Stem Cells: A Month Later, An Update

So, to update. More of my thoughts have been published by the CBC via their weekly e-newsletter. Check out part 1 and part 2 via the CBC.

But there’s more already! The NIH (National Institutes of Health – the organization behind the regulation and funding of U.S. federal scientific research) has published draft guidelines for ongoing stem cell research. This is their response to Obama’s commission back in March. These are only draft guidelines, so we’ve yet to see how the final draft will look, but…

Here they are.

I’m happy. All things considered, there appear to be significantly strong guides and boundaries for exactly what sort of stem cells may be used in therapeutic experiments.

Big Idea #1

Most importantly: Embryos created solely for the purpose of being destroyed in research is still out-of-bounds (this is the work of the “Dickey Wicker” if any of you are familiar with the unfortunate name, but not the actual work of the amendment).

Now, there will be backlash on this. There already is. Stanford researchers, Colorado representatives and Hollywood actors all hate this. This is a major disappointment for them. Simply proof that they are not willing to reach across divides and find ethically defensible means of doing therapeutic research with stem cells (adult, cord blood, induced pluripotent stem cells).

And we can expect the complaining to continue. Jennifer Lahl, national director of the CBC, mentioned to me yesterday at lunch that the pool made available by these guidelines still leaves researchers vying and competing for precious raw material to experiment on. That’s why they want to create them on their own (through human cloning – also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer – SCNT).

All the complaining, in the midst of getting a bunch more government money, just heightens my disgust that they want to take life into their own hands.

Big Idea #2
And that’s the not-surprising bad news. There is now more federal funding available for embryo-destructive research, and more lines of stem cells available to destroy. But! the silver lining: In order for researchers to obtain these embryos they need permission based on informed consent from the parents of the embryo.

I remember, these embryos are the leftovers from fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF). So, think of the 2nd through 8th octuplets. In a normal (whatever that means) IVF treatment, only one embryo is implanted and brought to pregnancy. The other embryos (created just to “make sure” that the customer gets the goods she’s purchasing) are not ever implanted. They just get frozen, and some are thawed for research. Others die in the thawing process.

(This should highlight some serious problems with IVF. It’s not as easy as, “they help infertile couples have babies” – there are very small members of the human community involved here, and their existence demands our respect.)

But now, the parents (the patrons of the fertility treatment) will have a say as to how their non-implanted embryos – their CHILDREN – will spend the rest of their lives.

The positive side of silver lining: Instead of the doctors and researchers and their wallets and budgets deciding the fate of the child, the choice is in the hands of parents.
The negative side of silver lining: The fate of the child – the choice for their life or death – the vocation of their existence! – is in the hands of the parents!

And so now, this should be worrisome to you, dear reader. We’re hardly even talking about the NIH guidelines anymore, but I’ll end with this. The stem cell debate may have more to do with issues of the family than we previously ever thought. Scientific and moral and political and cultural things may be more connected and interdependent than we thought.

But remember, these are just draft guidelines – we’ll see what’s in the final. Will Marty McFly get his way? (Oprah’s Doc says no.)

New Class: Clive Staples

So we’ve just wrapped up a 14-week class I was teaching on Philosophy & Worldview. Great great fun! Challenging for all, I think, but exactly what we (or, I, at the least) need to stay engaged and enjoying life.

So much so, in fact, that I’ve got another class starting up soon, on the lovely life and work of a man most of us (religious and ir-) look up to his unmatched combination of clarity, wit, smarts, creativity, and kind-heartedly brutal honesty (in some of his most powerful moments).

Feel free to track with the course via this new blog:
CLIVE STAPLES: The Life and Work of C.S. Lewis

Science’s STEMpede: A few more thoughts on human embryonic stem cell research

This week and next, the Center for Bioethics and Culture is running a two-part essay of mine that summarizes some of my recent thoughts on the politics, science and ethics (or lack thereof) of stem cell research in America.

Check out Part 1 here, on Utility vs. Moral Reality… sign up for the newsletter too! It’s a weekly dose of thoughtfulness about the most recent in bioethics.

