The Pro-life Stance on Stem Cell Research - Personal Statement Example

Running Head: How do you stay true to your beliefs and yet care for those who are from other cultures? The Pro-life stance on Stem Cell Research I oppose the current Federal government funding on embryonic stem cell research. As one of many progenitors of other human beings, I find this issue morally, as well as legally, reprehensible. But I bear a two-fisted burden in saying so. As a member of the medical community, I also find that the possibilities for stem cell research, though vague now, are filled with the hopes and promises of the possibility of bringing forth cures for what are now, by and large, some of the world’s worst imaginable and unimaginable diseases, and it appears that there are more unheard of diseases on the horizon. It is a conflicting position to be in, because while my faith in God dictates that no man has the right to “play God” with the lives of others, my belief in the “miracle” of modern science precludes that belief. I also realize that had it not been for the willingness of medical scientists to take unprecedented risks, man would never have discovered nor known of a cure for many of the diseases that are now uncommon or at least somewhat under control. I know that we have many more steps and strides to go in the race to discover cures for the common diseases that devastate us now. With that in mind, I err on the side of the ethical morality. That which encompasses the cloning and reproduction of viable human embryos in the name of medical research leaves too many gaps and unanswered questions. What will be the ultimate consequences of human tampering with the highest mountain yet to be scaled remains to be seen? Man, in creating through lab work what God gave through the human birth canal is at the brink of the final frontier of disaster. It is my belief that we seek to create lives that we may find ourselves hard-pressed to even call human in the end. From the small perch on which I sit, I ask myself daily how I can reconcile what I believe with what humanity demands for the greater good of all. The creation of a vital life in order to destroy it for medical research is just as bad as abortion, and war, and assisted suicide. It is hard to argue with the idea that perhaps a “test tube baby” that didn’t “take” should be okay for purposes of medical experimentation, because that life would not be viable even if implanted in a womb and allowed to progress naturally. Yet, it is still, in my mind, tampering with another human life. Off the topic for a moment, it is for this reason that I also do not believe in in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the case of two women who are legally married to one another, as this is not life the way God intended. Life as God intended it is evidenced by the very manner in which it was created and the manner in which we naturally procreate without interruption or interference by man. In this slight digression, I speak to the natural course of life as given, not to the morality of the matter with regard to intra-sexual marriage. Ethically speaking, getting back to the matter of stem cell research, the only truly redeemable idea is that of the use of embryos which do not successfully translate into full human life outside of the womb and of their own accord. Two most notable cases of this kind of medical tampering are evidenced in both the human and animal worlds. The world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, turns 31 this year. The other belongs to the animal world and is known far and wide as the cloned sheep given the name of Dolly. It appears that Louise Joy Brown has lived a full and natural life as she has grown into an adult woman, and no remarkable notations in differences between herself and other people have arisen in nearly 31 years. On the other hand, in the animal research world, Dolly did not progress naturally. She lived to be half the age she normally may have lived, after developing arthritis and then an advanced stage of a form of sheep lung cancer which caused her to have to be “put down” (euthanized). Some believe that Dolly lived to only half her age because she was “born at the age of six,” the age of the sheep from whose tissue cells she was cloned. In other words, it is possible that she was born twice her natural age. No research has been done to prove this true or untrue, but suffice it to say that the moral implications, and there are many, begin to rear their heads above the muddle below in a case like this. The implications are not just moral and ethical, but also legally and reasonably fraught with questions that may never be answered…until it is too late. In 1968, the first bone marrow transplant from adult stem cells was successfully used in the treatment of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). Since the early 1970s, bone marrow transplants have been used for treatment of immunodeficiencies and leukemia. Stem cells have been used to advance and progress discoveries in medical science, in everything from the polio virus to sheep cloning, as in the case of Dolly. As lately as 2004, we know of a serial bull that was cloned, as well as a few other animals, including pigs and cats. It is our understanding that stem cell research can be used to replace damaged tissues and organs, to repair defective cells, to discover genetic therapies natural to humans, and to deliver chemotherapeutic agents that may aid in the race to find a cure for cancers of all kinds, and a possible cure for AIDS or the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Nevertheless, Christian theology demands closer introspection specifically surrounding those issues that engage embryonic stem cell research. I am of the belief that it is not feasible to do evil so that good many come. Though many cures may become available because of developments in embryonic cell therapy, it is the fact that a human life must be destroyed that makes it easier to oppose. As a member of the medical profession, I am caught in the middle of a troubling debate that has both good and bad implications either way it goes; yet even in this, I am charged with the work of taking care of those with whom I have and hold philosophical differences. I can only say that I am proud to live in a nation where I have the right to choose to stand for that in which I believe and not have those ideologies, no matter what they are, tampered with by the laws of demands of those who do not believe as I do. In my book—the Bible—murder is a moral violation of God’s commandments. If the human soul leaves the body after death, it (the soul) must be imparted to the body at the onset of life. This belief makes the use of human embryos in scientific experiments morally and ethically unacceptable. There are too many unanswered questions that bear obvious consequences. How will people treat “clones”? Will they be considered as human? Will ignorance or injustice prevail, as it has in the past, and we will find ourselves responsible for producing one more reason to discriminate or treat others unjustifiably? What are clones? What are they capable of? Will they be super- or subhuman (humanoid)? Will they end up being invincible robots or automatons who will, upon discovering