Both Rusty at New Covenant and Matt at Wheat and Chaff have posted in the last couple days to bash Christopher Reeve for promoting embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. They say that he is selfish and self-serving for promoting "death" to improve his own position. Matt writes:
Why are these men regarded as moral heroes when their only cause is to deny life to others for their own benefit? I am sorry for the family of Christopher Reeve, and I'm sorry for the suffering he went through. Likewise for Michael J. Fox. But I do not regard it as a great act of moral bravery that they agitate for a cause that they perceive will benefit them directly, whatever the moral value of the cause. Even if embryonic research was a morally neutral cause (which it is not), why is it an act of bravery and moral courage to promote research which will cure you of a disease you have?
First, I don't think anyone regards either Christopher Reeve or Michael J. Fox as "moral heroes". Second, the argument that ESC research "denies life to others" is simply false. The greatest fiction that has been foisted on people in this debate is the tie between ESC research and abortion. No one has ever had an abortion in order to produce embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are taken from fertilized eggs that are produced in the process of artificial insemination. There are in fact several hundred thousand fertilized eggs frozen at fertility clinics around the country.
My best friend and his wife went through artificial insemination. In fact, they went through it twice. The first time it failed, the second time it worked and they are now the parents of a twin boy and girl who are absolutely delightful. In the process of insemination, they harvest all of the eggs produced by the woman in a given month, then fertilize all of those eggs. In their case, I think there were a total of 12 fertilized eggs. They grow them in petri for a few days until they are able to determine which are dividing the fastest, hence are likely to be the most robust, and they implant some of them into the women's uterus and she carries them to term (it's up to each couple how many they implant, of course. My friends had two implanted). The other 10 fertilized eggs were then frozen. Had the process failed, they could have attempted it again using one or more of the frozen specimens, or they could have started the process over from scratch. But it worked. Those 10 frozen little 16 or 32 cell zygotes will never be used for anything else. After a certain period of time, they are simply disposed of, quite literally flushed down the drain.
The choice for ESC research is not between "destroying life" and not destroying life. The choice is between using the enormous store of frozen zygotes that will otherwise be tossed out for promising scientific research that can help millions of people over the next few decades, or simply tossing them out. That's the only choice we face. So to accuse Christopher Reeve of wanting to "deny life to others" to cure his disease is irrational. But then, the entire position against ESC research is irrational. Bush's absurd decision to restrict federal funding on ESC research to only those cell lines that had previously been cultivated, it must be said, has not done one thing to "preserve life". Not one of those little sets of barely differentitated cells sitting in the deep freeze that he shows such concern for has been "saved" by his policy. Not one more life exists today than would have existed had his policy not been put in place. In other words, his policy has done precisely nothing tangible to "preserve life", it is merely a symbolic policy to appease people who have been conned into thinking that this research has something to do with abortion and being "pro-life".
The only tangible result of Bush's policy has been to slow down this important research. Federal funding for medical research is hugely important in the curing and treating of diseases. The list of medications and treatments that have come about at least in part because of federally funded research at the NIH or with federal grants to research universities is enormous. By removing federal funding, it slows down that research and puts off potential cures for a wide range of diseases. If a cure for Parkinson's disease or any of the other diseases for which stem cell research may hold the key is put off by a few years because the pace of research was slower than it would otherwise be, the result will likely be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of lives lost that might otherwise have been treated earlier. And for what? So Bush can throw a symbolic bone to the religious right, who foolishly think he's "preserving life" by doing so. That's not "pro-life", it's pro-death.
Postscript: PZ Myers has also been writing about this subject the last couple days, and as a developmental biologist lends some scientific details to the discussion. In this post, he discusses why ESC is important and why it may also be important to combine the research on adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells to unlock how they work; in this post, he looks at some other right wing nutballs who are tearing down Christopher Reeve far beyond what Rusty and Matt attempt. One of them even wonders if he arranged his death on purpose to become a martyr and help John Kerry get elected. Where do these idiots come from?
I'm not one of those people who turns celebrities into heroes. I don't think Christopher Reeve was a hero, I think he was a victim who was fortunate enough to have the resources and public notoriety to help advocate for an important cause. To me, that's what should be expected of someone in his position. I admire the dignity with which he handled what happened to him, but that doesn't make him a hero. But there's a lot of distance between hero and self-serving death merchant, and he sure as hell doesn't deserve the vitriol of these people who value a little 16-cell blob that they couldn't even see with the naked eye (and would be destroyed anyway if it wasn't used for research) over real people suffering in the world with horrible diseases. That's not "pro-life", it's just plain sick.
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A purely scientific question: I notice the research is referred to as "embryonic stem cell research," and not "zygotic stem cell research," so how far along the development curve from zygote to embryo is necessary in order to produce the research specimen?
Dave-
As far as I understand it, there are no hard and fast distinctions between a zygote and an embryo. The more technical definition of a zygote is a fertilized egg before cell division begins, but it is also commonly used to refer to the organism that results from that division. Embryo generally refers to the stage from cell division through the point at which it becomes a recognizable human form. If I remember correctly, stem cells are generally retrieved in the first few days after fertilization, and in fact don't do much good after that point.
This just in from Pedantic City: The procedure your friends used was in-vitro fertilization. Artifical Insemination is done in the uterus during a normal ovulation cycle.
LOL. Thanks, Keith. I recall it being called a GIF technique, or something similar. Not entirely sure what it stands for though.
Ed,
I think you refer to the GIFT technique, or Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer. The egg and sperm are placed are placed directly in the Fallopian Tube and it is hoped that fertilization will thus ensue.