Part 2 will be a closer look at the crossroads of science and ethics… and some considerations of the “false choice” or false dichotomy that we’re presented. In particular, I’m sadly skeptical that we’ve solved any such dichotomy. I’ll be arguing that while no dichotomy need exist, the language of politics (even when it specifically calls out “false choices”) is unfortunately incapable of uniting these two in a meaningful way, and I wonder if it can ever do anything else but triumph one or the other.

Here are some of the writings that I’ve been forming these thoughts from:

Use, Abuse, Personhood

This Is Happening Friends

The Masters are Finally Free!

And So It Begins (Thoughts on the Executive Order and Memo)

All Too Familiar: That Hideous Strength and the Abolition of Man

I’m really thankful for the CBC’s unceasing dedication to being a thoughtful, unitive force among such divisive issues. Thanks Jennifer!

Naturalism, Evolution and Theism: Plantinga and Dennett @ the APA

I’ve followed philosopher Alvin Plantinga for several years now. His writing and philosophy is well-regarded as some of the best contemporary epistemology and philosophy of religion – by his disciples and detractors alike. He’s well known in the past decade or so for his “evolutionary argument against naturalism.”

I also (like a whole lotta people) have been thinking about the new atheist movement, lead in part by Daniel Dennett – they’re prolific and public, attracting mainline media attention. They’re main assertions: God is a fairy tale and religion is evil (surprisingly, to me at least, many of them are moral realists).

I could wind of a recent engagement (although real connection and understanding seems to have been doubtful) between Alvin and Daniel at an APA (American Philosophical Association) meeting. Plantinga presented his “evolutionary argument” and Dennett was to respond. Seems it got pretty heated.

You can check out a sort-of “play-by-play” by an anonymous graduate student at the lecture (which turned into a debate) here.

This isn’t meant to be anything more than the “live-blog minutes” from the event – it’s not a rephrasing of Plantinga’s argument. But you can find an accessible (with some effort!) version of that here, as well as the more academic and detailed version in Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief.

I’ve yet to read any of the New Atheist’s literature. I’ve combed it at the used book store (there’s usually a lot of copies), but they are so full of ad hominem and straw men that I’m not so inclined to give my time to it. Much more worthy of attention would be a more “virtuous” atheist’s arguments – that of Hume, maybe (and I have given much of my time to reading his work, and will give more, to be sure). Yet in the face of belittling, unphilosophical argument, it is best (as Plantinga overwhelmingly embodies) to remain composed and thoughtful, not confusing an individual’s lack of respect and kindness with some lack of value in them. The detractor’s unreasonably rude response is neither a legitimate defeater of one’s response nor license to reply in kind.

The words of Proverbs 25:21-22 came to mind:

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink;
For you will heap burning coals on his head, And the LORD will reward you.

A final little note: Plantinga is quite humorous in his writing and speaking – with good-natured dry wit amidst philosophical clarity. And C’MON – he sports a neck beard! To these traits of class, humor, clarity and neckbeardliness, I can only aspire.

Monty Python International Philosophy

On a lighter note: Germans vs. Greeks. This is filmic gold, friends. Geepers creepers.

“And Marx is arguing it was offside.”

Thank you Monty.

Collapse…

I expect that this article will blow up in the coming days… It’s already getting play.

I’m still thinking about it, but either way, it’s a timely piece. Wondering if other people are convinced. Also wondering if this is less of a prediction and more of a description. Either way, he said it – and I’m glad the conversation is happening.

The original posts appear here, at InternetMonk.com.

I’ll put some thoughts down soon. At first pass, I’m thinking a little more broadly than the life-span of “Evangelicalism” – and I’m compelled to look at things in the context of 2000 years of Christianity rather than 200, or however long the movement in question has been around…

All too Familiar: That Hideous Strength and the Abolition of Man

How nice a literary connection to all this political talk.

The N.I.C.E. is Great Britain’s National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments, from the mind of C.S. Lewis in the conclusion of his Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength (THS).

“The N.I.C.E. was the first-fruits of that constructive fusion between the state and the laboratory, on which so many thoughtful people base there hopes of a better world. It was to be free from almost all the tiresome restraints – “red tape” was the word its supporters used – which have hitherto hampered research in this country.” – THS, p. 23

As the drama unfolds, the N.I.C.E. proves to be the furthest thing from its acronym’s meaning, marked by media deception, violence and ulterior motives – bent on progress and control – and all nicely stated in the euphemism of “benefit to humankind.” This is starting to sound kinda familiar.