that they are “different,” be made to feel like freaks, medical maladies, or will they embrace the human passion and need to feed on destruction and dominance of the “weaker” species? Will the “birthed and uncloned” (i.e., we) then become the freaks of humanity? Will they have to be put to death, as sub- or super-humans, because they cannot die on their own accord? Do we seek a sort of immortality in our quest to become a god or god-like by our attempts to re-create what God has already created? What if something goes wrong five or ten or even 30 or 40 years later, something we can’t foresee now; something that we do not now see in “regular” humans? Are we unnaturally shortening or lengthening the natural lifespan or life cycle by so doing? What about bringing the dead to life? Extinct animals, though they did not live long afterward, have literally been brought back to existence in these experiments, as though the cycle of their decline and demise should never have happened. If it were not “their time to go,” who would we be to make that kind of a decision and how do we decide who is to be brought back to life and who is not and for what reason(s)? What happens if someone decides to transplant human zygotes into animals and animal zygotes into humans, all in the name, of course, of medical science? There are hundreds of things to think about when it comes to those who are allowed to freely tamper with the makings of created human and animal life, for whatever reason. In the best interest of these variances of what I believe and what I know to be true, I have come up with a couple of recommendations that I see as helpful, considering that there is an obvious breach in the rights and wrongs of it. First, I believe that stem cell research should be reserved and limited to the use of a person’s own stem cells for any types of diseases and other medical maladies in their own bodies and that there should be no inter- or intra-human transfer of those stem cells. The stem cells should not be used for transportation between human beings or between human beings and animals under any circumstances. The research should be, in other words, “self-contained” as to its subject and under legal control as to methods and manners of harvesting, testing, storage and ultimate use. Second, I believe that the outside research should be limited to testing of non-viable embryos for purposes of trial on human beings. Those embryos in which the cells have naturally quit dividing and that cannot be used for fertilization because the developmental stages have stopped naturally do not constitute the taking of a life, but the experimental approach to a life that has already ended. In that sense, it can be treated as forensic medicine in the same manner as those who donate their bodies to medical science on their driver’s licenses or donor cards. It is the only way to provide needed advancements without compromising the value of human life. That said, I must mention that the two most important ways to implement the recommendations I have noted above are to execute legislation that controls the limits and limitations of the use of stem cell research and the manner and forms in which the findings of stem cell research are applied. There should be additional legislation in place which will hold doctors and other members of the medical and legal community personally accountable and liable for transgressions of that legislation. God's first command to mankind was to "be fruitful and multiply." Most Christians assume that the reference is to natural methods of reproduction; yet, many Christians with limited to no reproductive capability have used IVF to produce children. The Bible is largely silent on the issue of what happens to leftover embryos when these methods are used, so each woman and man is left to decide for him or herself what is right in their own souls and hearts. I cannot and will not rehash here the decades-old argument about when life does or does not begin. It becomes more obvious, as time goes on, that that is a debate that may never be settled. Therefore, I take the personal moral stance, in light of and in spite of medical evidence, that human life begins at conception. To me, non-personhood is never an issue because personhood is personhood at all stages of life from impregnation to ultimate death—as long as it happened by force of nature and not by force and will of the hand of man. It is also my belief that personhood does not truly end when the physical life ceases to exist—personhood is redeemable beyond this life in the form of a spirit encased in a soul that was at one time encased in a body. It is said by some that energy never ceases to exist, it simply transforms into another format. That is the metaphysical version of the truth to which I am bound. The intended consequence of these matters is that we continue to hold near and dear to us the meaning of sanctity of life, of right to life; even when the lines become blurred and the gray areas are undefined. With regard to sacrificing a vital human life that is already here because the medical research is not available that could have saved it; the trade-off, as always, is to take one life so that another may be spared. And even this is problematic at first approach. Moreover, and this is where the lines blur even more, it is indeed the very thing that underlay the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, who gave up His own one singular life for the millions who would come after him. Yet, He was very God in making that decision, in a wholly separate axiomatic realm. The unintended consequence, in view of the above, is that those who could have been saved may die because of the disallowance of medical research needed to save them. In this, the atheists who differ with respect to human life and whether it was created or evolved, must be given some credit, with trepidation aforethought. They do have a valid a point when they state that there is something to be said for sacrifice on all sides. In the saving of embryonic life comes one more death of another human being whose life might have been saved had the medical technology been there to make it happen. But in the death of that life that might have been saved will come absolutely naught for the embryonic cell that was saved in its stead. What shall we say to these things? Nothing. In the meantime, the scientific investigation of ethical matters such as this appear to be largely situated outside of the United States of America, in places like the United Kingdom and Switzerland and China and Japan, amongst several others. It would appear that America has largely shied away from going too far with these types of medical advancements and achievements. It is also said that America is, by and large, a Christian nation; or at least a nation of believers of divine inspiration and/or divine truth. It is because of this that America lags woefully behind a world, at least in medical advances and technology, that sometimes appears to have come to grips to some degree or another with its sustaining beliefs or non-beliefs in divine deities. Then, on the other hand, sight can be deceptive. Respectfully submitted, Reference Editorial. (2009, March 11). Toward a rational stem cell policy. Sacramento Bee, p. 18A Read More