So I was intensely interested in what Mr. Reeve said as he sat before the senators in his big, power wheelchair.
You can picture it. The wheezing of his ventilator — his large frame sitting stiff, rigid, and upright — his labored speech. Bless his heart, I identify with him and the frustrations he wrestles with daily: everything from being bathed and dressed to having help with blowing your nose. I have a lot in common with this man and feel a certain camaraderie.
No one better understands his desire for a cure than I do. When I broke my neck, I was desperate for anything -“Please, doctors, researchers do anything”- that would repair my spinal cord and let me use my legs and hands again. Acute disability screams for reprieve and demands that a cure be gained at any cost.
But what Christopher told the senators broke my heart.
Mr. Reeve, along with others, insists that harvesting stem cells from human embryos is the key to a wide array of fantastic cures for diseases and disabilities — he believes researchers can nudge these “unspecialized” cells into neurons that can be injected back into his spinal cord to repair it. And when it comes to people's protests over using clones or discarded embryos, he urges the senators to back him. He believes he speaks for many like himself when he insists, “The duty of government is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”
Christopher, you can't possibly mean that! I thought as I looked at his photo. There you sit in your specialized wheelchair with your ventilator, your medical needs, scores of people helping you .all that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you lived in a government that did the greatest good for the greatest number of people, you'd be euthanized!
This is one reason I detest embryonic stem cell research.
Historically, people with disabilities have never fared well in societies that believe right versus wrong is not as important as whether or not “it will work.” The disabled and elderly are safe in a society that honors life and treats humanity with respect. However, we are at risk when a society thinks nothing of creating human lives explicitly for industrial exploitation.
The act of creating embryos for lethal experimentation will ultimately predispose us to a ruthless utilitarianism about life. If we violate an embryo today, the practice will inure us to violating a fetus and then an infant and then infants with defects; then anyone else with a defect. It's the path to social engineering. And social engineering is bad news for people with disabilities.
I also detest experimenting on embryos because human life — even as small as an embryo — possesses innate dignity simply because it bears God's image. These aren't chicken, goat, or rat embryos; these are human. Each of us began our journey on this planet as an embryo. The idea of killing something so precious and sacred in God's eyes to benefit someone else is abhorrent.
If I could park my wheelchair next to Christopher Reeve, I would tell him that harvesting cells from embryos is not as promising as he thinks. Yes, like him I want a cure, but medical studies show without a doubt that our own body cells offer the quickest and best hope for cures. Reports clearly indicate that the most promising, least risky, and most cost-effective chance for a cure will be using adult stem cells.
Will I convince my associate in his wheelchair? I don't think so. Some people believe if it's new and cutting-edge on the medical frontier, we should do it – no questions asked.
I don't agree. Research dollars are scarce, and this is why I want to draw the straightest possible line between me and a cure – I join millions of Americans with disabilities who are convinced cures will happen with adult stem cells.
Not by killing a human embryo.
Joni Eareckson Tada is founder and President of Joni and Friends, A Christ Centered Ministry “Serving Individuals and Families affected by Disability.”
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