As I re-read this description today, I realize how visionary Lewis actually was. Inasmuch as That Hideous Strength is a literary allusion to his Abolition of Man (TAoM), his story is all too prophetic. As the Italian scientist Filostrato remarks to the misguided Mark Studdock regarding the philosophical underpinnings of the N.I.C.E. and the modern scientific community,

“All that talk about the power of Man over Nature-Man in the abstract-is only for the canaglia [Italian for "scoundrel"]. You know as well as I do that Man’s power over Nature means the power of some men over other men with Nature as the instrument.” – THS, p. 178

And from The Abolition of Man:

“‘Man’s conquest of Nature’ is an expression often used to describe the progress of applied science (p. 53)… In what sense is Man the possessor of increasing power over Nature?… From this point of view, what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument (p. 54-55)… Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, mean the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men (p. 58)… For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please (p. 59).”

And:

“But the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please (p. 60)… Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man (p. 64).”

And are the conditioners – the omnicompetent and scientific, the powerful and political – exempt from this abolition? No:

“Nature, untrammeled by values, rules the Conditioners and, through them, all humanity. Man’s conquest of Nature turns out… to be Nature’s conquest of Man (p. 68)… As soon as we take the final step of reducing our species to the level of mere Nature, the whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has been sacrificed are one and the same (p. 71)… It is in Man’s power to treat himself as a mere ‘natural object’ and his own judgements of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will (p. 72)… Man’s conquest of himself means simply the rule of the Conditioners over the conditioned human material, the world of post-humanity which, some knowingly and some unknowingly, nearly all men in all nations are at present labouring to produce (p. 75).”

He wrote TAoM in 1944, during the writing of THS. And it applies today, March 9, 2009, in a worrisome way.

Have we a situation in which Nature is untrammeled by values? One in which ethics and the best of virtuous philosophy and theology no longer have any guiding hand or sway or influence over science? One in which we’ve reduced ourselves to mere Nature and raw material? I hope not. For I value the truly human.

But what would a “truly human” situation look like? One in which we acknowledge the personhood of the other, and rightly distinguish them from material to be manipulated. One in which we speak as “I” to “Thou” and not merely as “I” to “It” (nod to Martin Buber).

“The regenerate science which I have in mind would not do even to minerals and vegetables what modern science threatens to do to man himself. When it explained it would not explain away. When if spoke of the parts it would remember the whole. While studying the It it would not lose… the Thou-situation (p. 79).”

I fear in all this talk of the parts (stem cells), we have, in fact, forgotten the whole (the human… the embryo).

Stem Cells: And So It Begins

I’ve been eager to see what actually came of Obama’s executive order and memo. I’d like to round off my previous three posts about this stuff with some more general comments.

(BTW – this guy’s actually talking about nature of the embryo, which is way cool! He also gets into IVF issues – which is too much to chew for now.)

I shall start thusly: I do not like false dichotomies. I believe they are dangerous to humanity. (E.g. faith vs. reason, public vs. private, sacred vs. secular, etc.)

“It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.” – Albert Einstein, “Physics and Reality” (1936) [Okay, it's slightly out of context... look it up.]

Summaries of Today’s Executive Action
Order: “Yay stem cell research; we need more of it; remove limits [i.e. restrictions of federal funds and limited number of researchable embryonic stem cell lines] on “scientific inquiry” for the “benefit of humankind; human embryonic stem cell research (hESCR) is AOK within the law; guidance left to National Institutes of Health (NIH) to figure out – due in 120 days; Bush’s restrictions/limits officially revoked.”

Memo: “America relies on science and its progress to help form policy; the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy has 120 days to figure out how to “guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch” and share that with the Prez.”

Thoughts About the Order
I’ve said my piece before, but I want to reiterate the need for understanding what an embryo is. Greg Koukl wittingly points out that the answer to the question “Can I kill it?” depends on another bit of information… “WHAT is it?”

