Truth About Stem Cells A Christian Journey

The Truth About Stem Cells - A Christian's Journey
by James Carvin 8/21/04

My wife, Lisa, and I have been hoping the Lord would provide us with enough money to adopt a child ever since George was born in 1997. Lisa, now 39, had made the regrettable decision at that time to have a tubal ligation. Within the first couple of years after George's birth, she completely changed her mind about having more children. I was very glad about that because I had always preferred a much larger family, having grown up in one. But we never got to the point where either a ligation reversal or an adoption was affordable. We've struggled these past seven years with a business failure, personal bankruptcy, several years of combined unemployment, and the three strokes she had in 2003. Not only have there been enormous medical bills, but I am now the sole bread winner of a family of four. Few people think of growing their families under such conditions. But that doesn't stop our desire.

We have also always been Pro-Life. When we met fifteen years ago, Lisa volunteered for a Crisis Pregnancy Center. And I was known, on occasion, to hold up a sign in front of an abortion clinic.

My view was always a scientific and theological one. On the scientific side, human life begins at conception. On the theological side, life is a greater moral imperative, and therefore a right, than choice. The latter is dependent on the former for its existence. But during the years since we married, we have seen the debate disintegrate from questions about the right to abort at all, to whether partial-birth abortions should be legal too. The liberal bias of the media is mainly to blame for this shift.

That bias has most Americans not questioning recent statements by Ron Reagan Jr. at the Democratic National Convention to the effect that "the life of the fetus is not endangered in any way by embryonic stem cell research." Pro-Lifers have exposed his terminology as trickery. An "embryo" becomes a "fetus" at the age of eight weeks. Okay. So a fetus isn't harmed. An embryo is.

But then the Pro-Lifers go too far, as I've discovered. They talk about what an eight week old "embryo" can be. They talk about the 30 millimeter body that wiggles its toes and squints its eyes when light shines on it, the beating heart and the brain wave activity it has - all while not yet classified as a fetus. So many adult features. All true.

That argument makes sense when arguing against abortion but not when arguing against embryonic research. It's how they've been conditioned to think. The eight week mark is all-important. A woman usually only discovers she is pregnant after missing a period, which takes around two weeks from fertilization. Typically women confirm their pregnancy with a test after another week or two or more. Finally, they arrange to have an abortion if that's their choice. As a result, abortions typically take place around the eighth week, usually later, because more than one appointment is usually involved. Thus, despite what the sales personnel at Planned Parenthood might tell you, wiggly toes and beating hearts are almost always a factor in abortions. You are not dealing with "just tissue." The heart is beating by the third week. What's more, Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry specialists are known to deliberately understate the actual age of the fetus or embryo so that it will be perceived as "just tissue" - how many times do we hear these words?! - thus minimizing psychological stress and increasing sales.

Pro-Lifers have every right to expose the deception of Ron Reagan, Jr. and the liberals, (now calling themselves "progressives"). These people seem to have no regard for preborn life whatever. And they will continue to ignore any facts about embryonic and fetal development that might put a dent in the multi-billion dollar abortion industry, not to mention the grasp at power of career Democrats who have abortion rights at the heart of their platform. Of course, you don't hear about the abortion issue much at the DNC any more because their pollsters and focus groups show the majority of the American public is Pro-Life. These days all you are hearing about is the importance of stem cell research. Those who are Pro-Life are supposedly stopping progress.

Polls show this new lingo has been working. In some of them Kerry is pulling ahead of Bush. But whether that is the case, clearly that is why stem cell research was the overriding theme at the convention. But in the long run it won't matter. People will smarten up. Despite the "progressive" image Democrats seek to present, it will gradually be exposed as a mirage that is wholly dependent on American ignorance and confusion for survival.

Americans are, of course, not ignorant about what constitutes killing a preborn. They've made up their minds on the abortion issue. But on stem cell research, the American public is mostly confused, both on the left and right side of the political aisle. For this reason, I thought I would give a brief explanation in layman's terms based on what Lisa and I have found, given that she might benefit from certain kinds of stem cells being injected into her brain to help cure her in her recovery from her strokes.

