ESCR

"Scientists are just beginning to understand the biology of human embryonic stem cells." So
says a report from the National Institutes of Health. Nevertheless, two things are already
clear.

First, research using embryonic stem-cells may result in a cure for various diseases,
including juvenile diabetes. Second, those stem-cells are acquired by taking apart a living
human embryo five days after conception.

Stem cells are "pluripotent," that is, they have the ability to develop into a variety of
specialized cells. Some diseases could theoretically be cured by replacing damaged tissue
with healthy tissue cultivated from stem cells. For instance, a batch of stem cells could
become pancreas cells, which could be implanted into the pancreas of a person with juvenile
diabetes, restoring the insulin-producing function of the pancreas.

Despite the potential value of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), many religious leaders
have spoken against it, primarily because they consider embryos to be people. Embryos
have their own unique DNA, distinct from their parents. They are new individuals.

But is an embryo a new person, or is an embryo a potential person? At Day 5, does an
embryo have a soul? Twinning is still possible at this point.

If embryos are people, then embryonic stem cell research is made possible by a form of
abortion. If embryos are only potential people, then embryonic stem cell research merely
involves destroying human material.

Many people, though, are not absolutely sure if embryos have souls or not. What then? If we
don't know if they are human beings or not, it would be reckless to kill them. Roman
Catholic scholar Peter Kreeft, making a case against abortion in general, has framed the
scenario in an analogy: if a hunter in a forest sees something move, he shouldn't shoot that
target until he knows that it is not a person.

The moral quantities are slightly different regarding embryonic stem cell research: not only
do we have the hunter, and a target (the nature of which is not known), but also the hunter's s
desperately hungry family. And we know that they are people.

So: does the hunter's family's crisis justify recklessness on the part of the hunter? Or
should the hunter still avoid shooting until he is absolutely sure that his target is not a human
being? Suppose the "hunter in the forest" analogy ends with a gunshot: the hunter comes
home with some meat. The family rejoices.

But then they ask, "What kind of meat is this?"

The hunter replies, "I don't know."

Someone examines the meat, and says, "This is human DNA. Did you shoot and
dismember a person?"

He answers: "Maybe. I don't know. I killed something. It was awfully small. I don't know
if it was a person or not."

Would you eat that meat? Would you want to pay the hunter to go into the woods again and
again to do the same thing?

That may sound like a firm case against government-funded embryonic stem-cell research.
Nevertheless, the NIH has issued guidelines which would permit it. Those guidelines state
that couples donating their surplus embryos (stored at fertilization clinics) should be told,
"Early human embryos donated will not be transferred to a woman's uterus, will not survive
the human pluripotent stem cell derivation process, and will be handled respectfully, as is
appropriate for all human tissue used in research."

In other words, the NIH recommends that donors of surplus embryos should be made aware
that the embryos are going to be killed. Someone will dismember the embryo, and will pass
along the stem cells to government-funded researchers.

"And what's wrong with that?" some have asked. "After all, the surplus embryos will die
anyway." True, unless someone adopts them and the embryo is successfully implanted in a
woman's uterus, those embryos will die – but that is not a license to kill, any more than
knowledge that a child has a fatal disease.

The way to justify embryonic stem cell research (if it is justifiable at all) is not to ruthlessly say
that a few short-lived people must be killed for the greater good. The only potentially

plausible arguments in favor of pursuing stem cell research depend on the premise that
embryos are not people. There are seriously pro-life people who believe that "ensoulment"
probably does not occur until a later stage of pregnancy. But can anyone say they know,
with absolute certainty, that human embryos do not have souls?

There is a way to circumvent this issue by tackling another issue: one could harvest cells
from fetal tissue rather than embryos. There is a less drastic way to obtain cells that are a lot
like embryonic stem cells: primordial "germ cells," like embryonic stem cells, are pluripotent.
They can be derived from the gonadal ridges of fetuses five to nine weeks old. If these cells
were collected from fetuses who were naturally miscarried, or who were aborted due to
ectopic pregnancies, this would morally be far superior to destroying embryos; in fact, given
these vital qualifications, it seems noble, equivalent in moral value to organ donation.

Embryonic stem cells are more robust than germ cells, but that could change – the research
is fledgling. Other possible sources of cells comparable to embryonic stem cells include
umbilical cords and adult stem cells.

Adult stem cells, though they currently [in 2002] look less promising than embryonic stem-
cells or germ-cells, are particularly interesting because (in theory) they could be extracted
from an individual, be developed into specialized tissue, and then be implanted into the same
individual without the risk of being attacked by his immune system.

The one option which is Most Wrong is the use of embryos "created" exclusively for
laboratory use. That would probably create momentum toward a future scenario in which
anencephalic humans (possessing no "higher-brain" function) are genetically engineered
and developed for the purpose of organ-harvesting.

So: there are other places to get pluripotent cells besides embryos. The hunter in the forest
has more than one target to choose from. His family doesn't have to starve, and they don't
have to risk committing a technological sort of cannibalism, either.