This order will change some things. Granted, it’s not entirely clear what the NIH will come out with in four months, but it seems safe to predict that:

Federal funds (lots more than the hundreds of millions already provided) will be doled out to researchers working on human embryos. Think about this figure: a piece of $10 billion over two years… granted to the NIH as part of the stimulus package.

Frozen embryo lines (that were created at fertility clinics or elsewhere after August 9, 2001) will now be available to scientists to “study” (when EVER did “studying” imply destruction? Only evil circumstances.)

Now, for the cloning comment today.
Obama brought up cloning (proving that stem cell issues at least beg the cloning question), admitting his belief that in it’s reproductive form, it is dangerous and wrong. But please note that cloning already exists. It’s called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). If “new lines of embryos are created” it will be by this process, which takes a bodily cell from an adult human, and injects it into the nucleus of a human egg, tricking the egg to think the somatic cell is sperm. At that point the egg is fertilized – you’ve got a clone. It’s an embryonic clone, but it’s still a clone.

Now, it’s good to know the Prez doesn’t like reproductive cloning, but he didn’t mention therapeutic cloning (SCNT for the purposes of making more embryos to study and break to pieces for their pluripotent cells). And he doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.

But what would the difference be? It brings us back to THE NATURE OF THE EMBRYO… again. If human life starts at fertilization (nod to the National Academy of Sciences), you’ve got a human clone whether it’s for therapeutic research (the clone is born to die) or for reproduction (the clone is born to live). Now, I am entirely against cloning, but certainly a live clone is better than a dead clone, right? And either way – whether therapeutic or reproductive, there is an issue with commodifying human life. The reproductive clone is a commodity: it is a synthesized, purchased human life. The therapeutic clone is also a commodity as well: it is also a synthesized, purchased human life. The difference lay only in the use. One’s purpose for living is satisfying an infertile couple with a child, the other’s fate is disassembly and then injection into the spine or heart or brain of an afflicted consumer.

So, Prez, do you hate therapeutic cloning just as much. Please say yes.

All in all, this is just the beginning of a four-month to four-year to God-knows-how-long drama over the lives and fate of the youngest and most vulnerable of our human community: the embryo.

Thoughts About the Memo
Now this is quite possibly more far-reaching than the Order today, simply because it’s about a reformulation of “scientific integrity” in politics. I’m a little iffy about this, and will obviously need to know more, and of course it depends on what shape the executive recommendations end up taking. Suffice it for now to say, there was NO MENTION of ethics in the Memo (though plllenty of musings in the press and the Prez’s comments about today’s actions).

I’m all for restoring integrity to science. But matters of integrity are ethical matters. I hope some of the guidelines help to foster more open dialogue and better communication and connecting and integrating of ethics with science. But the Barack himself railed against a “false choice” between science and morality… as his REASON for lifting the restrictions. No, it’s not one or the other, but the Bush restrictions came much closer to “neutral” than Obama’s “emancipation” – he’s already chosen a side: science.

I’m reeeeeeally hoping that the President’s Council on Bioethics remains in tact. They should be working intimately with the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the NIH. Lord have mercy.

Issues I’m Still Researching and Still Thinking About
There are are few unknowns for me still (I am, after all – GASP! – cognitively limited, which I am joyfully struggling to accept). Some you, my dear reader, might be able to correct, which I invite, and some I think require closer philosophical consideration:

Will new lines of embryos now be created (i.e., for the sole purpose of being destroyed in research/therapy)? Did the lift allow for that?

How authoritative and far-reaching will the NIH guidelines be? What is their potential to enact ethical restrictions/limits?

There’s a lot of “the embryos will be destroyed anyway” talk; is this really a legitimate justification for then destroying them?

When Obama and his cabinet (and the media and bloggers and such) refer to “political influence” do they also mean “ethical influence”? This is a nagging question about the nature and efficacy of politics to allow different disciplines to engage (e.g., ethics and science).

A litany of other questions and issues about integrating ethics and science and policy and philosophy and theology and blogging and neck-beards (my latest craze).

Ultimately, my position on how to conduct stem cell public policy will depend on (in a sort of supplementary way) the answers to these questions, as well as my grounding belief on the matter: that “caring for each other and easing human suffering” (Obama’s words) demands that no human should ever be abused as a means to such care or ease of suffering. If embryos count as human life, then we need to care for them and ease their suffering.