For us this has been an urgent issue. Currently Lisa is paralyzed in her left side and can't work. She sleeps about 20 hours a day. Our family of four has to survive on my $9/hour income. It takes about two years to get disability and we're little over a year into the appeals process. Rats! Life is hard and then it just gets harder. We want to know if there are any solutions. So we've looked into this stem cell issue. Maybe she wouldn't need to be on disability if it could get her healed. Having dug to the bottom of it, we wish more people would do the same. And let me spell out how it is that the Pro-Lifers have gone too far.

I said "rats." That is where it all began. According to a recent article in the Detroit News, a Henry Ford Research project recently found that rats that were made to have strokes like Lisa's and were given stem cell transplants recovered remarkably well compared to rats that were inflicted with the same damage but were not given stem cell implantation. The study compared results for stem cell transplants of three types - embryonic, cord blood, and adult.

Okay, point one - there is hope for people like Lisa. That's got our interest. Point two - you need to know the difference between these three basic types of stem cells and whether there are any ethical problems with using them - that is if you give a hoot about ethics. Here are three quick explanations:

Adult Cells - You can take stem cells from your own body. These have the advantage that they are a perfect match to your own DNA. As a result, your immune system doesn't send antibody cells to destroy them when they are transplanted into places, such as Lisa's brain, where they might be of benefit. They have the disadvantage that they are hard to get in quantity sufficient to be of help. You have to either get it from your bone marrow, which is painful to extract and destroys your bones, or from peripheral cells. Peripheral stem cells can be extracted over time through a procedure similar to aphoresis and offer good hope because they can be obtained in quantity for those who have much time. In terms of ethics, there is no objection by anyone I know of to the use of adult stem cells. And I certainly don't have any objection to it. But this fact doesn't stop liberals on the road to elect John Kerry from lambasting the religious right for doing so. Remember, they have much to gain by making conservatives look like real idiots. Therefore, they will whenever and wherever they can. So make a note of this - Pro-Lifers and right-wingers are not in opposition to adult stem cell research or treatment. Neither, to my knowledge, is the Bush administration. We are all progressives, just like everyone else. Got it?!

Cord Cells - Cord cells are mostly associated with Cryogenic Banking. The cells are frozen for later use. They provide the richest source of stem cells available of any of the three types. They are stem cells found in the blood of the umbilical cord between a mother and her child. That blood is special blood that matches the blood of the developing fetus. It has the genes of the father as well as the mother combining into the unique DNA which becomes the developing child. Generally, the beneficiary of these cells is the child. Storing them is typically a safety measure, so that the child will have available perfectly matching stem cells should it one day in its future become sick by one of the many illnesses stem cells prove useful in treating. But there are other uses. In our case, Lisa and I are willing to undergo a tubal reversal, get her pregnant (by me), draw out umbilical cells and bank them not only for our new baby but for her. We are talking about treating the mother. Lisa would be a great test case for this since she doesn't have high blood pressure or high cholesterol and since we want another baby. Except for her brain damage she is very healthy. And based on recent studies on rats, this would work. So is there an ethical dilemma with using cord cells? No. Only if you are a Jehovah's Witness and don't believe in blood transfusions. But even in this case it's your own blood that you would be receiving. It's not really even a transfusion. Does this stop liberals and the media from making Christians look as though they oppose this type of research and treatment? No. Same reasons as above. Please, note: Christians and Republicans can be just as progressive as anyone else, probably more so. They are not opposed to this type of stem cell research. In fact, they've supported funding it and I believe there is some 17 or 19 billion dollars already designated for this and adult stem cell research, thanks to President George Bush, which is an awful lot of money. Clear?!

