sister or brother whose healthy cells can be harvested to treat an older sibling with a serious illness.

Trait selection in babies "is a service," says Dr. Steinberg. "We intend to offer it soon."

From the PHG Foundation website dedicated to this kind of news:

A US fertility clinic is reportedly offering patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) selection for or against cosmetic traits such as eye, hair and skin colour. The embryos produced by IVF are screened for chromosomal abnormalities prior to implantation (see previous news), with an option for sex selection, and now parents will also be offered additional screening for certain physical features (presumably for an additional fee) as well as for “potentially lethal diseases” and “cancer tendencies”

Hitherto, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been limited to determination of the presence or absence of a genetic variant associated with a serious form of disease; in the UK, this is the only permitted use of the technique, which is carefully regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)

In the US, services providing PGD are subject to voluntary regulation.

The growth of this technology and the growing acceptance of the uses of this technology requires ethical reflection, cultural and political action, and education. As presented on the website and in the news pieces concerning Fertility Institutes and other organizations of the like, these applications of technology need to stop. A few things require reflection.

First, the IVF procedure is the Pandora’s Box technology. It promises great things, but it opens the door to unethical technologies. In the typical IVF, several fertilized embryos are created which means the “leftovers” can be experimented on, frozen, or destroyed. When a fertility clinic speaks of choosing the best children for parents, what they mean is they destroy the unacceptable unborn children. IVF is eugenic abortion writ-large.

Second, this technology is available only to those who can afford it. This means designer children for the rich, and natural children for the not-so-rich. In addition, this presents questions about government control and regulation, and if it becomes seen as a “right,” does this mean taxpayer dollars will be used to destroy unacceptable embryos?

Third, this is generational slavery. When we choose the cosmetic traits for our children, we impose upon them our current standards of what looks good or healthy.

Fourth, there is no really good definition for the difference between therapy and enhancement. In other words, can you adequately define the difference between fixing what went wrong and purely “cosmetic” procedures? If we can replace or genetically aid a diseased or underperforming eye, for instance, we probably should. What happens if the genetic enhancement becomes stronger and more acute than the natural product? Should we genetically enhance embryos so their eyes will be better than nature intended? Should height be “fixed”? Skin color? Gender is being “fixed” right now – are you OK with that?

Fifth, the answers to all these questions and thousands more rely on a good definition of human nature. The predominant philosophies running our scientific and political organizations, however, don’t have one. And when there is no good, unmovable definition of human nature humanity becomes pliable and subject to the whims of technology, instead of the other way around.

Christian thinkers need to continue to stand up and say these technologies need to stop and be subject to sound ethical thinking before they are implemented. It is not the case that just because we can do it, we should.

Worldviews Have Consequences

In what is sure to be the beginning of a slew of Executive Orders and legislative initiatives with profound cultural implications, over the weekend the Mexico City Policy was reversed. During his presidency, Reagan instituted a polity whereby any foreign or international organization asking for U.S. funds could not provide or promote abortion services. The language of the current executive order contains no language about supporting abortion policy across the globe, but it doesn’t take much to understand what the vocabulary means and what the consequences are likely to be. Much of the vocabulary that supports the murder of children around the globe reads like this:

It is clear that the provisions of the Mexico City Policy are unnecessarily broad and unwarranted under current law, and for the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries. For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.

“Family planning” in these contexts includes, and is sometimes exclusively, abortion. And how is abortion “economic development”?

In addition, I look forward to working with Congress to restore U.S. financial support for the U.N. Population Fund. By resuming funding to UNFPA, the U.S. will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries.

If we can keep the poorest around the world from having too many babies, so the logic goes, they will be wealthier. Putting the “logic” aside, we need to recognize these kinds of policies for what they are – eugenics. Eugenics is the practice of deciding who is fit to be born, live, and die. Usually it is repellant to us. But if it is couched in terms of “empowering women,” “global economic development,” and “improv[ing] the health of women and children,” who can object? What reversing the Mexico City Policy does is allow U.S. funds to be used in reducing the populations of the poorest around the globe. Apparently, if there were less of them, “global economic development” would proceed less hindered and the rest of us would be better off.

A proper Christian reaction to poverty does not – never does – include abortion. Saying that poverty is a complex and possibly insurmountable issue is an understatement. But for the Christian, it is an opportunity to give and to do. Christian churches among the poorest populations around the globe do the most good. Pentecostal churches in central Africa, for example, not only educate their city’s children, but they run effective and poverty reducing health clinics.

When Paul was commissioned by the apostles in Jerusalem, he was encouraged to remember the poor, which thing he was eager to do (Gal. 2:10). Paul then writes often to churches about the collection he will receive from them, and thanks them on behalf of the others who received their last contributions and gifts. Paul’s actions are our guides. We give what we can and we do when we can, but we never reduce the populations of people holding us back.