Catholic Transcript Online

Manipulating or experimenting with human embryonic stem cells is viewed by Catholics as ethically contraindicated for several reasons, chief among them the dignity of each and every human being. A human embryo is a human being, hence must be revered as any human being must be revered; specifically as unique, precious and unrepeatable. A human being may not be used, for whatever alleged good intent. Obviously, too, the requirement of consent is lacking in such experimentation.

Moreover, when God gives life – human life cannot come about from sheer matter – God gives life forever. To initiate human life in order to destroy it through experimentation is moral absurdity. Christian Revelation reveals that each and every human being not only emerges from God’s hand, but is defined as spirit expressed in body, redeemed and called to eternal life through the sacrificial death and Resurrection of the Son of God incarnate, Jesus Christ.

Despite the force of such truths, the secular world keeps insisting on perceived “values” to be gleaned from experimenting with human embryonic stem cells. Its arguments are definitely not based on science, but on desired results which it hopes can be acquired in the future. The process defended thereby is really one of “justifying” unethical interference with human life on the basis of some future “dreamed of” result. Isn’t physical science dedicated to an analysis and application of facts?

To fuel such unfounded hope, many scientists, technicians and politicians have joined ranks to acquire enormous funds from State treasuries; some States seem to be competing with others in attempts to drain more and more funds for questionable goals yet to be realized. California, for example, has committed billions to such efforts. But even the hopes for partial “success” have long since dissipated.

Consider a recent Web site editorial posted by Investor’s Business Daily (1 Jan. ’10). Entitled “California’s Proposition 71 Failure,” it argues that the State’s 2004 initiative all but promised “imminent medical miracles.” However, the editorial continued, the widely heralded prospect of utilizing human embryonic stem cells to cure such diseases as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes, has proven useless.

One expert, Dr. Bernadine Healey, a former member of the National Institutes of Health, is quoted as saying in a national news magazine interview, that such utilization of human embryonic stem cells is “obsolete.” Moreover, the IBD editorial adds that their use also “can be dangerous.” Specifically, “they are difficult to control, to coax into the specific type of issue desired.” And unlike adult stem cells, embryonic cells require the heavy use of immune suppressive drugs; their application can lead to a tumor called a teratoma.

A superb summary of the ethics of utilizing human embryonic stem cells was formulated by moral theologian William E. May in his textbook, Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life (OSV, 2000):

“Efforts to use human embryos, whether generated in the body of their mothers or in vitro, as subjects of nontherapeutic research and experimentation, are utterly immoral, indeed barbaric and inhuman. As Donum Vitae put matters, no objective, even though noble in itself, such as a foreseeable advantage to science, to human beings, or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or fetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother’s body.”

In his book, Professor May makes reference to Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino’s expert opinion that “creditable laboratories have identified a wide variety of sources for pluripotential cells with the capability of embryonic stem cells.” Some examples cited are “stem cells from the bone marrow, placenta, or umbilical cord of live births” that are “already in use in treating leukemia.” Recently (in 1998), Dr. May adds, “neural stem cells were successfully isolated from living nerve tissue… and show promise for possible use in treating Parkinson’s disease or brain injuries.” Further developments are reported almost every week.