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10/12/04 Unborn Human Rights Since it came up again in the second Presidential Debate between Sen. John F. Kerry and President George W. Bush Friday, October 8, 2004, the issue of embryonic stem-cell research has come to the fore in this election season. It is high time for a thorough discussion that goes beyond the liberal talking points that obscure the fundamental questions. Liberals frame the issue very simplistically: How can anyone oppose embryonic stem-cell research when the potential benefits to living human beings are so great? Anyone who opposes the most aggressive regime of experimentation must be cruel and heartless to watch the death of Christopher Reeve and not feel moved to abandon their opposition. But perhaps a stark example will illustrate why their position obscures the fundamental question: If the vivisection of condemned criminals, such as was practiced by Nazi physicians during WWII, could have saved Christopher Reeve's life, would it have been ethical? The liberals don't want to pay much attention to the fact that, in order to create new lines of embryonic stem cells for research, a living human being has to be dismembered. Now, I will be more honest and less disingenuous than my opponents and admit that this human being, an embryo, is far less developed than a convicted murderer, and is (probably) incapable of anything approaching what we conceive of as consciousness. But that does not make it less alive or less human. Although its distinguishing characteristics have yet to develop, all the blueprints are there for an entire, unique, special human to grow and develop consciousness. I do not see how we can measure the worth of that potential life against the "therapeutic" benefits we might derive from its destruction. After all, if one person can measure the worth of another person's life, without consulting that person, our whole concept of human rights breaks down. I can decide who should get an organ by deciding who will have a better life with it, by whatever criteria I choose. I can decide who should live and who should die by determining which person's life is more worth living. But we have already begun to cross that gulf, the liberals will object, by subjecting the unborn to just that sort of determination. Infertile couples can create dozens of embryos and select a few to attempt to implant. The rest can be discarded like so many toenail clippings. First, we never had a full public debate over the ethics of such "fertility treatments." Those of us who had concerns were unable to muster enough support for our concerns even to enact a moratorium on such procedures long enough to conduct a public debate and settle what our policy should be. Doctors and patients just went ahead with it because it wasn't illegal and hadn't been universally declared unethical. Second, human life must not be enslaved to anyone's purposes but its own. That is the principle that forms the basis of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the very definition of human rights that led to the eradication of slavery and the suffrage of women. Thus it is the position of those who would destroy human life in order to benefit others which bears the burden of proof. John Kerry has offered no argument that a defenseless human embryo created for the selfish desires of its parents (or others) can rightly be destroyed to help others. He banks on the hope that most people won't grapple with the question because embryos aren't very sympathetic, since by and large we reserve our sympathy for those we can see and recognize as being more like us (an impulse liberals usually decry for being too self-centered and lacking in empathy). There is an element of society that won't grapple with that, and perhaps it is large enough to make the issue a winner for Kerry. But that doesn't make it right. Modified: 10/16/2004 |
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