Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Unethical and Not Working

At an international meeting of cloners and stem cell in San Francisco, even the most outspoken proponents of the technology concede they are years away from actual drugs based on stem cells.

Given the amount of hype and money that is being poured into ESC research, I find the news quite troubling. Individuals suffering from chronic diseases have been mislead into believing that a cure is around the corner in an effort to secure research funding. The voice of the suffering has been exploited to compel the public into supporting investigations that are speculative and unproven and that represent a significant departure from ethical standards that respect the sanctity of human life. Yet, no approved treatments have been obtained using embryonic stem cells and there are presently no therapeutic applications on the horizon.

However, the dismal track record and unattainable promises of ESC research is not the fundamental problem.

The fatal flaw of current ESC research is that scientists must "destroy" (a synonym for "kill") a human being to extract the stem cells they need. Emotionally based appeals are made to justify the practice by demeaning the unborn and undeveloped person and claiming an embryo is not as important as someone who has developed and is in need of the embryo’s parts. However, the mystical point in time that a human embryo develops into a human who cannot be sacrificed for science is unknown.

What is known to ESC researchers is that human embryos are fully human. This is not a controversial conclusion but one supported by contemporary human embryology and developmental biology.

Robert George and Patrick Lee, in their New Atlantis article Acorns and Embryos, explain:

Each of us developed by a gradual, unified and self-directed process from the embryonic into and through the fetal, infant, child and adolescent stages of human development, and into adulthood, with his or her determinateness, unity and identity fully intact.

... But human embryos are human beings, that is, complete, though immature, members of the human species. Embryos are human individuals at an early stage of their development, just as adolescents, toddlers, infants, and fetuses are human individuals at various developmental stages.

To endorse the destruction of an immature human (embryo) is to presume that humans are valuable not because of what they are but rather because of changeable and subjective accidental characteristic such as developmental status, capability, contribution to society, etc.. To support the assertion that ESC research does not kill a human is to reject the premise that humanness is intrinsic, a principle on which equality and modern democracy are based.

George and Lee argue,

We value human beings precisely because of the kind of entities they are…. Indeed, that is why we consider all human beings to be equal in basic dignity and human rights ...

Personhood is not an accidental characteristic, that is, a characteristic which one acquires at some point after he exists and may lose at another point. One is a human person by being a living member of the human community, a member of the human species.

It is time to pull plug on embryonic stem cell research by rejecting measures that use tax dollars to fund frivolous and unethical research. It is also time for our government, called to protect the weak and the helpless, to step up to the plate and protect the class of humans scientists call "embryos".