The Wonderful Paradox of It All
And paradoxically, I’ve dedicated my life to One who did just such a thing. He certainly was abused as a means to great ends. And was so voluntarily, by His own design.

Stem Cells: The Masters Are Finally Free!

Shameful Emancipation

“Hallelujah, this marks the end of a long and repressive chapter in scientific history,” said stem cell researcher Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass. “It’s the stem-cell Emancipation Proclamation.”

It’s here.

So much for “restoring scientific integrity.” That’s right, the scientists – the masters – are finally free. Emancipated to more effectively and rampantly confine, shackle, and strip for parts the weakest and most vulnerable of the human community – human organisms at the earliest stage of life – the slaves.

That’s classy: hail Obama’s move tomorrow as a virtuous and courageous exclamation of freedom. Lanza, your parallel is folly. And worse, I fear your analogy is purposefully backwards: the slavemaster is declared free. Free from that dastardly, cursed concept of ethics; free from that burdensome and annoying responsibility for the weakest of our human family.

Finally right and wrong, the metaphysics of the person and the nature of humanity are no longer burdens to the scientist. Observe carefully:

“Public policy must be guided by sound scientific advice,” said Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, discussing the order and memorandum Sunday.

Melody Barnes of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council added that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will set standards for federal science advisers, insulating them from political interference.

Noble Harold, and what shall guide your scientific advice? Will your Council also be insulated from ethical interference?

Needed: A Different Conversation
As long as the conversation continues to be about “science” – the usefulness of these “clumps of cells” – such critiques of embryonic stem cell research will continue to be ridiculed as anti-science, misinformed, and even evil. “How could you stand in the way of CURES!?! Precious CURES! Health! Wellness! Better-than-wellness! Limitlessness! Nay – immortality!”

To which, I wonder, “How could you stand aside at the pillaging of the weak and defenseless?”

I’ve railed for the last three posts on this: The conversation needs to be about the moral status and nature of humanity. Interestingly enough, the National Academy of Sciences has something to contribute.

“In medical terms, embryo usually refers to the developing human from fertilization (the zygote stage) until the end of the eighth week of gestation when the beginnings of the major organ systems have been established.”

Fertilization is conception, the only sensible point (scientifically, medically, philosophically, theologically, sociologically, ethically and politically) at which full-fledged membership to the human community should be granted. (That membership should grant the appropriate rights to humans 80 years after birth, 18 years after birth, 18 days prior to birth and 18 seconds after conception.)

I’m looking forward to this conversation. In the face of widespread disagreement, will we prudently give the benefit of the doubt (what little there is) to the entity in question: the embryo?

If you guys ever come to question my personhood, I hope you’d give that benefit to me, and not use a destructive percentage of my cells to inject into someone else. At least give me the choice my humanity secures, a choice that we currently do not respect among 21 (and soon to be hundreds more) lines of microscopic humanity.

Stem Cells: This is Happening Friends

Apparently, on Monday, Obama will undo a legitimate good deed done by Bush. Read all about it.

Bush made some big mistakes. The stem cell funding/research restriction was not one of them. Note: The restrictions weren’t even a ban (as pointed out by Jennifer Lahl at this link); federal and private funds were still doled out; it essentially amounted to a moratorium on created further lines – more human lives, who would be alive for the sole purpose of serving other ends. Sounds a lot like the abolition of man to me.

The word is “Embryonic stem cells offer promising results.” But so far, even with years of research, that’s it: a promise. I am tired of promises. Science sure is investing a lot of faith in these small humans. They’re even better politicians and PR people than they are scientists.

I wonder if the cure for Parkinson’s was known to be available simply by dismembering infants for their magical cells, if that would garner as much support as embryonic stem cell research. Of course, we’ve never gotten to clinical trials for that, so that’d be ridiculous to assume. Pardon me.

Again, the issue is not consequences. Whatever spinal injury, Parkinsons, diabetes, etc. patients who might benefit from embryonic stem cells will live, but not without blood on their hands.

The issue is the nature of the embryo – that thing you’re dicing up in a Petri dish.

Oh, and, please excuse me, I simply forgot that we’ve got federal dollars to spare.

Lord help us.