Not Quite On the Mark
Charles Krauthammer is a columnist (Washington Post) I read only occasionally. He generally starts out with an interesting thesis, but then blurs it so that I'm never quite sure just what it is he's trying to say. Well, I have a pretty good idea, but what he concludes rarely connects in any rational way with his opening argument.
His August 5, 2005 column does a better job of it, but I still don't think he really gets it. His subject is the loosening of stem cell research restrictions, which he (surprisingly) is in favor of.
The expansion -- federal funding for stem cells derived from some of the thousands of embryos that fertility clinics would otherwise discard -- is good because the president's sincere and principled Aug. 9, 2001, attempt to draw a narrower line has failed. It failed politically because his restriction -- funding research only on stem cells from embryos destroyed before the day of that speech -- seems increasingly arbitrary as we move away from that date.
It failed practically because that cohort of embryos is a diminishing source of cells. Stem cells turn out to be a lot less immortal than we thought. The idea was that once you created a line, it could replicate indefinitely. Therefore you would need only a few lines.
It turns out, however, that as stem cells replicate, they begin to make genetic errors and to degenerate. After several generations some lines become unusable.
His opening argument is clearly pinned to the assumption that stem-cell research is good and necessary. Not a necessary evil: necessary. Then he proceeds to introduce an unnecessary complication, but only through the back door:
It simply will not do for opponents of this expanded research to say that the federal government should not force those Americans who find this research abhorrent to support it with their taxes. By that logic we should never go to war, or impose the death penalty, except by unanimous consent of the entire population. We make many life-or-death decisions as a society as a whole, without being held hostage to the sensibilities of a minority, however substantial and sincere.
The complication is, of course, the ethics (both personal and national) of the research, which he then expands upon in a way which entirely undercuts his initial premise:
The real threat to our humanity is the creation of new human life willfully for the sole purpose of making it the means to someone else's end -- dissecting it for its parts the way we would dissect something with no more moral standing than a mollusk or paramecium. The real Brave New World looming before us is the rise of the industry of human manufacture, where human embryos are created not to produce children -- the purpose of IVF clinics -- but for spare body parts.
What Krauthammer has done is to equate stem-cell research with the cloning of human life. While cloning as a technique may be involved in stem-cell research, it hardly is the end. Stem cell research needs stem cells, not human babies from which spare body parts can be harvested.
While I agree that there should be a thorough-going discussion of the ethics of any scientific breakthrough, I don't think for a moment that either the House bill (passed) or Senate bill (hopefully to be voted on in September) will open the door to human cloning, even with the most liberal of interpretations. Mr. Krauthammer has just given the opponents of stem-cell research a handy club with which to beat on the issue.
Thanks a lot, Charley.
His August 5, 2005 column does a better job of it, but I still don't think he really gets it. His subject is the loosening of stem cell research restrictions, which he (surprisingly) is in favor of.
The expansion -- federal funding for stem cells derived from some of the thousands of embryos that fertility clinics would otherwise discard -- is good because the president's sincere and principled Aug. 9, 2001, attempt to draw a narrower line has failed. It failed politically because his restriction -- funding research only on stem cells from embryos destroyed before the day of that speech -- seems increasingly arbitrary as we move away from that date.
It failed practically because that cohort of embryos is a diminishing source of cells. Stem cells turn out to be a lot less immortal than we thought. The idea was that once you created a line, it could replicate indefinitely. Therefore you would need only a few lines.
It turns out, however, that as stem cells replicate, they begin to make genetic errors and to degenerate. After several generations some lines become unusable.
His opening argument is clearly pinned to the assumption that stem-cell research is good and necessary. Not a necessary evil: necessary. Then he proceeds to introduce an unnecessary complication, but only through the back door:
It simply will not do for opponents of this expanded research to say that the federal government should not force those Americans who find this research abhorrent to support it with their taxes. By that logic we should never go to war, or impose the death penalty, except by unanimous consent of the entire population. We make many life-or-death decisions as a society as a whole, without being held hostage to the sensibilities of a minority, however substantial and sincere.
The complication is, of course, the ethics (both personal and national) of the research, which he then expands upon in a way which entirely undercuts his initial premise:
The real threat to our humanity is the creation of new human life willfully for the sole purpose of making it the means to someone else's end -- dissecting it for its parts the way we would dissect something with no more moral standing than a mollusk or paramecium. The real Brave New World looming before us is the rise of the industry of human manufacture, where human embryos are created not to produce children -- the purpose of IVF clinics -- but for spare body parts.
What Krauthammer has done is to equate stem-cell research with the cloning of human life. While cloning as a technique may be involved in stem-cell research, it hardly is the end. Stem cell research needs stem cells, not human babies from which spare body parts can be harvested.
While I agree that there should be a thorough-going discussion of the ethics of any scientific breakthrough, I don't think for a moment that either the House bill (passed) or Senate bill (hopefully to be voted on in September) will open the door to human cloning, even with the most liberal of interpretations. Mr. Krauthammer has just given the opponents of stem-cell research a handy club with which to beat on the issue.
Thanks a lot, Charley.
posted by Diane at 4:51 AM
1 Comments:
Why are you surprised that Krauthammer is in favor of stem-cell research? He's in a wheelchair, and personal self-interest always trumps politics.
The argument about cloning people just to harvest their stem cells is idiotic as long as there are fertility clinics with thousands of surplus embryos.
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