Embryonic Cells - Click here for a quick interactive video of how this is done. Here is where the only ethical controversy lies. Those who appreciate the Pro-Life position understand that embryonic stem cell culturing and treatment does involve the destruction of an embryo. Call it a "fetus" or a "baby" or a "blastocyst" or even a "zygote." What difference does it make? The unfortunate fact is that when you "borrow" the cells from such a developing human being you have to kill that being to get them. There is no other known way, as of this writing, to do it. If there was no killing of a human life involved, I would have no objection and neither would anybody else. The true Pro-Lifer's first impulse is to say that since a person becomes a human being at conception it doesn't matter whether little Junior wiggles his toes. It is murder to "destroy" him. And that is what is going on in embryonic stem cell transplantation and embryonic stem cell banking. It is nothing less than an abortion.

Acknowledging this, the argument from the Pro-Abortion left then becomes one about the lives that will be lost if human embryos can't be used for research and treatment of diseases. In the minds of those on the left, adults are thought more important than preborns, and certainly more important than embryos with no more than about 100 cells. What we are dealing with is people who look at stem cell research as a nuclear weapon against Pro-Life groups. They seem to have forgotten that the Pro-Choice cause was supposedly about a woman's right to privacy and her right to choose. There is no doubt that the proper appellation is "Pro-Abortion" rather than "Pro-Choice" when it comes to embryonic stem cell advocacy. It is once again the medical industry, just a different segment of it, seeking big dollars. Human rights issues are just pawns in a broad industry.

As the debate currently stands, those who are concerned about ethics, but who are equally progressive, if not more, rebound with evidence that shows that embryonic treatments are not as affective as cord cell treatments. In fact, the transplantation of embryonic stem cells often results in tumors and unwanted results, whereas with cord blood and adult stem cells this is rarely the case. Further, dollars spent on embryonic stem cell research are dollars taken away from adult stem cell research. (For a full treatment of this issue, click here.)

In short, this catch all phrase, "stem cell research," of the Democrats gearing up for election 2004, is not about whether stem cell research is ethical. It is about whether embryonic stem cell research and treatment is ethical. With other more effective treatments available, the answer is clearly "no." However, it is going too far when we talk about wiggling toes and squinting eyes. The operative word is "blastocyst." The actual procedure of embryonic stem cell harvesting requires the destruction of an embryo that has divided to about 100 cells. This is a "blastocyst." A blastocyst is still in the shape of a little ball small enough to fit into an extraction tube at that point of multiplication and growth. To call this ball of human being "tissue" is not inaccurate. However, it is also, due to the uniqueness of its DNA, a distinct human being - a person that has been conceived. And with the procedures being proposed, that human being has to be killed in order to make the embryonic cell harvesting possible. Are you with me so far?

But the ethical question is not so simple. Those of us who have fought for the Pro-Life cause need to be honest with ourselves and be prepared to change our views if medical advancement so indicates. I can think of two fronts where this might be the case. The first pertains to the issue of moral proportionalism. The field of stem cell research is new. Currently this is not the case, but what will we do if we find out that embryonic stem cell treatment can actually benefit some diseases in some cases more effectively than cord blood or adult stem cell tissues? Moral proportionalism becomes an issue. If we can save 100 or a 1000 lives by sacrificing one then what do we do? What would we do in the unlikely event that there was no other way to do it? If that were the case, even as a staunch Pro-Lifer I might be willing to condone it. It will probably not ever come up, but on that, I believe that even Thomas Aquinas and the Pope might agree. Consult the law of double effect and see.

The second front involves no such way-out-on-a-limb speculation but gets into very sacred territory. We need to be prepared to question whether life really does begin at conception, (as John Kerry impotently says he believes). The idea that DNA is what constitutes the human person, since it is the identifying building block of what we are, was one that was born of science, not religion. All we used to know about conception up until about 100 years ago was that when a man's sperm went into a woman's womb a baby resulted. Religion, including the Bible, looked at this as "seed." The Bible doesn't talk about DNA or RNA and up until very recently neither did the Church. It was actually "progress" that brought us to this notion. And I am suggesting that we be willing to just as quickly abandon it as arbitrary if we learn still more and common sense so dictates.

