There has been much discussion in recent days about the merits of stem cell research using embryos to alleviate disease. The further this discussion proceeds the more it becomes evident that not all is as it appears to be. I believe that there are certain issues in this debate that are important for the witness of the church of God in this city and nation. What is at stake here is not simply the immediate issue of embryonic experimentation, but the further erosion of a fast diminishing moral structure in our society. How are the boundaries of right and wrong to be set for our culture?
In a page 3 article in The Weekend Australian we encounter a major headline “Alzheimer’s stem cell cure ‘a joke’”. The article goes on to report how prominent Australian scientists consider the possibility of stem-cell research providing a cure for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease to be unimaginable. In the same paper however is a report on the split within the Republican Party in the U.S. over embryonic research. Staunch anti–abortionists, like Nancy Reagan, have swung around to support the research because of “its potential to cure Alzheimer’s disease, which has stricken her husband, former president Ronald Reagan.” (The Weekend Australian Magazine p.15). When things don’t seem to be adding up it is important to look for an underlying moral or spiritual reason that is deeper than the logic of the issues involved.
In this case I believe that there are several important factors. The first of these has to do with what some would call “the science lobby”. This lobby is characterised by the principle that if something can be done it ought to be done. I think that this is more of a technology lobby rather than a pure science lobby, as it concerns power over the environment rather than simple knowledge. Where this emphasis seems to predominate we are dealing with a corruption of God’s commandment to rule the world (Genesis 1:28). The power to manipulate the environment to serve self – appointed human ends has been used to justify all manner of research up to atomic and biological warfare. The temptation to be the first to do something is enormous in the research world. As has been said, no –one remembers the silver medallists.
Another significant issue is the nature of the value of a human being. The main argument against active experimentation on live embryos is that it represents the intentional destruction of a human life. The principal argument for the process of experimenting is that it will alleviate human suffering.
One of the big problems with killing embryos is that it makes human beings a means to an end. The Christian tradition, as a whole, has never supported this view. By it, for example, one could easily justify torture in wartime to reveal enemy secrets so that the “good side” might prevail. The problem here is that whoever commits the torture degenerates to a level at least as low in conduct as “the enemy”. Who will decide how to balance means and ends? This is an impossible question to answer, especially once it has been decided that under certain circumstances humans are expendable. Whilst some doctors may claim that all medicine is “playing God”, this is an unsound position, as most medicine stays within the clear boundaries of life as it comes into the world with all its related problems.
It is simply inadequate to say that embryos are “nameless globs of jelly”. A glob of jelly does not possess any potential to be a human person. Each embryo has a unique genetic complement that is irreplaceable. Comparisons with organ donation are equally invalid. The one thing that these embryos cannot do is to voluntarily decide to give up their lives for the sake of others. Life is taken from them by force. In this sense they must be regarded as innocents (even if they possess a nature that is corrupted through inheritance Psalm 51:5).
Closer to the scientific debate, there is a lot of evidence that organisms developed from cloning exhibit a high degree of genetic instability. No one seems to have paid much attention to the fact, for instance, that the first cloned sheep, the famous Dolly, suffers from serious arthritis. Few cloned animals survive to maturity. One of the reasons for this seems to be that the genes implanted from body cells into egg cells used in the cloning process do not all switch on properly during the course of development. This problem also occurs where both the genetic material and the cells are embryonic. Not all the implications of this for human embryonic research are clear, but the need for caution is.
Finally, there is the matter of adult stem – cell research. Evidence continues to amass that under the appropriate conditions these cells can be reprogrammed to diversify into a range of tissue types. Bone marrow cells in animals can become liver cells and so on. Promising results in humans have been reported in the last few weeks. Apart form the absence of ethical objections, the great advantage of using adult stem – cells is that as they are derived from the same body there are no rejection reactions.
With all this being the case, what is all the debate about? Firstly, the Australian public as a whole is poorly informed. What percentage of the population has put serious time into reflecting on the issues that are raised by this discussion? Secondly, the basis for ethical decision – making is mainly “hit and run”. With the decline of the influence of Christianity in our culture “the man in the street” no longer has a moral framework in which to order his or her thinking. There simply is no foundation for good and evil in a secular pluralistic culture other than one’s own subjective opinion. To put it baldly, if there is no God who is Absolute Good then what is good and what is bad? This question is essentially unanswerable by anyone.
Good and bad become what my feelings inform me in the light of the culture of the day. If I feel positive towards something it is “good”, a bad feeling means something is “bad”. As the old bumper sticker used to say, “If it feels good, do it.” This question of a moral foundation is the most important issue opened up by the stem – cell debate; not the matter of embryo destruction as such. Whatever happens with this particular issue, the general direction of cultural moral dilution is what matters most. People simply do not have a moral compass (once upon a time the Bible, or the Ten Commandments, or the “Golden Rule”) to guide them. This is an emerging disaster.
In commenting upon the results released on the front page of The West Australian (25.6.02) revealing that 45% of the Australian population believe that an embryo is human at one month and 72% support the use of foetal cells for research into disease, bioethicist Toni – Fillipini is right on the mark when he says that the survey did not indicate what it meant by “being human”. This is the real core of the matter. If we are unsure about what it means to be human, as distinct to what it feels like to be human, the possibilities of increasing moral order are zero.
What should the church be doing in this situation? Prayer is a first priority for sure. Lobbying politicians and drawing up petitions are valid and valuable in a democratic society. Informed dialogue within and beyond the church is important too.
Beyond all this, I sense that people know what they are worth by how they are treated. This is the message of the Bible. Jesus profiles this in many places – the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25- 37), the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31- 46) and so on. Paul appeals to his refusal to take pay as the proof of his sincerity towards his churches (2 Corinthians 11:7 -12). It is what God has done for us in the suffering death of Christ, not God’s words only, that establishes our worth (Romans 5:8; 1 John 3:16).
In a morally confused world it will only be when Christians live differently, firstly to one another, then to the world, in acts of unmitigated kindness, that an environment will begin to be created where people begin to sense from the Spirit of God, by a divine supernatural impartation, what it means to be a human being. Brothers and sisters in the church in Perth, we are a long way from this environment. We need to seriously consider how we may lay our lives down for those around us so that they may know who they are.
However, in the very debate before us, and in the seemingly unstoppable slide into increasing moral relativism, we may hear the voice of God calling us to a new and deeper way of living. In what seems to be a swelling flood of failure in the moral realm, we are being drawn back to the power of the cross, to live out its humanly unexplainable love and so to reflect for all men and women to see what it means to be human in the image of Jesus Christ the suffering God.