That's damn interesting Ed ... because quite recently some folks in that neck of the virtual woods were telling me something to the effect that Right-to-Life objections to ESCR is not necessarily related to objections over the RtL perception thatembryos are 'people'. I pretty much knew that was malarky and found I lost interest in the discussion, sensing I couldn't trust the respondants to be completely truthful.
Thanks, Dave. That's what I was referring to. At any rate, it worked and they now have a delightful set of twins. One wonders why the right to life crowd isn't fighting in-vitro fertilization and trying to shut down those clinics rather than fighting the research that uses the leftovers from those clinics that would otherwise be destroyed. As long as IVF goes on, there will always be unused fertilized eggs. They will either be disposed of or they can be used for promising medical research. This truly is a no-brainer.
While it may appear (to irrational hypocrites) that Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve are fighting for a selfish cause, I think this is severely underestimating there convictions. It is true, that if the "cure" for spinal cord injuries and the cure for Parkinson's Disease were found tomorrow, these gentlemen would undoubtedly benefit. However, both of them equally understand that this will not happen!
Reeve said, in an interview shortly before his death, that after his injury he had established the NAIVE goal of being able to walk again in the future. He KNEW that the prospects were poor then and he knew (when he died) that those prospects were poor today, even after years of campaigning for further research into spinal cord injury.
Considering the severity of his injury, and after the doctors explained to him that he would NEVER walk again, why would he have thrown his life into the stem-cell debate? He felt the devestation of what it was like to KNOW that he would never walk again. He knew that this was because of the limits of current technology and current knowledge on the repair of damaged spinal cords.
He found out through DOCTORS that the best research for progressing in this field was through the utilization of neuronal grafts or stem cells that could learn to act as spinal cord neurons.
Reeve was not fighting for a cure for himself. He simply wanted to jumpstart the research on spinal cord injury, so that in 5, 10, or 15 years, there would be hope for the treatment of someone who otherwise would be forced to entertain the possibility of a lifetime of paralysis.
Yeah, the impression I've always had is that celebrities who get a disease and become champions for finding its cure do not do so because they expect themselves to be cured. Rather, they do it because once they've suffered the disease themselves, they realize for the first time that there are thousands (or millions) of others out there suffering from it too, and so the moral imperative to help seems much stronger than it previously did. It also makes their effectiveness as spokespeople much stronger, which makes them feel that they have an obligation to speak up.
Likewise, I doubt that rape victims who work to prevent rape simply do it because they don't want to be raped again, which isn't terribly likely anyway. Obviously it's because they know how it feels and they want to help others from suffering the same fate.
Yeah, the impression I've always had is that celebrities who get a disease and become champions for finding its cure do not do so because they expect themselves to be cured. Rather, they do it because once they've suffered the disease themselves, they realize for the first time that there are thousands (or millions) of others out there suffering from it too, and so the moral imperative to help seems much stronger than it previously did. It also makes their effectiveness as spokespeople much stronger, which makes them feel that they have an obligation to speak up.
But in the twisted logic of the fundamentalist mind, that makes them "selfish". Meanwhile, the Bush stem cell policy, which has saved not a single embryo/fetus from being destroyed but has likely delayed potential treatments for a wide range of diseases, is "pro-life". It's perverse.
Just to clarify, Ed, my post you reference was a reprint of a post by Patrick Reardon at Touchstone Magazine's Mere Comments blog. While I agree with Reardon, I want everyone to understand that the content was from him.
Also, with regards to your comment, One wonders why the right to life crowd isn't fighting in-vitro fertilization and trying to shut down those clinics rather than fighting the research that uses the leftovers from those clinics that would otherwise be destroyed., you might check my post Embryonic Matter in which I reference an article from Touchstone Magazine titled The Unchosen Frozen: Second Thoughts on Biotechnology & In Vitro Fertilization.
One wonders why the right to life crowd isn't fighting in-vitro fertilization and trying to shut down those clinics...
I brought up this exact point to my wife the other day when we were talking about the last Presidential debate.
You're right; to be truly consistent they would have to oppose in-vitro fertilization. Some may (Catholics?), but I think the reason we don't hear a lot of that from the "pro-life" crowd is because they realize how very unpopular such a position would be, and that they would immediately be characterized as wanting to deny people with fertility problems the ability of people to have children.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical (you know what that's like St. Cynic), but I think the general silence on this from the pro-lifers is a political calculation.
Just to clarify, Ed, my post you reference was a reprint of a post by Patrick Reardon at Touchstone Magazine's Mere Comments blog. While I agree with Reardon, I want everyone to understand that the content was from him.
Noted, but irrelevant. You still take the same absurd position, as do apparently a whole lot of people. See the link above to PZ's article that shows some of the disgusting comments being made at Free Republic.
Good Morning
Wouldn't the Libertarian position be that, right or wrong, the Federal government is not given the power under the Constitution to fund any scientific research?
Therefore, you should be debating that question, not whether or not Bush or Kerry's position is correct or not.
Wouldn't the Libertarian position be that, right or wrong, the Federal government is not given the power under the Constitution to fund any scientific research? Therefore, you should be debating that question, not whether or not Bush or Kerry's position is correct or not.
Believe it or not, I don't determine what subjects I should be debating or talking about by asking "what is the libertarian position on this?". Nor do I think there is some ideal "libertarian position" that one must conform to.
Regardless of what party takes what position, the fact is that the federal government does fund an enormous range of medical research and that funding has been hugely important in finding new ways to treat and cure a wide range of diseases. To single out this one type of research and withdraw funding from it solely because some halfwits imagine that it has something to do with abortion is the height of absurdity.