There are two considerations that immediately come to mind. The first, is one I learned at St. Vincent de Paul, a very liberal Catholic Seminary I attended in the 1980s. It has to do with the possibility of twinning. We have to ask at what point an embryo becomes a person. If we say that it is at conception, but then after considerable cell multiplication during the first few days or weeks twins or triplets, or more develop, then the DNA did not make up a person, but several people. Moreover, those people may have the same DNA as their molecular identities if they are identical twins, but they will not be identical people. They are more than one person. Therefore, the personhood ought not to be associated in an absolute fashion with the first appearance of the unique DNA. The DNA is not, in fact, unique. But what exactly does differentiate identical twins if not the DNA? It is the soul God grants to each individual. We are not just molecules and chemicals and tissues. We are spiritual beings with a soul that can't be measured or understood by science, no matter how hard it tries.

Having said this, let me also state that the argument based on twinning did not stop me from being passionately Pro-Life. My sign carrying days took place in the years that followed my days in the seminary, not before them. This is because, on the one hand, twinning can only take place during the first week or two of life. Abortions almost always take place well after the second week of life. The point was moot. It seemed to me that those women walking into the clinic were murdering their babies, thinking they were extracting a little bit of tissue. Somebody, such as myself, needed to intervene. On the other hand, whether a single cell with its DNA was to become one person or two, or three or more was not necessarily important in the eyes of God. The conception, (see the word "concept" in this term), was still given in the DNA. Both twins or triplets, or what have you, would be based on that one blue print. We have to allow that conception might be day one even in the case of identical twins.

For me this word "might" was also a very operative word. We were dealing with the unknown. The truth was we didn't know precisely when a person became a human being or a human being became a person or when a soul was given to a human being and at what point God placed value on it. What mattered was that we had a respect for life. The idea that we "might" be killing, murdering, a human being was sufficient reason to raise our voices. You never go wrong when you err on the side of safety. If the possibility of twinning requires that I confess that life "might" begin later, the fact remains that it "might" begin on day one of conception too. Such is the unknown. No one can know for sure without consulting God directly. But a certain fear of the Lord is healthy. It keeps us out of trouble. If we think that something "might" be wrong but then we go ahead and do it we are definitely getting in God's face. I can't imagine that he could be pleased, especially if that wrong thing we "might" be doing is murder.

A parallel would be helpful. Oh, gee. Let me go get drunk and drive. I "might" kill somebody trying to get where I want to go. But I don't know. See the parallel? Here's another note: We create laws to protect life. For example, we don't give people the right to drive drunk just because they are given free will by God. We value life above freedom as a priority and base our laws on that set of priorities, even when they are not necessarily protecting life, but just "might" be protecting it. Freedom of choice and the right of privacy of the drunk is rightly limited and a matter of public interest because the lives of others "might" be at stake.

The stem cell research advances bring us to another consideration which is almost the exact opposite of the twinning case. If stem cells are extracted from an embryo and that embryo's cells are conjoined to another embryo or fetus, or perhaps an adult, (with healing in mind) and the result is not two people, but one, then two lives become one, rather than one becoming two. What's more, these cells can be joined at any time. Are lives being joined? Are two persons becoming one? And in that case, what happens to "human life begins at conception"?

The issue is further confused by the fact that extracted embryonic stem cells are capable, under the right conditions, of growing into test tube babies, even if they are separated from the rest of the blastocyst "tissue," which itself dies due to the extraction. With a little luck, the extracted cells might become one or more healthy people if not grafted into the tissue of another person for some reason. In fact, the idea is to multiply these cells as much as possible, for use in transplantation. Thus, "from the many, one" would be typical.

The truth about this consideration, however, is that it is not two or more persons becoming one person. It is one person staying one person and a second person, or many more other people who have been cloned, dying. Therefore, it has no bearing on the issue of when life begins. It only touches on when it ends.