Some weeks ago, when the government was revising the rules for the funding of stem cell research, the NIH invited the submission of opinions for consideration.  I felt compelled to take the opportunity and wrote against the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  I cannot know the impact of my sentiments, as my missive did not serve to open a dialogue, and may well have passed only briefly before the eyes of some government bureaucrat before being perfunctorily dismissed.  For too long, we have failed to protect the sanctity of human life.  I would like to share my letter to the NIH that it may reach a wider audience and, hopefully, encourage them to investigate the matter and call on our elected representatives to step up to the defense of all people.

 

Human life is a continuum from the first instant of conception to the ultimate demise of the whole organism.  Any denial of this smacks of gross intellectual dishonesty and belies a significant prejudice, or else signals ignorance and a deficiency of logic and critical thinking. 

            At the time of the formation of the zygote, there is created a heretofore unknown genotype and unique identity.  Every embryonic stem cell, prior to its commitment to a developmental lineage, has the capacity to complete the whole sequence of life: conception, growth, development, senescence, and death.  Thus, every stem cell is a nascent human being just as much as an infant is a nascent adult.  The right of existence and life, then, cannot be separated from the embryonic stem cell anymore than it can be taken from the individual at any other stage of its life.  We must realize that if we are to maintain any sense of integrity, intellectual, moral, or otherwise, and claim that there is a right to life for humans at any point, it necessarily follows that the right must be inherent at every point.  Any opposing system that denies the individual the right to complete its natural life cycle in favor of sacrificing that life for the uses of other individuals creates a developmental apartheid and de facto enslaves one class of humanity to the whims of a different class.  Any abrogation of the right to life for the individual based on developmental state or any other qualifier is tantamount to infanticide, forced euthanasia of elderly or disabled people, or any other genocidal pogrom that specifically alienates and targets one minority to be deprived of rights that other members of the society reserve unequivocally to themselves.  

            While it is sufficient to prohibit embryonic research on the grounds of the supremacy of the claims of individual rights above and beyond any demands placed upon that individual contrary to its rights, further evidence against the necessity for embryonic stem cell research can be supplied by the tremendous success seen in the fields of adult stem cell therapeutics.  Every adult has various populations of pluripotent stem cells.  These cells can be induced to form many specialized adult tissues and indeed have been found to do just this as a side effect of bone marrow transplants.  There have been many novel therapeutic advances with the use of these stem cells and current research promises to extend these benefits to meet all the claims made on the behalf of embryonic stem cells.  The adult stem cell can be used to tailor make a natural cell that can fully reintegrate with the donor without any concern for rejection.  Most importantly, the therapy can improve and extend life without having to sacrifice the life of another individual. 

            We must not be duped into accepting a Faustian bargain whereby we exchange our most treasured ideals and cherished beliefs for the vague possibility that some minor benefit may accrue, most especially when a superior alternative is already available and proven.  If we, as a nation, continue to pursue a course of disregard for human life and value, then we shall reek of hypocrisy and lose all moral authority on the world stage.  It would besmirch the memory of the great moral triumphs of civil rights campaigners who recognized the inherent dignity and worth of every individual and fought so valiantly for the respect and recognition they deserve.  Most importantly, we would damage and defile ourselves and leave to our posterity a soulless system where Machiavellian bargains are good and even the holocaust could be justified if the payoffs are large enough; we will have failed as a nation and as humans.  Such a system cannot and should not survive.