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Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Hope or Hazard?

Moralists at times analyze the ethical implications of laws and public policies by mapping out "the slippery slope" or "wedge" argument." As a tool for interpreting the fallout from the moral logic of a position, the "slippery slope" approach can be helpful in moral disputes carried on in the public order, especially in circumstances where there are no shared principles on the inherent morality of a given practice.

In actuality, this metaphor describes reasoning about the possibility of "drawing lines" in the light of the far-reaching social impact of a specific policy in the future. The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics offers an abstract explanation of "slippery slope" reasoning: " Accepting the act in question would cross a line that has already been drawn, and once that line has been crossed, it will not be possible logically or practically to draw it again to preclude terrible acts or practices."

For instance, in public disputes about the legalization of euthanasia, evidence for opposing "mercy-killing" can be garnered from the experience of the Netherlands that "voluntary euthanasia" will inevitably lead to "involuntary euthanasia."

In other words, will the legalization of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia be restricted to terminally ill patients? If so-called "mercy-killing" were justified on the basis of a principle such as "privacy", it is doubtful that in the long run the legal line could be limited to terminally ill patients only. Or, a dynamic other than a flawed principle might come into play. The cultural ethos, e.g. a pervasive denial of death and aging, a cultural incapacity to find meaning in suffering, might weaken legal boundaries and expand the right to euthanasia beyond dying patients to individuals who are depressed or chronically ill.

Then, too, in bioethical matters, the "technological imperative" reigns ---"If it can be done, then it ought to be done." Science outside a moral framework can engender a mentality that views research as a value-free enterprise.

In making the moral case against cloning-for-biomedical-research, the majority opinion of members on the President's Council on Bioethics adopts some of the most persuasive and convincing features of "slippery slope" thinking.

First of all, in the considered judgment of the majority, support for banning cloning- for-biomedical-research is grounded in the recognition of society's responsibility towards the human embryo. Scientific and humanistic premises argue against the early-stage embryo's being reduced to "simply the moral equivalent of all other human cells." As a result, to evaluate nascent human life as mere "biological material" rejects "the continuous history of human individuals from zygote to fetus to infant to child."

Hence, the intent to use human embryos for biomedical research risks conditioning researchers "either to ignore the truth of our own continuing personal histories from their beginning in embryonic life or to weaken our commitment to human equality that has been so slowly and laboriously developed in our cultural history."

After addressing the respect and rights due to the human embryo on the part of society, a second question is raised, namely, "What we owe to society.”

In this section, there is a strong presumption that there exist "powerful reasons to worry about where this research will lead us."

Opponents to cloning-for-biomedical-research can set forth "sound ethical-prudential reasons to refrain using embryos for utilitarian purposes," even if advocates for such research are uncertain about the moral status of the embryo. The perceived "insignificance" of the embryo paradoxically questions the humanity of the community, not that of the embryo.

The majority position then probes three issues which predictably "would harm our common life" as well as the heritage passed on to future generations. One serious concern revolves around opening "the door to other ...moral hazards, such as cloning-to-produce- children or research on later-stage human embryos and fetuses."

Since "horrible diseases" will remain a constant in the human condition, it is more than likely that research on embryonic human life could become so routine that a further numbing of reverence for unborn human life at all stages would be a sure bet. After all, a society which has lost its sense of moral outrage towards late term abortions and virtual infanticide would hardly take scandal at the destruction of embryonic or fetal life at stages much later than preimplantation.

In addition, the temptation to expand the research on embryos from the early stages of embryonic life to later phases of development might be overpowering. For the logic, which justifies destruction of human life in its earliest phase of development easily, evolves its own legs and begins to skip, then gallop, down the "slippery slope."

Misguided good intentions and growing pressures to discover cures will unharness scientific power, which ultimately will further dehumanize and coarsen moral sensitivities of common social life and, in turn, erode respect for the equality of all humans.

After a sustained and principled exploration of these consequences, the majority opinion of the President's Council on Bioethics warns that "(w)e should not be self- deceived about our ability to set limits on the exploitation of nascent life." Without a stop light banning embryonic-cloning-for-biomedical-research, any yellow caution lights proposed by advocates of ESCR will become green lights for more moral hazards.

Religiously rooted beliefs on respect for the continuum of human life from conception to birth and to natural death also disclose the reality of the human good. Spelling out the social impact of ESCR can support a helpful interplay between religion, science, and the public good on some common ground.

The Catholic moral tradition stipulates that destruction of human embryos for the sake of research is morally wrong. As Richard Doerflinger has testified, such a practice is immoral "because it treats this distinct human being, with his or her own inherent moral worth, as nothing more than a disposable instrument for someone else's benefit."

In a paper delivered in February 2003, Bishop William Friend of Shreveport, La. identified a bedrock principle defended from the origins of Christianity to this day: "the embryo is a human being." In light of that continuous moral tradition, Bishop Friend states that "(i)n the moral order, the unborn child is considered a person because he/she possesses the same dignity of an innocent human being ..."

In Evangelium Vitae (1995), Pope John Paul II emphatically declared that "direct abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder.” (EV n. 62). The prohibition against the killing of an innocent human being also applies "to recent forms of intervention on human embryos which, although carried out for purposes legitimate in themselves, inevitably involve the killing of those embryos." (EV n. 63) Experimentation on human embryos or fetuses "constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings who have a right to the same respect owed to a child once born, just as to every person."

Catholic moral doctrine rejects both cloning-for-reproduction and cloning-for-biomedical-research as morally unacceptable.

Catholic Conference of Kentucky

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Frankfort, Kentucky 40601

502-875-4345 502-875-2841 Fax cckstaffATccky.org

Last modified: April, 2008