The slippery slope of stem cell research

by emptypockets

Anti-research groups who oppose federally funded stem cell research like to argue that the use of frozen blastocysts leads us down a slippery slope: "Death-row inmates are slated to be killed," they say. "Do you advocate doing experiments on them too?" This is a deeply un-serious argument and the debate deserves better. But, just as a Sunday-afternoon thought experiment, let's see where it takes us.

The position here is that federal funds can't be used to derive new lines of embryonic stem cells because that would involve "murder," or to use their awkward phrase, "the destruction of human life." Well, surely the same experiment done with private funding is no better (on the contrary, while federal and state governments are sometimes allowed to destroy human life, say in capital punishment or war, private individuals cannot, other than in self-defense). Clearly these anti-research groups must also advocate a law that would prohibit privately-funded stem cell experiments as well.

But a law isn't really necessary, is it? Because we already have a law prohibiting the destruction of human life. That's called homicide. And it seems to me that the anti-research groups must believe that researchers who derive new stem cell lines are guilty of it. So it would follow that they must want all scientists who have conducted experiments with blastocysts to be tried for murder.

Of course, as we said, the embryos were going to be destroyed anyway -- by the in vitro fertilization clinics where they are generated. Since it simply isn't practical to store all those embryos -- after all once a couple has had children and doesn't want any more, there is no use for the frozen balls of cells -- they put them into the autoclave, and they are killed. It doesn't seem right to me, but I can't see any way around it: the anti-research groups say that's murder. All IVF clinics should be shut down, and the physicians and all employees should be tried for murder. I suppose the couples who have used these services must be charged as well, at least as accomplices. Not to mention for child neglect and abandonment.

The only solution, obviously, is not to destroy the blastocysts at all. They must be stored frozen, indefinitely, until they can be "adopted" and brought to term. But, wait a minute now. They are human life, after all. You can't just lock them up in a freezer. That's a clear violation of due process and of the blastocysts' Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. I mean, locking folks up without a trial is one thing once they've been born, but I don't think even this administration can accuse frozen blastocysts of collaborating with al Qaeda. So what are we do?

Or perhaps I'm misrepresenting the anti-research position. Maybe it's not that the embryos are "human life," as they say, but that they are a special kind of human life -- a sort of not-quite-human, not-quite-citizen that receives no protection from murder by private individuals, but whose destruction should not be funded with federal dollars. This stance seemed to be put forward recently in an op-ed from the Cato Institute that argued (fallaciously) that privately-funded stem cell research would be a more efficient use of money but that, "More important[ly], those who object to the research aren't forced to fund it."

Is this the new conservative doctrine? That those who object to something shouldn't be forced to pay for it with their tax dollars? I guess they must be calling for more than a simple majority approval (since around 60% of Americans approve of stem cell research). That's certainly a great way to end war (only 31% think we should be in Iraq.) Of course, requiring unanimous consent of the people would pretty much put an end to government altogether. I'm not sure that's so much a "conservative doctrine" as "anarchy."

It's a tough nut to crack. There is no doubt that the anti-research groups, generally speaking, have a point: the prohibition of stem cell research certainly does lead us down a slippery slope. Only thing is, they've got the slope facing the wrong way... and it's not so much a slope, as a flat-out abyss.

Comments

[kim]

The thing that really annoys me about the Right-to-Life crowd is that they're actually MORE opposed to cloning than they are to stem cell research... they'll push for adult stem cell research, of all varieties - even placental or amiotic, but cloning with any of these cells is off limits (Mort Kondrake, the faux liberal on Faux News, supported exactly this position on Saturday night).

So, according to this dim crowd, we can do research with some stem cells but if we clone the same cells to solve the inevitable immune problems we've made some horrible ethical error (judging from the White House medical ethics site it seems that they feel cloning with non-embryonic stem cells would create "near-embryonic" life forms, if I'm following their illogic correctly).

[emptypockets]

The ethical arguments really don't hold water. That's not really so surprising, because -- as with teaching evolution -- it is an anti-science political argument dressed up in moralists' clothes, and the pants don't fit.

I think the vociferous opposition to cloning is (like much of what we hear from the religious Right) a political tactic. The stem cell research ship is rapidly sailing, and anti-science groups are having increasing difficulty getting folks riled up about experiments clearly pointed towards treating disease. The "cloning" angle plays more easily into the "mad scientist" frame and so they find it's an easier drum to beat.

As we've seen many times, it's not the ethical principles (or the facts) that drive the argument -- rather, the ideology comes first and facts & ethics are bent to "support" it. The weakness there is that, if anyone stops and looks closely, they'll see the ethical argument doesn't hold up. The strength of it is, not many people stop to look.

[William Ockham]

I'll buy the Cato Institute argument when they support efforts of pacifists to prohibit our tax dollars from funding the defense department and the rest of the government's war-making apparatus.

[Paul Lyon]

Well, so far as the question EP raised before about would could be successful ethical argument, what she gives here is at least a reasonable example of one kind found in the literature, viz. an argument by analogy from one concrete case to another for which we have firmer case judgments or at least more agreement about the same. In this particular argument the idea is to show a disanalogy, by showing that various things that would be true of murder of ``the born'', or at least the paradigmatic normal human adult don't go for the blastocyte and therefore the use of the latter to produce embryonic stem cells isn't murder after all (and one could push this, I think, to get the conclusion that it isn't like any other sort of physical harm done to a normal human adult either). This sort of reasoning by analogy (or in this case, disanalogy) to cases for which we have firmer judgments is quite common in the literature as a means to adjudicate specific moral issues. Just get a collection of readings on bio-medical ethics out of the library, and you will see what I mean. There are also journals, for example the new The Journal of law, medicine & ethics.

[The NJ Devil's Advocate]

Has stem cell research show any promise into helping people? I have read alot that says it might be able to, but I get very stuck up on the might. Also reading reports like Stem Cells Feed Brain Tumors doesn't gain any further support from people like me. Linked below:

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65735,00.html