In the 1950s and ’60s, when the Cold War was at its zenith and the horrors of the Holocaust were still fresh in American minds, the difference between the American value structure and the value structures of the regimes that perpetrated the Holocaust and enslaved and murdered millions in the Soviet Union was the oft repeated phrase “the end justifies the means.”
They believed that. We didn’t.
Nazis and Communists believed that it was all right to do things that would normally be considered evil if those things would eventually produce the desired outcome, a more perfect world. The overwhelming majority of Americans did not then adhere to that premise. Times have changed.
After three decades of “quality of life” propaganda this country is almost evenly divided between those of us who think the way Americans used to think and those of us who now adhere to the moral relevance of the end justifying the means. Much of our secular media, almost all of our entertainment media, too many of our university elite, and a frightening number of politicians have joined the moral relativists that we used to despise.
The most frightening aspect of the moral relativism that governed Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was the willingness to sacrifice a few for the greater good, a good the architects of the sacrifice failed miserably to achieve. In their quest for utopia, however, the sacrificed few turned out to be millions.
In this country we have been witnessing for over 30 years the sacrifice of human life in its fetal stage to the moral relativism that claims that that sacrifice is somehow justified. It, too, has taken its toll in millions. Those of us who recognize the sacrifice for what it is call it “murder.” The moral relativists call it “choice,” and babble on about how much better our “quality of life” is without all those “unwanted” children. They deceive themselves while trying to convince the rest of us that there is no such thing as moral truth. Sometimes they succeed.
Right now, in the United States Congress, the clash between moral relativism and moral truth is playing itself out once again. At issue this time is a bill designed to help people suffering from debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s at the expense of the most helpless and insignificant among us, human embryos. The bill, HR 810, is the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, which passed the House on May 24th by a vote of 238 for the measure to 194 against.
Included in the 238 were more than two dozen representatives who normally vote pro-life. Their vote was the difference between success or failure of this terrible bill. The bill is now being considered by the Senate.
HR 810 requires
the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct and support research that utilizes human embryonic stem cells, regardless of the date on which the stem cells were derived from a human embryo, provided such embryos:(1) have been donated from in vitro fertilization clinics; (2) were created for the purposes of fertility treatment; (3) were in excess of the needs of the individuals seeking such treatment and would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded (as determined in consultation with the individuals seeking fertility treatment); and (4) were donated by such individuals with written informed consent and without any financial or other inducements.
One can’t help but wonder what was going on in the minds of the representatives who voted for the measure, especially the ones who normally vote pro-life, or what they were told by the experts who testified for the measure. Were they told that the embryos that would be sacrificed, although human and alive, were not significant enough to be considered human and alive? Or were they so confused by all the technical palaver about human somatic cells, haploid germ cells, blastocysts and oocytes that they decided to put questions of life and death out of their minds and focus instead on the greater good, the potential benefits promised by the advocates of the embryo sacrifice?
In their deliberative processes, did they think at all about the end justifying the means?
Ken Concannon is a freelance writer from All Saints Parish in Manassas, VA.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
