It is vitally important, both in a religious and civic sense, for today’s Catholics to return to the virtues and our Gospel roots. Only by doing so will we receive the gifts needed to reverse the moral and spiritual decline of our civilization (Gal. 5:16-25). The degeneration from a Culture of Life to a Culture of Death occurred at lightning speed. Though painstakingly implanted into Western culture over many generations, the Gospel of Life has been almost completely uprooted in the last 30 years. Consequently, young people today are rootless and lack direction. They lack a positive vision and sense of hope because the rich culture which was their birthright was taken from them.
The first step in re-establishing a degree of moral order in our country is to understand the nature of the problem facing us. The next is to love and pray for our opponents, recognizing that everyone, no matter how depraved, is ripe for conversion. The third is to have hope.
The movie “Fiddler on the Roof” illustrates beautifully this virtue of hope. The main character Tevia’s hope is in his family, though his daughters continually disappoint him in their choice of husbands. Worse, though, is that the Jewish villages are being burned because of anti-Semitism, forcing Tevia to uproot his family and rely on God’s Providence for their well being. Does he lose hope? Not at all. Rather, he continues to talk lovingly and confidently to God in prayer: “God, I know we are your chosen people. But once in a while, can’t you choose another?”
Many real-life Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe brought their families to New York City, only to find more of the same anti-Semitism. So they continued moving west until finally reaching an isolated orange grove near Los Angeles called Hollywood. Their names included Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount; William Fox, founder of Twentieth Century Fox; Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer, founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Studios. They were the creators of the American movie industry, and if you look at their films — particularly the ones during the Depression and world wars — you will see that they kept the American dream of hope alive. Harold Arlen, a composer and son of a Jewish cantor, joined forces with Mr. Mayer of MGM and came up with a movie that is infused through-and-through with the Spirit of Jubilee — of hope, light, joy and peace in the midst of trouble and sorrow. It concerns the American Dream, and how the dreams that we dare to dream really do come true — provided we take action.
Late last week the U.S. government rolled out guidelines that permit, even encourage, federal funding of research on stem cells procured from living human embryos. You read that right. Our government is now allowing scientists to toy with human life at its very genesis.
One would expect such a weighty permission to fall from the lips of a prophet, or come etched on a stone tablet or some other classic instrument proceeding from the Author of Life. Instead, Americans received a puny set of guidelines issued on the moral authority of President Bill Clinton.
It should be noted that the extraction of stem cells kills the embryo. In 1996, recognizing this reality, Congress forbade federal funding of any research whatsoever on human embryos. The ban remains in effect to this day.
The new guidelines go to great lengths to dodge the existing legal barriers. Rather than allowing federally funded researchers to remove the stem cells from the embryos directly, the guidelines require them to obtain the cells from a third party. In other words, a private researcher kills the embryo and then passes the goods (the stem cells) onto the government. It’s a neat way to keep the blood off government hands, but still requires the taking of human life.
Considering the ethical pitfalls and the political maelstrom that will no doubt result, why is the administration so intent on pushing the moral envelope here? In his policy announcement the President offered this explanation: “I think that if the public will look at first of all the potentially staggering benefits of this research, everything from birth defects to Parkinson's, certain kinds of cancer, diabetes, spinal cord injuries … it's a potential change for the future… I think we cannot walk away from the potential to save lives and improve lives.”
Give a life to get a life.
For years researchers have been rhapsodizing in this way about the great promise of stem cell research. If they could just fiddle around with a few more embryos, they’ve repeatedly told us, even liver spots would cease to be a problem. But every ethicist and researcher I have spoken with over the last few years tells me this is all mere speculation – conjecture that is allowing the slaughter of innocent human lives.
Those who champion the cause claim that only embryonic stem cells have the potential to “grow” replacement organs, nerves, and tissues. But research released just two weeks ago indicates that adult stem cells may be capable of yielding the same results.
Researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey cultivated stem cells from adult bone marrow and successfully engineered them to do everything the embryonic cells can do. So why are researchers pushing so strenuously to get access to human embryos? Perhaps the answer lies just across the Atlantic.
In England, it was just announced that Prime Minister Tony Blair will lobby Parliament to begin allowing the cloning of human embryos for research purposes. The highest-ranking scientific and ethical body in the country is said to have spearheaded the move.
Though human cloning is still against the law in the United States, this is clearly the over-arching goal for many a researcher. Once the public is convinced that stem cell research is legitimate, you have to find a way to harvest the raw material, which necessitates the introduction of a whole new area of research: cloning! Using the Trojan horse of miracle cures, researchers are angling to get under the hood of life itself, and cross ethical boundaries that would make Mary Shelley run for cover. They want to unlock the mystery of creating life itself.
The Vatican saw through the promises and happy talk on the very day the NIH guidelines were released. “A good end doesn't make good an action that in itself is bad,” the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life said in a statement. They then reminded the world that the Catholic Church believes the killing of an embryo is a “gravely immoral, and thus gravely illicit act.” The Pope is so concerned about this topic that he is scheduled to address it personally later this week.
If you read between the lines of the NIH guidelines you might detect a bit of squeamishness about the long-term implications of this type of research. For instance, the government restricts the research to “left over” embryos intended for in-vitro fertilization. There are freezers full of these poor little things all over the country. (Incidentally, this is one of the many reasons why the Vatican is opposed to in-vitro. It creates moral dilemmas that are impossible to resolve, namely: what is to be done with the embryos not implanted, and who makes that decision?) To deter an embryonic black market, the guidelines also forbid payment for embryos. Not that any of this means anything. Because the fact is, these prohibitions are only as good as the next set of guidelines the NIH comes up with.
The bottom line here is that by freezing life as if it were yesterdays meatloaf, and thawing it at will, researchers and the government are playing God. They are determining which lives will be lived, which will not, and which will be used in experimentation. Far from liberating us to pursue new areas of scientific inquiry, these guidelines permit a macabre understanding of human life to take root in the research community, and enshrine an ethic reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
Today it is the silent embryo that holds the “potential to save lives and improve lives.” Tomorrow, you or your children may hold that same “potential.” Don’t worry, though. I’m sure NIH is working on some guidelines right now.
